Quest to find sabbaticals complete

Felix welcomes the Union's new sabbatical officers

After weeks of campaigning and preparation the Sabbatical Officer, NUS Delegate and Student Trustee candidates have finally been told the outcome of the elections and put out of their misery. To give next year's Sabbaticals Officers an early, hearty welcome, Felix employed the City and Guilds Hit Squad to pie them.

The election results were revealed to a packed crowd which filled out da Vinci's. Returning Officer, Danny McGuinness, announced the majority of the results over the PA system; however, the Presidential candidates were momentarily left in suspense when the microphone ceased to function. Eventually, the audience was told that current RCSU (Royal College of Science Union) President, Jennifer Morgan, would be next year's Union President winning with 1011 votes out of 2314 in total. Although Miss Morgan beat her nearest competitor, Jon Matthews, by almost 200 votes, the race for the Presidency was actually far tighter than the final figures suggest.

Mr Matthews was in line to become President after the first three stages of vote counting; however, because of redistributed votes, Miss Morgan clawed her way back into a winning position. The Union used the Single Transferable Voting (STV) system in the elections meaning that voters could rank the candidates in order of preference. If a voter's highest-ranked candidate was knocked out, their vote was redistributed to their second choice and so on.

Current Social Clubs Committee (SCC) Chair, Lily Topham, will be next year's Deputy President (Clubs and Societies) winning by over 200 votes in the final round. It was widely believed that John James would fare well in this strand after a strong campaign (he's the one you probably saw carrying a giant 'Refreshers' tube around campus), however the experienced SCC Chair toppled the competition convincingly in the end.

The most surprising result was in the Deputy President (Education and Welfare) category where Environmental Society stalwart, Hannah Theodorou, defeated her sole competitor Ryan Dee despite a non-existant campaign strategy.

Upset was avoided in the Deputy President (Finance and Services) category, where recent Felix centrefold star, Christian Carter, defeated RON by 1155 to 596 votes. Finally, the next Felix Editor was determined to be Jovan Nedic. This year's Sports Editor narrowly beat Nightlife Editor, Greg Mead, by 78 votes.

Elsewhere, both candidates running for Student Trustee positions were elected, namely Kadhim Shubber and Jaimie Henry, Kirsty Patterson, Victoria Gibbs, Elizabeth Hyde, Camilla Royle, Ashley Brown, Jon Matthews, Luke Taylor and Jennifer Morgan were elected as NUS Delegates; however Mr Matthews has since relinquished the position.

On Wednesday, Felix arranged/staged a lunchtime photo-shoot for the winning candidates. The incoming Sabbaticals were asked to meet outside the main Union building at 11.45am. Felix didn't intend for the shoot to be a test of the candidates' punctuality however, with both Miss Topham and Miss Theodorou arriving late and missing the photo-shoot, we should have brought a stopwatch.

Eventually, everyone tired of waiting and it was decided to have the "group" photo taken with just the new President, DPFS and Felix Editor. Right on cue, after a few snaps the City and Guilds Hit Squad burst through the gathered crowd of sportsmen and women, launching paper plates of shaving foam into the faces of the incoming Sabbatical Officers.

The City and Guilds Hit Squad offers its services once a year during RAG Week. Students could employ the Squad, much like contract killers, to carry out a hit by paying them a fee. Unlike contract killers, the fee is given to charity; this year's RAG Week was raising money for Cancer Research UK, the Newman Holiday Trust and Practical Action.

Shortly after the initial hit, Miss Topham turned up looking relieved that she'd missed a flan to the face but also concerned that the Hit Squad had an unfulfilled contract. Surely enough, her time came but she wasn't going to be flanned without a fight, as she fended off one Hit Squad member by swinging a heavy bag of books at him. Miss Theodorou was more willing to accept her fate when she finally arrived, taking some foam to the forehead.

Next year's Sabbatical Officers will have to tackle a number of crucial issues. Now that the second phase of the Beit Redevelopment has been given the go ahead, they will be tasked with seeing it through to completion and ensuring hiccups are avoided along the way. Similarly, the Sabbs will need to begin to secure funding for the final phase of the redevelopment which will see the rejuvenation of the Union's bars. On a national scale, they'll be responsible for deciding what the hell we're going to do with the NUS even though we rejoined over a year ago, plus they'll need to fight for students' views during the Top-up Fee Funding Review taking place next year.

Felix would like to take this opportunity to wish them all the best of luck. Break the Union a leg!

For full details of the election results, visit www.imperialcollegeunion.org/news/sabbatical-elections-2008-results,210,ICUNS.html.