One of four uncontested races this year, the race for Communications & Marketing Officer of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) might not draw as much attention this year as it has in previous years. Still in its infancy, however, the latest candidate for the role has a lot of work, and potential, to do in defining the role.
Glen Byrne, the current Communications & Marketing Officer, breaks the position down into three main areas, with about “40 per cent being design work and the other 40 per cent emailing, calling, meetings with potential sponsors and external businesses”, while the last 20 per cent involves work on miscellaneous work and social media. This includes managing the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts of the union.
The sole candidate for the position this year, Úna Harty, is a third-year nanoscience student from Limerick. Speaking to The University Times, Harty cites her passion for student engagement as well as her journalistic experience with Trinity News and Trinity FM as her reasons for running. She states that she finds it “very frustrating when I meet people who are like ‘oh I don’t know what’s going on there’. I think ‘oh my god, how are people not interested’ and you think about it and after a while you say ‘it’s because they’re [the union are] not reaching out enough’.”
With this job, having a background in communications and marketing is a requirement, but not necessarily having that experience through the students’ union
Harty believes the two aspects of the role, which, unsurprisingly, are communications and marketing, are “mutually beneficial” and that when you work on one “it feeds into the other, and vice versa”. According to Harty, there are different levels of communication: internally in the union, between the union and the student body, and the union and the outside world. For Harty, you know your job is well if the “student body knows what the other officers are doing”.
On the marketing side, she firmly believes that sponsorship must come from organisations that will benefit students and not from “some random company that’s not going to really have anything to do with being a student”. Like Byrne, Harty acknowledges that the focus of the position will depend on the person elected: “Some people are more suited to certain roles, some people might have certain aims that they want to achieve with the job.” She believes that her own experience ultimately lies within communications, but she’s also interested in the business and marketing aspects and how both sides of the role can play off of each other: “Personally, I would have more experience with the communication side of things, but I am also very interested and curious about the marketing side of things as well.”
Byrne acknowledges that the time dedicated to each aspect of the position is at the discretion of individual officers. It depends on their own backgrounds or on the type of person that is elected to fill the position. Dedicating a large amount of his time to design, Byrne explains that his “own background is very much in design and things like that, so that’s the type of work I like to do”.
Byrne explains that the officer needs to be “available at all different times to accommodate all those different needs. This isn’t a regular nine to five job”
While experience in both communications and marketing are key for any candidate, formal experience of the union’s structures is not as important as it would be in other races, according to Byrne. Byrne himself acknowledges his previous lack of official involvement in the union: “With this job, having a background in communications and marketing is a requirement, but not necessarily having that experience through the students’ union. And I think that’s evident in the fact that myself and my predecessor were not previously involved in any official capacity with the students’ union.” Awareness of what’s going on in college as well as having the ability to listen are important skills that the new officer should have, according to Harty: “I feel like people think comms is all making posters and making sponsorship deals, but it’s really about finding out what the students need, and reacting quickly enough to move the SU in a positive direction after that.”
Harty surmises that getting feedback may be one of the more challenging aspects of the role, while time management is highlighted by Byrne as a difficulty that comes with the position. Given the nature of representing such a large cohort of students from different disciplines operating on different schedules, Byrne explains that the officer needs to be “available at all different times to accommodate all those different needs. This isn’t a regular nine to five job, and I don’t think any of us have experienced regular nine to five hours this year”.
TCDSU recorded a loss of over €30,000 in its most recent financial year. This is something that largely falls to the Communications & Marketing Officer to combat by attempting to increase revenue from advertising and sponsorship. In rectifying this, Byrne and Harty agree that it is about building on and developing existing relationships with certain businesses for promotions and sponsorship. They believe that the effects of this will be felt in a number of years. In combatting the deficit, Byrne says they have addressed the variables that caused the deficit “in terms of cutting costs and looking at where money has been spent unnecessarily, so that’s all sorted ahead of next year’s team”.
On a final note, Harty thinks that her “good energy” and “enthusiasm” will be an asset in the race and in the role, should she be elected. “You really need to be on your toes and very passionate about it, and absolutely love to do it, and I would really love to bring my own personality and my own stamp to it.”
