The elections for the York Sport Union Committee promise to be tightly contested with many high quality candidates vying for the seats. The Vast Majority of positions are highly contested with sometimes multiple candidates vying for the positions. Voting Opens on Thursday the 16th of May and closes on Tuesday the 21st.
Treasurer
The Position of Treasurer will be contested by three strong candidates, Tomasz Chadwick, George Watkins and Andrew Chalmers.
Chadwick a second year economics student who is the current Treasurer and next year’s president of the Rugby club aims to increase funding levels for clubs, but primarily through greater cooperation with the fundraising and events officer and through greater collaboration between club treasurers to ensure value for money. He also aims to improve the development of clubs through more effective and transparent grant allocation and by focussing on smaller clubs as much as the larger more prestigious ones and by tackling each case for funding on its merits. “I’m extremely passionate about York Sport and I would love to continue the opportunity to continue working at YUSU to help its development” Chadwick said. 
Watkins is the current Treasurer for the Fencing Team, recently re-elected for next year he is also the men’s 1sts captain for the team . Watkins aims to improve the overall quality of financial management for clubs by providing thorough training for club treasurers at the start of the tear. Like Chadwick he wants to improve the grand process to make it more impartial and efficient. He is aware of the difficulties of juggling sports club and other commitments so he aims to be easily contactable and willing to offer his support and experience to teams who need it. He aims to work constructively with YUSU to improve its finance office and to generally increase the efficiency of the sports funding system. Watkins points to his experience and passion for sport at York, “I will be a proactive member of the sport community and an ambassador for the importance of sport (and its proper funding) to the wider university community”.
Chalmers, the current President of the Lacrosse Club has been of the executive committee for the last two years and is keen to bring his business experience and know-how to the York Sport committee. As an accountancy, business finance and management student Chalmers believes that this gives him an advantage in all aspects of the job as all free subjects are directly applicable to the position of treasurer. Currently undertaking a year in industry as a managing accountant at Tech Data, a multibillion Dollar supply chain company, he believes that this gives him vital understanding and experience that would be a huge asset to the position. “If I were to be elected York sport Treasurer , I would look to apply the same professionalism I have gained from my time at Tech Data, while aiming to push York Sport to new heights”.
College Sport Officer
The Position of College Sport Officer will be fought between two pairs, Dave Washington and Tom Merriman will face Danny Matthews and Matthew Lewis. Both regular Hockey team members, Merriman has been Goodricke College Sport officer for the last three years while Washington is currently the editor of York Vision having previously served as Sports Editor.
The core tenets of their manifesto are greater awareness and advertisement of college sport, greater cooperation and links between college and University Sport and an expansion of college sports role in major tournaments. They plan to achieve this by making better use of the universities media outlets and by redesigning the current York Sport Website. Other policies include weekly training session for smaller sports for every college to attend, run by University coaches to strengthen links to college sport. They also want to see an increase in Barbarians fixtures and for more college sides to compete at Roses to raise standards and increase cooperation.
Matthews and Lewis have been actively involved with University Sport throughout their three years at York and they believe they “can offer a wealth of experience and ambition to the role”. Lewis has been the Co President of the squash team for the past two years and Matthews is a current member of the Alcuin Football team, having previously played Amercian Football. The core tenet of their manifesto is also centred around participation seeing college sport as a “major stepping stone in increasing participation and involving people that usually wouldn’t partake in sport.” They aim to attempt to improve community spirit and to expand the number of sports on offer with particular focus paid to increasing the offering of disability sports.
Unfortunately some of this information is incorrect. Matt Lewis is the current co-president of Squash and has been for the past two years and Danny Matthews is a member of the Alcuin football team and used to be part of American Football…not badminton.