Newton’s new ideas

Isaac Newton Acquah won the position of Communications Officer, with a substantial margin of 1346 votes to Andrew Horder’s 935 at the final stage.

A smiling Acquah said he was “really excited, glad to be here and can’t wait for next year.” Acquah said he thought he had the edge over the other candidates because of his memorable name.

Acquah emphasised the need to get students into the new Union to generate revenue and provide quality entertainment. He said, “Just the fact we have a new Union with a larger capacity should make it easier to attract bigger acts”, but stressed that it was necessary to “make sure the new venue is as full of possible at each event.”

He hopes to attract bigger bands simply through the nature of the larger venue and holding more diverse music nights to draw different students into the Union.

Acquah consistently talked about being in contact with students to “find out what change is needed”. To increase communication he wants to add more blue boards around campus because there are “not enough for 250 societies right now”. He also said he wants to continue doing kitchen tours throughout the year every couple of days to make sure all views were represented in the new Union.

Acquah is going to focus on the Union website to facilitate communication. He plans on “making the website more dynamic, using flash, having an RSS Feed… Google Apps that are available for free can really help communication to the students and also amongst the students and societies”.

He said students receive a “flood of email and they don’t check that”. He hopes to “find out the best way students would like to receive information” and build from that.

With the economic climate, Acquah also promised to help get more external sponsors. He said, “Instead of large scale companies there are lots of local companies in the Coventry and Leamington area that want to be involved with the students, whether we’re talking about bars, shops, food outlets, getting them to donate 100 pounds here or there.” He therefore advocated “working really closely with local area… We should have a local impact.”

On a grander scale, Acquah does not see the Union as merely a business: “The Students’ Union is a business but instead of trying to make money from the students it makes money to provide services to the students, so it’s in a sense bigger than that.”