Satire or shame? An astonishing email from USI

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Saturday June 17, 2006 13:48 by Daithí - (Grumpy Old Men, Inc)

Encouraging students to get involved in politics, representation, activism and campaigning is a funny business. In an ideal, perfect situation, you wouldn't have a division between encourager and encouragee; no-one should need to drum up interest among others or to have a position of 'managing' student involvement. But we don't live in that world, and it's perfectly usual to see students' unions, political 'youth wings', campaign groups and so on trying to encourage 'others' to get involved.

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has had some difficulties in filling positions in recent years. The reasons for this are complex, but include finance (many elected positions had the accompanying wages withdrawn for financial reasons), political division (many students' unions disagreed with the existence of certain positions, such as LGBT officer (five attempts in a row to remove or downgrade it!) or deputy president/campaigns officer), sudden resignations (declaration of interest: the present author is a member of the ever-expanding USI resignees club), disengagement/apathy, and many many more.

So the story continues. Some full-time positions were not filled at the annual Congress earlier this year, and are thus vacant, awaiting a further election. Others are due for election anyway. So it's quite reasonable to see some effort on USI's part trying to spread the word.

But does this email (sent to students' unions around Ireland by Daniel Wood, USI's appointed 'representation executive') seem a little unusual to you? Year out from college as a reason to be a national student representative? Or is this just a remarkably clever piece of satire? Or has USI engaged the services of Viagra-selling spam consultants to replace the missing officers?

I agree that there's a role for full-time positions in political or representative organisations. No question about it - having that level of involvement can provide much-needed support and dedication (and coordination of activists and volunteers) - and very many political parties, NGOs, lobby groups, unions etc have full-time paid positions, both elected and appointed. But for an elected position, is 'taking a year out from college to earn money' a good reason to run?

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Represent the interests of Students
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:52:06 +0100
From: Daniel Wood
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;

Hello,

Will the issues you care about receive the same priority…
if you don’t stand?

Elections to Officer Board 2006-07 – FINAL REMINDER

Consider standing for full-time Equality Officer or Deputy President
… if you’ve ever thought about taking a Year Out from college to earn money,

Consider running for one of the part-time officer posts
… if you’ll be a full-time (or part-time) student next year.

Nominations close at 5pm today – see attached notice.

Daniel Wood
Representation Executive
Union of Students in Ireland
www.usi.ie