“I want to tackle the problems LUSU and students face”
Wes Cosgriff – Furness College
Weekly “student surgeries” and a “presidential fundraiser” are just some of the ideas Wes Cosgriff would like to bring to the role of LUSU President.
Communication is one of the key concepts of Cosgriff’s campaign. At the moment, he thinks that not enough students know what the Students’ Union does and how it works. He would like to “open it up” and make it so that “everybody feels a part of the union.” Embellishing on how he would like to achieve this, he placed particular focus on LUSU Council. It is one “of the key bodies” and is “massively important, yet no one knows where it is and what is on the agenda”, and this is something he would like to change.
His idea of “weekly student surgeries” means that Cosgriff would “sit down for an hour or two every week” at different locations and “let students come and speak to [him] about anything and everything – what’s important to them, and what’s affecting them.” He would also like to see an online suggestions box on the LUSU website for students to communicate their ideas. “It’s the little things that need doing” he commented.
Cosgriff also discussed how he would to like to donate £1500 from his salary that would go into a campaigns fund. He would make this fund accessible to students, whether they be sports teams, societies, or JCRs, in order to help them set up campaigns for “the issues that matter for students” such as the Still Human Campaign last term.
Fighting “for the issues that we care about” is something Cosgriff feels passionately about. With £9,000 fees in place for next year, he believes it is about getting “more for our money” such as more contact hours. He expressed that if students are paying more, then they deserve more. He would also like to improve the standard of LUSU housing; putting a stop to the “horror stories” he has heard in the past.
The possibility of a Lancaster-Liverpool collaboration is also something Cosgriff views as being “at the forefront of whoever wins the election” and “certainly at the forefront of [his] mind.” He would like to increase research quality in terms of this, and talk to more students – particularly postgraduates – so that any decisions made will be based “on what students want.”
Overall Cosgriff would like LUSU to be “everybody’s Union”, a Union that “anybody feels they can talk to, that people know what it’s doing, and when it’s doing it.”
“I’m not a person who talks about doing something and leaves it” he said, “I’m someone who sees a problem and tackles it. I want to tackle the problems LUSU and students face.”
