Hustings
In each college in my university (to you confused Americans out there, this British university is divided up into colleges of students who live, eat, sleep and work together) , we have an institution called the JCR; or the Junior Common Room.

It's a place where we can all relax and all that bull, but it's also a student organisation and is run by a committee. Today, we husted for the role of President.

I wasn't one of the lucky three (I'm going for a Welfare position if my tutors let me), but I did get a front row seat as they spouted their crap about how they were going to do very little because the JCR is already great.

Then we got to the interesting part; stupid question...

Hustings
In each college in my university (to you confused Americans out there, this British university is divided up into colleges of students who live, eat, sleep and work together) , we have an institution called the JCR; or the Junior Common Room.

It's a place where we can all relax and all that bull, but it's also a student organisation and is run by a committee. Today, we husted for the role of President.

I wasn't one of the lucky three (I'm going for a Welfare position if my tutors let me), but I did get a front row seat as they spouted their crap about how they were going to do very little because the JCR is already great.

Then we got to the interesting part; stupid questions/tasks.

The previous hustings I had been to had involved a guy stripping off to reveal that he was wearing a tutu and a corset to see if it would make the LGBT rep-ro-be feel uncomfortable, so I was expecting something funny, but I didn't realise just how much moe we upped the game this time.

Daily Mail, I would love to say eat your heart out, but I would really rather you didn't report on this...

So we started out with the obvious ones; JCR president involves reaching for new heights, so race to the ceiling, explain what aspect of the previous president makes you love him so much, etc.

Then we moved on to more serious business:

Pick a member of the current committee, and convince them to vote for you. This involved one person asking for a hug from a Welfare rep, another dirty dancing the Academic Affairs Rep and a third literally chatting up the guy who was actually running the hustings.

Being President you have to be able to let people know what you are doing; show us your plan for the future in interpretive dance.

And finally, the highly important:

Obviously you need to be prepared for this both mentally and physically, so race to the stone table (a location outside)... and we locked the door when they got back, which resulted in something of a scuffle, as two of them raced to the other door whilst the third had an inside woman waiting to open it for her after they'd left.

Being President you have to be prepared to take a leadership role; delegating others to do the work. Pick a person in front of you (out of the crowd of 50 or so) and get them to piggy-back race you to Mob Quad (50 meters or so).

Call a family member, and put them on speakerphone to explain why you should be president.
One person's mum rallied behind her in an affectionate declaration of support... whilst another's declared that he should be institutionalised, and the third couldn't reach a family member, so called a male friend from outside... and a girl picked up the phone. Upon being enthusiastically asked why this random person on the phone should be the College JCR President she paused briefly before hanging up on him.

And finally, being President involves a lot of diplomacy; convince somebody on the street outside to come in here and speak on your behalf. I was more than a little surprised that we didn't have any homeless entrants, but we did pick up three randomers who looked more than a little confused, and one girl from another College who passionately declared that she had no idea what was going on, bu she reckoned that this guy was the President for us.

Voting is tomorrow... I just don't know if I should pick the guy who can climb the fastest, or the one who's parents claimed he wasn't mentally stable enough to take the position!