I think part of the problem that people are trying to solve when they talk about consensus decision-making is that far too often conflict isn’t ‘done well’. We watch our elected leaders (global and UK) focus on points of difference in order to point score and create win-lose outcomes. Of course this has always happened, but it feels like over recent years politicians (and I include student politicians / leaders in this) have lost the ability to build bridges, engage people with different political viewpoints and create win-win outcomes through collaboration and compromise.

If you take Stella Creasy’s brilliant work around free abortions for women from Northern Ireland, one of the things that made this stand out was that you just don’t see many public examples of our leaders collaborating across the political aisle to create change. I think students’ unions have a role in helping student leaders develop and apply those skills – and perhaps we should be focusing on collaborative, not consensus, decision-making?

I think part of the problem that people are often trying to solve when they talk about consensus decision-making is that far too often conflict and decision-making aren’t ‘done well’. We see politicians (UK and global) point scoring, focusing on personality not issues and emphasising points of difference to create win-lose situations. Some of this isn’t new but it does feel as though there’s been a decline in collaborative (not consensus) decision-making over the past few years where people try to create win-win situations.

If you take the brilliant bipartisan work that Stella Creasy did on free abortions for women in Northern Ireland. Part of the reason this stood out is because she engaged politicians from both sides of the floor around an important issue to create change – and that seems to practically hardly ever happen. Politicians (and I include student politicians / leaders in this) need to re-learn / remember how to talk to people that hold different opinions, identify points of commonality and compromise to create change. I agree that we shouldn’t be obsessed with consensus decisions, and perhaps need to focus more on collaborative approaches, whilst accepting that healthy conflict still creates more robust outcomes?

15 years of seeing candidates bribe voters with the best cakes, sweets and biscuits have not gone unnoticed. Candidates often spent hours buying or making these rather than talking to the membership – which did not happen this year.

I would rather see the incentive as a thank you for voting and not a bribe. In terms of being a collective force for students, this helps students and will ensure our members feel we value them.

I don’t think there has to be a set way of doing anything and this is another example. Find your way of engaging your members and if that”’s different so be it…. We shouldn’t be in the game of shunning or knocking innovation and different ways of engaging. Particularly in these challenging times within SUs and HEIs we need to prove our worth and in impactful and fun ways.

Do your thing but I wouldn’t be dictating to other Union’s how to engage their audiences…..

Our SU realised record turnout this year without any incentives; at the same time we managed to get 12% voting for our constitution, and this follows successive referendums over the past year reaching up to 6,000 members. So perhaps its a bit early to put the ball in the court of incentives.

Readers should focus on the key question asked here: do incentives harm the SU’s credibility? I was impressed by the incentives I saw at other unions this year; and if the SU is not seen as credible then I can’t see students voting anyway. Yet it’s an important consideration for SU comms that we get the message right, and surely our members will form ideas about the SU based upon what they hear from their SU (or moreso for some, as told by student press!).

In that sense, gimmicks might help shape the extent to which SU’s are seen to have a sense of humour, or for example, that SU’s can well-balance political character with fund; yet equally incentives or gimmicks might also contribute to the SU being seen as a body a student need only engage with once for a short-lived, consumerist purpose, or for example, being too aligned with commercial interests.

I’d rationalise that it really depends on the student body and whether these efforts relate to a wider strategy or aim, and obviously, whether its done well!

It’s the excitement, enjoyment and celebratory feel around campus that’s what is important during elections and we should do whatever we can to contribute to that feeling.

Somewhere along the way we need to remember that whilst it’s great to be noble and for our departments to feel socially important, at the end of the day we are here for students – not to feel like our departments are important, or to improve society; those are amazing by products of what we do, but fundamentally we exist to listen to students and try to give them what they want.

Students perhaps should vote just because it’s the right thing to do, but they don’t. So I am going to keep doing everything I can to make sure that elections and voting is a positive and fun experience for all involved.

One way we might be irrelevant to them is because we are seen as “fun sponges” that take the fun out of everything and maybe, just maybe, this article is contributing to that notion?

Elections should be fun. End of.