the continuing stupidity of student politics

[fox]

(note:  the icon is absolutely not to be taken as any sort of volunteering on my part.)

saw this in the dead-tree edition last week, but have just remembered that it's online as well.  Budget errors leave Student Union facing £110,000 deficit.

that's £110,000.  un-bygod-believable.  i saw that headline and i was more pleased than ever that my common room voted not to affiliate.  now that we have a statement from the VP (Graduates) -- who is not, by the way, a graduate student -- i'll be in a position to assure my own people that it's none of their money that's been mis-handled, because we've paid no dues.

the article is really disheartening.  i'm in favor of student unions as a concept, but man, not this one.  eh, cannons_at_dawn, anything to add?

Comments

[cannons-at-dawn.livejournal.com]

Not much. I've always been wary of the potential for financial disaster whern you have budgets set according to priorities which can alter radically from one year's set of SU officers to the next. It tends to be an institutional problem - it's hard to strike a balance between the need to run the thing financially on similar lines to a business (which can only really be done by trained staff employed on a permanent basis) and the need to keep the whole organisation under the control of temporarily elected officers. All student politics (unfortunately) is stupid, but yes, some is more stupid than others.