Hi Allstudents,

http://ww.voteforkris.com

Why I'm standing

My name is Kris McElhinney and I am a candidate for the post of UCC Students' Union President in the elections to be held on Tuesday 27th & Wednesday 28th of February 2007.I am currently Societies Guild President, and last year I was a sabbatical officer with the Students’ Union (Communications officer)

Within the Presidential race I believe that I will be the most effective of the candidates not only on the basis of my policies, and experience but on the platform that I know how to bring my policies to fruition. My time on the Union was a successful one. A President only gets a year to implement their policies. The most productive time of the year is the Summer – that cannot be spent trying to come to grips with UCC bureaucracy for the first time. The Societies Guild has also have given me an added preparation for the bureaucracy and student unfriendly nature of many bodies in UCC which other candidates do not have.

As a Union we have to tackle the issues that actually keep students awake at night – the state of our library, exorbitant food prices and the state (and price) of much of the Student Accommodation surrounding UCC. We must also work at those issues which would make the lives of students easier - such as getting rid of the queues that are everywhere, helping students with problems from finance to mental health as well as keeping them entertained without costing them an arm and a leg.


What will Kris do?

My priorities are simple – www.voteforkris.com contains a full explaination of how I plan to fix them.

The issues I'd like to focus on:

Libraries
UCC's libraries have to be the priority for the Students' Union. Put simply, we dont have enough books. The present situation cant continue. I pledge to make this my priority

Printing
It takes far too long - between queing for computers and queing for printing. There is no reason to have 20-30 people queuing at the same time. I plan to tackle this issue.

Food prices & quality
The catering contract is being reviewed - now it the time we can actually affect change - bring in competition to force up standards and make food price competitive.

Student Accommodation
Students pay above the odds but are still treated like second class citizens. This is not acceptable.

Entertainments
Should be cheap, plentiful and available to all students.

Like anything, despite doing really good work, the current SU Exec does have room for improvement. I believe I am the candidate to bring this about. While I have been an sabbatical officer before, it is only now – having learned lessons through experience that I could seek to put myself forward for election to President.

I look forward to getting to talk to as many of you as possible. If you would like to get in touch with me, just email Kris.McElhinney@gmail.com and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.