The summer has finally arrived, and that can only mean three things: the sun’s out, the hats are on backwards and it’s time to party! To ensure no one gets too homesick for halls of our university, here’s a question from some of your classmates on dealing with change and taking matters into your own hands. If reading other people’s questions is too passive for you, you can anonymously send in your own pleas for advice and they may be featured in the next edition of Ask Pawan!
“Dear Pawan,
My student club is having their elections and three of the people running for hired positions are actually people I don’t like. I really like the club, but I don’t know if I’ll enjoy it as much next year if the people get their positions. What should I do? Nominate myself? Revolt? Stage a coup?”
To celebrate the summer, let’s start off with the hottest topics on everyone’s minds: student politics. It’s rare that the advice-seeker holds their solution in the question, but I have two core tenets: coincidences are the universe’s way of showing its will and coups = awesome.
You can even borrow the following call to action, ‘[Club name here] has had it too good for too long, sitting on their haunches and collecting all the revenue from their [income sources here], it’s time to start writing some history to look back on for UBC’s 200th anniversary!’ Some may say that the best way to show your love for something is to let it grow on its own, but whoever said that obviously didn’t know how cool it is to storm the front gates of a democratically-elected leader — albeit of a university club.
However, if a coup doesn’t exactly appeal to you or you can’t fit large-scale protests into your schedule, there are still plenty of ways for you to create change in your club for the better. You mentioned running for the position yourself, and that is most likely your best course of action. You can maintain the aspects of the club you enjoy, without overturning the ideal of governance by the people with an uprising. Elections being what they are, it’s no guarantee you will win, so I also encourage you to review the other candidates in the election and try to see what they’re about. Chances are they enjoy the club to some extent and, even if you may not agree with the direction they want to take the club. It’s important to remember that the election and club leadership in general aren’t a football match where you are vying for your team to win; everyone is trying to get the club in the direction they see is best. You’re all on the same team, albeit with different game plans. With my sports analogy quota filled, I’ll say again that compromise and cooperation are what you and those running for leadership should be looking for, even if the path agreed upon isn’t exactly what you may have imagined. At the end of the day, a club is a collection of people who share a common interest, and it’s the job of all the club members to keep that aspect of community in their heads at all time, so the enjoyment of that common interest isn’t lost in the peripherals.
Summer days driftin’ away? Spice it up and email in any questions, queries, or quandaries you have to Advice@ubyssey.ca or on our website at www.ubyssey.ca/advice.