Mirren Gidda reports on Kirk Sneade’s disciplinary hearing.

With voting for UCLU elections underway, we catch up with Democracy and Communications Officer candidate Ben McCabe.

What do you aim to achieve if elected DCO?
It goes without saying that we have a severe lack of engagement within this union. Dreadful levels of turnout and the number of meetings where not enough people show up, are symptoms of a wider problem. We need systemic changes and the filming of union council meetings would be one example of a good step forward. But I don’t think we can kid ourselves any longer: …

With voting for UCLU elections underway, we speak to Democracy and Communications Officer candidate Daniel Warham.

 What do you aim to achieve if elected DCO?
I aim to achieve much greater democratic engagement. First and foremost this has to take the form of greater awareness. Many students have no knowledge of the current elections, and as demonstrated by the recent referendum turnout, very few people currently vote on matters that directly affect them. There might well be an undercurrent of disaffection with the union which we need to tackle, but we can …

As UCL’s university challenge team goes from strength to strength, defeating the University of Bangor 190 points to 125 on February 11, Pi caught up with team member and second year Natural Sciences student, Tom Parton.

In the course of a week, Kirk Sneade has become one of the most talked about figures at UCL. For those of you that haven’t been on Facebook, Twitter or pimedia.org.uk, let me get you up to speed. Kirk Sneade and his campaign manager, Mark Stander, have launched a campaign for Kirk to be elected women’s officer, voting for which closes on 8 March. Kirk Sneade has openly admitted that the whole campaign started as a joke but is one which he is now taking seriously. I’d like to refute …

Following Pi’s interview with women’s officer candidate, Kirk Sneade, we speak  to Beth Sutton, current women’s officer who is running for re-election, and her campaign manager Annie Tidbury.
 
Do we need both a women’s officer and an equality officer?
 
We absolutely do need a women’s officer, just as we need a black and minority ethnic Students’ officer, a LGBT+ officer and a disabilities officer. All four liberation groups require representation. Having an equality officer is pointless; it’s a vacuous position and has been replaced with more effective and representative positions. There are …

The National Union of Students (NUS) national conference will be held from 8-10 April, 2013, during which the next NUS national president will be elected. Many students are disillusioned with the NUS and its incumbent president, Liam Burns, for not protesting the higher education fee rises more vehemently. Students may be cheered then to know that one of the candidates for the 2013-2014 presidency is an inanimate carbon rod.

The bearer of this rod is none other than University College London Union’s (UCLU) Democracy and Communications Officer, Samuel Gaus. The inanimate …

Last Wednesday, 25 January, David Cameronannounced that if the Conservatives win the next election, they will hold an ‘in-out’ referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU) before the end of 2017. The choice will be either to stay in the EU, pending a full treaty renegotiation, or to pull out. Whether a supporter of the EU, a Eurosceptic or completely disinterested in the whole situation, as University College London students we could all be affected by this decision.
As Malcolm Grant pointed out in his Provost’s newsletter, Britain is …

 
The results of the UCLU Gaza referendum have been released as voting closed Friday 14th December at 3pm. The motion passed with an overwhelming majority of 74.5 per cent or 1998 ‘yes’ votes. The number of people voting ‘no’ totalled 684 or 25.5 per cent whilst 83 people abstained. This means that UCLU officially condemns the inhumane situation in Gaza.
The referendum was proposed by Mehmet Çetin and seconded by Sahal Quazi, following the
most recent conflict between Israel and Palestine which erupted on 14 November and officially
ended on 21 November. The conflict, which saw …

THE eurozone talks in Brussels about a second Greek bailout came to a conclusion on Tuesday 21 February. European finance officials announced a bailout of €130bn after talks lasting 13 hours. As a result, Greece is expected to cut its debt to 120.5 per cent of GDP by 2020 – a target made possible by private bondholders agreeing to accept greater losses and Athens agreeing to make deeper cuts.