Yuv Garg, who is the current Welfare and Inclusion Officer for the Ents committee, is one of four candidates running for the Entertainment (Ents) Officer position this year. He cites Engagement and Accessibility as his top priorities.
In an interview with The University Times, Garg, who is in his fourth year of Global Business studies, reflected on his breadth of experience in leadership roles in his time at Trinity, and highlighted this as his key qualification for this year’s most hotly contested student union position.
“When I was JCR sports officer in second year, that like, that’s when I started organising events, and when I saw people enjoying themselves, it gave me a sense of joy and accomplishment within myself”
In addition to being JCR sports officer, Garg has previously worked as President and Treasurer of the Indian Society where he organised last year’s Holi celebration – the Hindu festival of colours. Organising one of the largest cultural events on campus is something which required “a lot of communication with the college” as well as “getting the DJ, making sure there’s insurance. There’s so much stuff”. Garg feels his past experience with organising such wide-scale events will serve as an ideal stepping stone for the role of Ents Officer, who is responsible for organising student events throughout the year including Trinity Ball.
Throughout our conversation, Garg frequently referred to communication as one of the most important skills for a successful Ents Officer. This came to the forefront for him when he was working as Treasurer for the Indian Society while doing his Erasmus in Sweden for a semester. Having to coordinate everything from abroad highlighted for him the importance of “knowing how to be a leader”, how to “delegate work” and “how to organise staff”.
When asked to assess the performance of the current Ents Officer, Peadar Walsh, whom Garg has worked with closely this year in his role on the Ents committee, he stated the former had “done a great job. We’ve had far more society collaborations. We’ve had large scale Pav Fridays which we’ve never seen before”. Garg hopes to build on Walsh’s work: he plans to implement “Creative and Culture Nights”, which would be an opportunity for smaller cultural societies to engage with one another, as well as an “Irish Language Pre Pav”, where Irish speakers on “all levels” can come together to practice speaking Irish for an hour on Fridays.
When asked what he would do differently, Garg emphasised his plans to organise sober events, and spoke eagerly of using them as opportunities to explore different genres of music. “Whenever we think of music, we always think of the Pav, and like a nighttime club event. I want to change that, like, perspective”. The nature of these events would be more relaxed. People may bring their lunch, perhaps coffee or energy drinks would be served. “We could have jazz or trad and stuff like that”. He feels this would expand Ents’ reach to newer audiences and foster a stronger sense of community on campus. “This will increase engagement as well,” he noted, “which is like, I feel like the theme of my whole Ents campaign”.
Garg’s most passionate idea is a “college wide calendar”, which would include all student events taking place. He hopes this would help prevent any occurrence of overbooking and ease communication, citing an incident where the Pav Fest clashed with the Asian ball. He feels the implementation of the calendar will smooth coordination between events, and avoid confusion.
Inclusion is a central element of his campaign. In his manifesto, he promises to collaborate with societies and the Pav to create events that cater to groups often neglected in the student social scene, such as people who don’t drink alcohol, the disabled, and Health Science students. To make events more accessible, he plans to ensure plain text graphics and readable captions on Trinity Ents social media, as well as providing accessibility reports before events, feeling that this would create “a transparent relationship between Ents and the people” and “hold Trinity Ents accountable for what they’re doing”.
He plans to organise events for Health Science students on placement. “I have talked to a few health science students,” he said, explaining why this was a part of his manifesto, “and they were like, yeah nothing really happens for us”. Making plans to accommodate Health Science students, he claims, will involve taking into consideration their calendar, which is longer than the academic year of other degrees, and communicating with class representatives (reps) to work around their schedules. His specific ideas for events so far include a coffee morning at St James’s.
Garg’s plan for charity, an outlier among ideas for events in his manifesto, would see a year long “party for purpose” campaign, where two events per month are dedicated to charity. He would also implement a “deposit return scheme” whereby the cans collected from said events would be returned. The levies claimed from this would go towards the Return for Children charity. “Giving back to society is a very integral part of Trinity Ents” he stated, rationalising the decision behind this.
One of the things that sets this year’s election apart from previous ones is the integration of postgraduate students in TCDSU, which was formalised last November. This year’s Ents candidates will be tasked with accommodating them. Garg feels equal to this challenge – in his manifesto, he vows to organise monthly events for Post Grads.
“The biggest issue with post grads is they’re only here for a year”, he stated, reflecting on how representing them may differ from representing undergraduate students “They don’t have that communication. Stuff doesn’t reach them that much”. He plans to address this by collaborating with the Postgrad officer on the Ents committee as well as course reps to increase communication and create a space for giving feedback. “It’s all about just getting the word to them so they come to the events”.
In my time with Garg, his passion for organising events and giving back to the community shone through. He wishes to “give that experience that I have had these past four years to everyone like, to have, so that they can enjoy their four years in college as much as possible”
