Union Apathy, Lack of Info or Lack of Interest?

In September 2002, the yearly elections were held to elect a new Executive Committee. The results were very disappointing. There were less than 70 votes cast in the entire election and there were far fewer people standing for positions on the executive.

So why did this happen?

You could attribute voting regulations to the low voter turn out, but there has to be reason students didn't feel the need to go and vote in the first place.

So what is causing the voter apathy at Dudley College.

Lack of Information
If you ask many students what the Student Union is and what it does, many students know every little. The problem is the only information students can get is either by talking to Executive members (which can be daunting if you don't know them) or by reading the Union notice boards.

But a notice board can only tell you so much and has limited space and it's a lot less comfortable standing at a notice board while your reading. 

What people like is to sit and read information, preferably information that presents itself in a more exciting way that just print on a piece of paper. So this is why the new Union website has been created.

The Union's hope is that by giving it's members access to a much more interactive and much more richer source of information on the Union, we can get greater interest in what were doing. 

Here's an example, do you know what this years budget of the Union is?

Probably not. What if I told you it's £20,000.

I bet that came as a shock. So if the Executive Committee of the Student Union has a budget of £20,000, don't you want to know what it's being spent on and how it can be spent in YOUR benefit?

We believe that once students find out more about the Student Union, they will be more interested in how to use it to their benefit. We hope that by launching new initiatives this year, when the elections role around again next year, we will have a much larger delegation of people standing for posts on the executive and a much greater voter turn out.