******************* This email originates from outside Imperial. Do not click on links and attachments unless you recognise the sender. If you trust the sender, add them to your safe senders list https://spam.ic.ac.uk/SpamConsole/Senders.aspx to disable email stamping for this address. ******************* Hi All, The poll results are in and the preferred date for the AGM is *this Saturday 13th March*. We'll start at *6:30* so we can get plenty of drinking in after the elections. We'll be calling on *Jitsi *and voting by poll, links will be dropped in the jitsi chat and emailed out in case anyone can't make it but would still like to vote. Union eVoting opens on Monday 15th, so all current students at Imperial will have to organise ourselves and vote representatively based on the poll results from our own alumni-inclusive AGM. _____________________________________________________________________________ *The Candidates:* *People in brackets will run for this role if they don't get voted into their preferred position; number of brackets indicate order of preference (more brackets, lower on person's list of preference). * *For President:* Matti Mitropoulos, Ana Teck *For Treasurer: *Zaeem Najeeb, (Matti Mitropoulos), (((Ana Teck))) *For Secretary: *((Matti Mitropoulos - Secretary)), ((Ana Teck - fakeretary)), (((Zaeem Najeeb - fakeretary))), Úna Barker* *Willing alumnus realcretary if a fakeretary is elected; will do the job while fakeretary is the Secretary on eActivities. *For Tacklemaster: *(Ana Teck) *For Health& Safety Officer: *Lucie Studena, Ellie Pizey, (Zaeem Najeeb), ((((Ana Teck)))) *For Social Secretary:* (Lucie Studena) _____________________________________________________________________________ *The manifestos:* *Matti Mitropoulos* Hi all, I'll be running for President, Treasurer and Secretary this year. Being Secretary this year, I began to get familiar with the not-so-subtle intricacies of how club communicates with the Union (and occasionally even vice versa), how the club interacts with the BCA and CHECC, and how things like budgeting, grant awards and memberships are handled. Unfortunately, due to a little-known virus I've been unable to do much hut and minibus booking, and have had little opportunity to observe when it comes to actually organising trips. Assuming we will actually go caving at some point next year, I would need to get up to speed quite quickly in terms of who to contact in what instance, and prepare for trips and tours appropriately, but I hope this would be covered by an extensive prep talk by Una or Zaeem, and maybe the occasional frantic text. President: I would primarily try to get the club up and running again - fresher interest has understandably been quite low this year, so I'm hoping that there'll be a surge of interest when we can run trips again, possibly also from some second years that missed out this year, which would help to satiate the Union's lust for membership numbers. This could, for example, involve one more fresher trip than usual depending on interest, or tempting more freshers to buy membership with incentives like heavily subsidised first trips etc. Lassoing unsuspecting passers-by with spare rope during tree training should also work. There has been talk to get university caving clubs to collaborate on trips - this would be something I'd support. The pandemic has taken its toll on many clubs' membership numbers, so banding together to run trips would be a great way to support each other. CHECC has been encouraging clubs to support each other, and there have been preliminary, independent emails between us and another club expressing interest, so continuing this could lead to some collaborations next year. Casting my mind back to the 'before-time', the rodent problem in stores had just been solved with great effort - I'd try to keep it solved, minimising food kept there if possible, and ensuring any stored is in sealed containers (canned tomatoes and smoked paprika of course). Treasurer: I've tried to get informed regarding how the union awards grants and how the club handles money over the last few months, sneaking into meetings, reading emails addressed to Zaeem etc. I'd make sure to continue the work Zaeem did this year, working with the Union and their app to optimise the division of grant money and make it as straightforward as possible to shift things around. Secretary: I'm also more than happy to continue being Secretary and finally get to book minibuses and huts. As the Union are revamping the minibuses I'd get to book some shiny new ones... such excitement. Yours till I attend an in-person AGM, Matti _____________________________________________________________________________ *Ana Teck* Hello Humans, I am running for (in order of preference and happy to do multiple): President Tackle Master Fakeretary Treasurer Health & Safety Under my reign of *ANA*rchy, I promise that we might actually, maybe have the possibility to potentially go caving, maybe. As I am obviously extremely addicted to caving, what better way to prove my dedication than by becoming supreme leader? With that, my second promise is that we shall play the imperial march every time we arrive at a caving hut. What I can offer: 1. I know how to make eggy bread! 2. I am very organised and shall delegate tasks with arbitrary totalitarianism 3. I love organising trips (I have planned thousands in my head during lockdown, and a few real ones too) 4. I have experience being the president of an outdoorsy club – please don’t lynch me, I am no longer a Fellwankerer 5. I am all too familiar with eActivities and fighting the Union and the RCC 6. I have the ability to throw rope over our tree-training tree! I will also enforce, in a very friendly, fascist way... 1. Advanced tree training for us experienced members to practice rescue techniques and to beat everyone in the SRT races at CHECC & Hidden Earth 2. More collaboration between the exploration clubs, to unite against the Union 3. Club fleeces Make me your president and you will get to use all the ridiculous new batteries that I cook up in the lab! I would also very much like to be Tackle Master (again). Please let me finally play with our piles of kit! I miss stores and all its mud! If I should become Fakeretary, I promise to never ever send a single email, but will start an epic fight with the Union over room bookings (via pigeon, not email of course). If the need for a Treasurer should arise, I love spreadsheets! With Zaeem’s amazing work this year, there is faint hope that I might survive the union budgeting app. I would also happily be Health & Safety Officer. I know lots about first aid: something something let them bleed and keep them cold. See you at the AGM! Best, Ana _____________________________________________________________________________ *Zaeem Najeeb* I’m running in order of preference (and can do more than 1): Treasurer Health and Safety Officer Fakeretary/ Secretary I’m running for treasurer again (It would be my 3rd consecutive year as treasurer) as I just can’t stay away from the money and spreadsheets (I like making the rows different colours!). This year was all about revamping our annual budget to meet the new Union policies as well as making it less of a pain for future years (should no one decide to get rid of the budgeting app by then). Whilst that was fun, I can’t help but feel I didn’t get to enjoy doing the multiple event budgets or trying to juggle credit cards during normal trips, all experiences necessary to become a fully fledged treasurer. Next year my aims would be: 1. Monitoring how well our budget went this year and adjusting it where necessary, something that will inevitably lead to me having the REE on speed dial. 2. Paying for all major expenditure through the union, particularly for the equipment purchases for Slov, as they seem to take particular note of how sporadic the accounts seem for some events. This causes the grant pool to be automatically decreased regardless of whether the purchases are historically done simply as there is lacking evidence of this occurring through the union. This is going to require a bit of finesse but the solution could be as simple as getting claims done quickly (Just spam the next person who needs to approve it and you can get it all done within minutes!). 3. Milking the overflowing money sources from the union to try and fund some cool new events. Some ideas that came out of the social last night were surveying and knot tying hackathons which each sound pretty fun 4. I still stand by my dream of providing a single gourmet chocolate per person per month. Who knows, maybe this could even be increased to per trip? A truly revolutionary step forward. I am also running for Health and Safety. Shaun has enlightened me about all the risks of limbs being severed and feral sheep in caves so I am mentally prepared to deal with any such occasions. As for Secretary, I promise to at least look at the college email once a month. Anything else email related can be outsourced. Until the first AGM I can fully remember, Zaeem _____________________________________________________________________________ *Lucie Studena* Hi, I am running for two roles, in the order or preference (possibly OK doing both): Health and Safety Social Sec This is (likely) the last year of my PhD and I would love to give back to the club. The role I would like to do most is health and safety. The crazier outdoor activities I do, the more first aid, rescue, leadership, and safety training comes with it. I have done a several-day outdoor first aid course in Czechia in 2014 and since then I sometimes help with running their 'learning by experience' courses (pretend to be injured). I would love to find a good experience-based (outdoors or even caving-related one) course for the club. Coincidentally, the summer after this training I happened to be part of a serious rescue in remote mountains so it came useful. Generally, I am really keen to offer more training to the active members of the club. Especially at this time after a break of more than a year, experienced members leaving and after some unlucky events, I think the club could benefit from more ropework, basic rescue, and leadership training to bring more of us up to speed with leading our own trips safely and feeling confident, being able to manage difficult situations and knowing what to do to prevent them. It would be cool to offer official courses and if the capacity wasn't sufficient, encouraging more structured teaching of the acquired skills within the club. I now also live with someone sharing my interest in first aid and outdoor skills training so some ideas could hopefully come from there too. One drawback, unfortunately, is that my PhD wouldn't allow spending many Wednesday afternoons in a park but I was ensured the committee can figure things out as a team. When it comes to social sec, I have done a similar role for a different club for two years in my undergrad. Sadly, I can't host house parties if I will still be in the halls. But I would enjoy organising some random social nights or other fun activities around London, we could also go climbing or do some other sports together. Thank you! Lucie _____________________________________________________________________________ *Úna Barker* For the role of realcretary Is this a desperate bid to hold on to power despite leaving Imperial? Absolutely. But I also quite like emails, and I'll do the job. It looks like I'll still be in London next year so I can be a part of helping the club recover, and assist the new committee however I can. _____________________________________________________________________________ *Awards:* For the Award of For Evan’s Sake, Ana would like to nominate Sasha the Cave Dog, for creatively distributing her vomit all over the sofas in Cave House on multiple occasions. [image: IMG_20201216_112031.jpg] _____________________________________________________________________________________ Yours 'til the eventual plate of union fully loaded curly fries, Úna -- Imperial College Caving Club <http://union.ic.ac.uk/caving>
