Weblog Ryan Chen-Wing

Dan's discussion on elections

DanL has a small discussion on Feds elections on his BB.

In one post Dan makes good observations:

FEDS has always struck me as a rather silly organization. Their membership is defined in terms of the customers of a different corporation, over which they have no control. They own no property, nor do they hold a liquor licence, and yet their main business is serving alcohol. Their president, who is also the CEO, and their three vice-presidents, are chosen by popular election. And finally, despite paying them a compulsory fee every term, I make little to no use of any of their services.

Dan is exactly right about the piggy-backing of membership. This is what allows Feds to be disconnected from students, but still maintain a large membership and revenue stream. That situation behooves the organization to build ties with members.

Their main business in the sense of activities or operations is not serving alcohol, it is generally serving students and as it should be the services it provides. That is Feds' main business is and should be fulfilling its objects. Popularly electing the officers is not necessarily silly.

Gill posted a description of some services that he knows or uses:

Feds may seem useless, but.....

He lists:

• the used bookstore — Yes. A good business that realtes to all students
• Tim Horton's — Not a Feds business. Any good service there has nothing to do with Feds.
• Fed and Bomber — These are valid, but students would think differently of those, if they knew how much they were paying into them.
• Aussies — Again, how much is it worth to operate this business.
• Fed Bus — Many people use the bus.
• GRT passes — Sure providing better access to services is good.
• Clubs — Feds Club operations are good because they provides a structure for students to realize their interests. This is important because the efficacy that students can find in this strudture is not always present elsewhere int he organizaiton.

If anyone else knows of election bloggers. Let me know.

• More election comments
• Student organization elections

Posted by Ryan Chen-Wing at February 9, 2005 07:55 PM