What the elections taught me (plus Bonus Facts and Stats)

The Students Union Elections were a long and arduous journey and they probably taught me more in the past two weeks about life than in an entire year at University. So many important life lessons were learned, so many important life lessons already learned were put to practical use, perhaps for the first time ever.

Even though we may have won the elections numerically, and I won my position as well, there is still an itching feeling that we lost. But I take it as another learning experience in life and a stepping stone towards much bigger things. Some of the things I learnt have been listed in previous posts, here and here. Some further final points are listed below –

1. Giving 100% of your effort doesnt work anymore, you need to put in 112%
2. Elections are more fun than I thought
3. Elections are also more stressful than I thought
4. They are also a great learning experience, whether you win or lose
5. Patience and tolerance are two highly important virtues in life
6. There is no substitute for sheer hard work
7. Sometimes in life, you are forced to make difficult choices and decisions, and they may not necessarily go down well with your peers
8. In update to the previous post, elections are definitely a popularity contest
9. You need a lot of balls to risk all your time and effort on the opinion of a bunch of fickle minded people
10. Losing in an election separates the real friends from the casual ones
11. To rise in Politics, taking a side is essential. You cannot always remain diplomatic
12. You need to have principles in life. Without principles, a man has nothing to live for

Thats about it, a few points which I feel were important to me, and will probably help you if you ever choose to run in an election. Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear any thoughts you may have.

Bonus Facts about our campaign

Now that the elections are over, I can reveal some bonus facts and stats about it

• Official Team Name – Your Essex United
• Unofficial Team Name – The Sauldiers
• Official Campaign Slogan – You know you want to
• Unofficial Campaign Slogan – Hell yes we can
• Official Campaign Song – Dance Wiv Me – Dizzee Rascal (Macken quoted it in his video)
  
• Unofficial Campaign Song – Hot’n’Cold – Katy Perry
• Official Campaign Drink – Ubuntu Cola (Buy one, get one free at the campus shop)
• Unofficial Campaign Drink – Coffee, and lots of it
• Official Campaign Phone – Nokia 1650 (Chris had one, I had one)
• Unofficial Campaign Phone – Blackberry Curve

Bonus Stats about the elections

• 2057 People Voted, highest ever in Essex SU Elections
• 54% male, 46% female voters
• Your Essex United had 75 warning points by the end, maximum of 100 allowed
• One Essex had 45 warning points by the end
• Your Essex United had a budget of £120 out of which we spent £119.98
• One Essex had a budget of £70, no stats available for budget spent
• Highest votes went to Edison – 902
• There were 19 candidates competing for 9 posts
• Your Essex United won 5 posts, One Essex won 3 posts and the remaining post was won by an independent candidate

To Unity and Saulidarity.