Clubs & Societies Council produces uncontested election
The University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU) Clubs & Societies (C&S) Council meeting, held last Wednesday, resulted in an uncontested election for UMSU’s C&S Committee.
The successfully elected candidates, in the order they were provided to us, are:
- Hilary Ekins (Engineering Music Society)
- Eleanor Seale (Potter Heads)
- Matthew Simkiss (Friends of Unnatural Llamas; also a member of the 2016 Activities Committee)
- Marlo Zambelli (Arts Students’ Society)
- Harry Adam (Labor Club; also a member of the 2016 UMSU Students’ Council)
- Caleb Triscari (Media and Communications Students’ Society; also one of the 2016 UMSU Media Officers)
- Sarah Xia (Melbourne International Relations Society; also one of the 2016 UMSU Welfare Officers)
The C&S Committee is the body that, in practice, wields the most power over clubs in UMSU. While it is technically subordinate to the Council, that body usually meets only twice a year, leaving the Committee to perform the day-to-day work of approving grants, writing policy and regulations, and managing the affiliation and disaffiliation of clubs.
The Committee is elected separately from all of the other UMSU Committees (which were elected at the annual election earlier this semester), and only club Presidents, rather than all students, are eligible to vote at it. We understand an uncontested election for the position is unprecedented in UMSU’s history.
Despite the uncontested election, we understand that candidates nevertheless took questions from the floor, which took, according to one attendee, “an hour” (we’re not sure if that figure is literal or metaphorical).
The meeting also saw a report from outgoing C&S Officebearers Ryan Davey and Yasmine Luu; and incoming 2017 Officebearers Kayley Cuzzubbo and Gulsara Kaplun outlined some of their plans for the coming year, including the introduction of club welfare officers.