Image by Kelliann Smith
Most people at this University would be forgiven for not knowing the meaning behind the acronyms GOAT and GOAL. They are, after all, two of those strategies that are apparently needed but best not to be seen, and so it would be surprising if anyone not involved in the Union knew of their existence.
At their purest level – a place where these strategies should stay – GOAT and GOAL stand for ‘Go out and talk’ and ‘Go out and listen’, respectively. This means the sabbatical team, since September, have been aiming to engage the student body in a two-way flow of communication to highlight the importance of their positions and draw attention to the issues we face.
By their own admission, the executive team see that this is not something that has been particularly successful. VP Internal Affairs Sohail Afsar told the Union Council that the team were still working on a formal strategy. But perhaps it is this striving for a strategy that becomes the self-defeating reason that GOAT and GOAL have never taken off.
At its most fundamental level, the idea of the sabbatical team talking to the students who elected them is one which needs to be whole-heartedly supported and embraced by all concerned. These sabbatical officers are remunerated to the tune of £16k each a year, so it only makes sense to put them to some good use.
What is baffling, however, is that the art of conversation, presumably for the purposes of monitoring, is being reduced to a science, in which some officers seem more concerned about what to ask than to just ask.
The team is working on an issue calendar that will see them approach students on a different, pre-defined issue every fortnight. While there is no questioning the logic of organisation, there is room to question its necessity in this setting. As VP Sports and Societies Haydn ‘Tank’ Stead converses with hundreds of students daily, in the iZone, and as VP Education and Welfare Haneef Rashid keeps in near-constant contact with his team of course and school representatives, are the aims of these strategies not already being fulfilled?
What’s more, as the team embark upon around four new campaigns this term – from September 2009 we have seen just one hit the campus – will the team be more concerned with telling us what the issues are and how they intend to fight them rather than asking us what’s going on?
I must agree with just about everthing written here…
GOAT is just about being fulfilled with the campaigns that some of the SABs run… in so far as they are talking to students…
GOAL is only being fulfilled by VP Sports and Socs and VP Education and Welfare – the former creating and utilising the success of the iZone and the latter utilising the importance of student reps.
The reasons behind this scheme were two fold (and I should know as I was on the slate that came up with this idea).
To actively engage the student body to:
1)advertise what the SU is all about and to maake the SU and SU politics more welcoming to a larger percentage of the student body
2)discuss with students what issues with would like to see resolved or put on the agenda instead of assuming that the elected representatives already know.
Unfortunately, it appears that the VPs are carrying out campaigns in same way as others before them… whilst saying they have a GOAT and GOAL mission.
We look forward to hearing the GOAT and GOAL strategy at the next Union Council meeting
Unfortunately everything seems to be reduced to a string of tick-boxes these days. Whether it is just fashion or has become the limit of what we can cope with I really don’t know. I’ll leave that one to the get-up-and-goaters