Student Shout kicks off political period at BU

24 February 2012

The Student Shout kicks off BU students’ political forum.

BU’s political forum, in the shape of The Student Shout, took place on the 23 February, kicking off sabbatical canvassing and campaigns for the upcoming elections.

Students gathered in the Allesbrook lecture theatre to discuss previous motions passed, such as fairer distribution of kit in the media school and the U1 bus service. A new bike rack to will be built next to Christchurch House and a green area outside Poole House has also been planned for completion in September.

Unfortunately there were not enough students to pass the motions raised, as 100 are needed to fairly represent the student body, however the executive committee will discuss the issues raised and popularity of motions on the student’s behalf.

Students raised motions such as whether it is fair for lecturers to film lectures and seminars and then post them on MyBu, and the capping of whole units at 40% if one aspect is failed.

BA Multi-Media Journalism student Gareth Hill proposed that SUBU (Students Union Bournemouth University), should support the lectures pension strike on March 28.

Gareth said the student shout is important because “It’s actually students who are on the ground which are taking part in the University, SUBU do a great job in their elected roles but they do not necessarily get a sense of what’s going on, so bringing together students in this way is great.”

Alan Dove manager, of Bournemouth University’s Student Union, said that BU is thinking of making the student shout a more interactive online voting experience to encourage more student participation:

“As a consequence redbrick universities like Leeds do Town Hall meetings to get a flavor of student issues and then they will declare them as referenda and then all the students can go online and vote on them.”

Hustings also kicked off at midnight on 23 February, where students campaigning for a job as a Sabbatical kicked off their campaigns. Students are known to get highly creative to grab voters attention, past efforts include campaigning in an orange morph suit and painting his friends faces orange (which successfully won current SUVP Toby Horner his role), and handing out free bananas to students to encourage voting yellow.