Events forum: bringing the good times

By Christian Louden

Unfortunately, the events forum lacked a beat-boxing competition, featuring instead a polite exchange between four of the five candidates vying for a commissioner seat, Wed., Feb. 6.

Most of the debate between the commission hopefuls centred on the sorts of events they hope to see in the future. Talk was sparked with regard to the idea of placing less emphasis on alcohol to make big events like Bermuda Shorts Day more accessible to students who don’t drink.

The only incumbent, Natasha Men was seeking re-election because she wants to improve the student experience.

“Events play a real-life role in affecting the student experience on campus, and that’s what I’m here to do,” said Men.

Men suggested Gatorade pong in lieu of beer, an idea echoed by current external commissioner Kat Lord, who also proposed the idea of a wellness week that would focus on health improvement for students interested in being kinder to their livers, and having workshops on such things as yoga and meditation.

“Dry events would partner so well with the wellness week,” said Lord.

Leslie Wynne suggested revamping Cinemania by adding different kinds of movies. “I’d like to get more movies at Cinemania that are more fluffy,” said Wynne. “Those sorts of movies that you shouldn’t spend $12 on but you do anyway because it’s a guilty pleasure.”

Hardeep Sangha–who was ruled ineligible to run in the VP events byelection in Oct.–pointed to the 10 years he’s been at the U of C and his bar management and promotions experience as his major qualifications for the job.

“I have a marketing background, I’ve designed marketing campaigns for bars,” he said. “I’m U of C’s answer to Van Wilder.”

After the commission portion of the forum, VP candidates Luke Valentine and Phil Hunter duked it out over how to deal with promotions and event apathy.

“All we can really do is make sure they know about events,” Hunter said. “If students know, they’ll go, and if they don’t want to, they can go study or whatever they do.”

Valentine emphasized the need to get out and reach students in a more personal way by just talking to students.

“It’s a problem here, and it’s a problem on every campus,” said Valentine.

The two VP candidates also had a few ideas about events like sexual awareness week that tend to have a low interest level.

“I would definitely like to see sexual awareness week improved, maybe more sex in sexual awareness week,” said Valentine.

Hunter wasn’t satisfied with the length of the events and suggested shortening them.

“Students don’t like being preached to,” he said. “Also, alcohol awareness, instead of having a full week, maybe have a couple days.”

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