Management Committee Elections 2008

The Management Committee (MC) oversees all the work of People & Planet. It approves the budgets, hires the director and makes sure the staff are working on the best projects to support your campaigning. Over half of the MC are students, with other members who are appointed because they have expertise in a particular area (i.e. fundraising).

Read more about the work of the MC on their webpages.

Read retiring MC member Eilidh MacPherson’s account of her time on the MC.

Over 50% of the P&P Management Committee are students elected at the Forum. In the next few years, we’re aiming to have 13 people on the committee which means that there are now 7 spaces for students.

There are currently 3 permanent (non-student) members and 2 student members are staying on for a second year having been elected in 2007. Therefore we need to elect at least 2 new student members at The Forum 2008 in order to keep the MC over 50% students, with a maximum of 5 (therefore all of the candidates below could get elected, leaving 1 space empty to be filled next year).

The candidates for the 2008 election are below. You’ll have the opportunity to ask them questions in person at the Forum and you can read their answers to some of the questions you sent in advance now. You can also discuss the elections online on the webforum.

We will use the Single Transferable Voting (STV) system. This is the system recommended by the Electoral Reform Society as the best for elections where candidates are being elected to multiple vacancies.

The candidates

Joe Bardwell

P&P group: UCLan

I have been involved with People & Planet since my first year of university. After founding a group at the University of Central Lancashire I went on to volunteer as the North West Regional Rep.

Now that I am graduating I would like to continue my involvement with People & Planet as well as having a new challenge. Working with P&P over the last three years has given me a thorough insight into the workings of the organisation.

I feel I can offer experience and commitment to the aims and objectives of the network. As well as this I feel I could listen to and represent the views and opinions of the network. Being a member of P&P has been an empowering and inspiring experience and I would love the opportunity to continue to be a part of this.

Scarlett de Courcier

P&P Group: Heythrop College, University of London

As soon as I went to sixth form college and discovered the P&P group there, I knew it was something to which I would enjoy dedicating my time, effort and attention. The work done and the attention drawn by this organisation is unprecedented and deserves an even higher profile than it currently has.

What can be done about this? In my opinion, the point of a management committee is not only to keep things running as they are, but to evolve into an ever-increasing organisation; to actually make a difference in the world. It is unfortunate that today, people seem to be unable or unwilling to recognise their potential for changing; how much a small amount of effort given by a large amount of people can really contribute to the world as a whole.

This is what I believe I could bring to the People & Planet management committee: a sensible, clear-headed, yet ambitious nature and a strong sense of the social implications of any actions we undertake. I would love to be able to make my own difference, however small, and to be in a position to help others to give what they can, so that ultimately we can work together towards a better world.

Harry Giles

P&P Group: St Andrews

I’m restanding for the Management Committee this year because I’m standing for election to a sabbatical position with my student union this year, and a year ago, when I was elected onto the MC, I said that if I decided to stand for a union election then I would restand for my MC position, to give the Forum an opportunity to express a worry that I might be too overcommitted to do the job properly.

That said, I do feel able myself to keep going with my work on the MC. I’ve found the past year incredibly challenging and incredibly rewarding, and want to be able to keep up the work. My main focus in the MC has been on improving the democracy of the P&P network — working on our openness and accountability, and on increasing the amount of information available to the network about the inner workings of P&P.

Democracy remains the thing I’m most passionate about, and if I’m re-elected that’ll be what I continue to focus on, with the aim in mind of being even more receptive to the demands and needs of the network.

Alex Wood

P&P Group: Aston University

I have been involved in P&P for three years, the last of which I have spent on placement working as a Campaigns Team Intern in the Support Office.

This has given me unique experience of the opportunities and constraints facing P&P, which I feel would benefit the MC.

For me my love of P&P stems from its democratic culture - students created and own both the organisation and our campaigns. There has been much exciting progress in this area over the past couple of years, but we still have some way to go. Our democratic structures must be extended and formalised. For example the Forum currently has no sovereign power (all its power is delegated from the MC). The Network also has a stake in the organisation of the Office, as decisions made by the Office directly affect the Network (however, workers should always ultimately determine how they are organised).

If elected I will:

• Hold a consultation on the structure of P&P;
• Propose a paper at the 2009 Forum based on the results of this consultation;
• Facilitate a discussion within the Office about how the Office should be organised (currently as a hierarchical not-for-profit corporation).

Re-open Nominations

Re-open Nominations (R.O.N.) is the chance for you to state that you would like to elect someone else other than the candidates listed. This is your opportunity to dismiss one, some or all of the candidates if you think they are unsuitable or you would prefer to vote for somebody who has not stood for election but who might do if they were re-run.

R.O.N. is treated just like any other candidate, so placing R.O.N. as 4th place would indicate that you would rather there be one less student on the MC than elect the person you’ve specified in 5th place.

In order for the MC to be more than 50% students, we need to elect 2 new members at The Forum (to make a total of 4). If less than 2 are elected, the elections will be re-run.

If you have any further questions about R.O.N., please ask John Kentish before the election.