Another year, another Union election – can you believe it?
First off, thank you to everyone who voted!
Taking part in any democratic process available to you is so important and the great work that happens on campus is because you vote and respond to issues at Heriot-Watt. And real talk…how surprised were you when Gemma Collins entered the chat?
In total we had 1564 students take part, casting a total of 8608 votes across all the available positions. This meant there was 15.2% turnout which was a little lower than last year’s 17% but this has been a year like no other. Seeing as many students as we did, engaged and motivated to work together, was so enthusing!
This year, the School with the highest voter turnout was EGIS with a HUGE 418 voters.
As well as being encouraged to vote by your school, we had some fantastic efforts by our societies to get the word out about voting. This year the Society with the highest voter turnout was both the Languages Society and the Foodie Society with 75 voters each! Well done and thank you to everyone who championed voting this year!
A different sort of year…
On that note, before we get into the results of the 2022/23 HWUnion team, we wanted to take a moment to recognise that these elections brought out some really great ideas and aspects of people’s campaigning.
The Good Egg is an award for the candidate who had a heart of gold, spreading nothing but positivity throughout their campaign. One person stood out in particular. Our winner was “Even though we were running for the same position, he still sent positive messages to me and was really encouraging. He always had such kind words to say to other candidates and wanted everyone to do so well”, the winner of this award is.....Srivathsan Karunanithi!
The Competition we all want to win, the most sought after prize was an Etsy Gift Voucher. The nominee said “Her Etsy voucher is a fantastic prize, and her encouragement to support small businesses and creator from Ukraine was a lovely touch.” Well done to Georgia Noble, running for VP Wellbeing, for this brilliant idea.
Brilliant Branding goes to the candidate with the super slick design and most eye-catching online content. The person who nominated the winner of this award said “Really classy graphics and posting style! Looks super professional, and gives an impression of approachability. What he's all about is well communicated also - both with word choice and graphics. Very impressed”, and the winner is.... Scott Anderson. – well done!
The Cheerleader, campaigns aren’t just won by the candidates, there’s often a lot going on behind the scenes. We asked candidates who had been their biggest backers, super supporters and campaign confidantes. The candidate who nominated this student said “Biggest supporter of my campaign (both this year and in previous years) and such a big supporter of everyone else who has ran this week, absolute heart of gold and I really appreciate all her help!”
The winner of this is Jess McIver, who helped Sarah McCormack’s campaign!
Watt U came here for:
Open MP was a tight squeeze! With 8 candidates and only 5 openings, you do the maths. And so, your 2022/23 Student Members of Parliament are:
- Cameron Fields
- Guy Shafar
- Gokul Venugopal
- John Sajeev
- Srivathsan Karunanithi
Huge congrats to you all!
Next up are our School Members of Parliament. The winners this year, voted by each of their schools’ students, are…
- EGIS : Chloe Chandler
- MACS: Lucy Welford
- SOSS: Reece Doherty
- SOTD: Georgia Collins
Brilliant effort and congratulations to all!
Now it's time to dive into our Full Time Officer positions!
We had two students campaining for the position of Vice President Wellbeing.
Their job is to be the first point of contact for all equality and diversity issues and tackles the wellbeing of all students through campaigning, lobbying the University, and raising awareness around key issues.
We’d like to offer Georgia Noble a big welcome!
Vice President Education was another position up for grabs.
The winner here will be responsible for everything relating to Undergraduate academic issues, attending University meetings and championing fair assessment and teaching delivery (y-know, since you’re here to study and all that!).
The winner is Molly Knight. Welcome to the team Molly!
We also had two candidates running for the Vice President Community role.
Their job is to make sure you get the most from life outside of lectures! They will work to improve and grow our fantastic societies, lead on sustainability work and campaign and represent students on issues affecting your lives like housing and transport.
Huge congratulations to Scott Anderson, for being elected as the next VPC!
Last, but by no means least, we have our next Student Union President. This year there were 2 candidates for the position of President, and we saw a huge number of students voting to have their say.
The person who is elected to this role will be the figurehead of the Union; working to improve the student experience here at Heriot-Watt and make sure students are at the heart of everything the University does. They will be the person the University turn to most, and they’ll be expected to respond really quickly when asked challenging questions.
This year, with an eye-watering 1332 votes, we’d like to congratulate Sanjit Jagannath Krishnakumar!
And that’s that!
We’d like to say a big thank you once again to all the candidates, and an equally big congratulations to the winners of the election races! We can’t wait to work with each of you, to make Heriot-Watt a better place for everyone.
Big love,
HWUnion x