Just 550 of KU's 22,782  students voted in this year’s sabbatical officer elections, according to figures released by KUSU this week after ditching traditional polling stations for an online system. 

The turnout, described by the union as “exceedingly disappointing”, shows that only 2.4 per cent of the population of the university decided which of their number would benefit from a wage well above the starting salary for many graduates. 

Mark Horne, KUSU general manager, said: “We have looked at the outcomes of the election in terms of the significant fall in overall turnout and a number of recommendations have been made.” 

An NUS spokesperson said they believed sabbatical officers' salaries to be around £20,000.  Although this varies nationally, this is a figure well above the starting salary for many graduates.

The elections in mid-March saw the return for a second term of President TJ Esubiyi who won by a margin of 105 votes.  443 votes were cast in the VP Activities election taking Rhiannon Hiscocks to a second term with a margin of 101.  Chris Dingle won the VP Education position after two rounds of redistributed votes and new VP Communications Stefan Mattison after one redistribution round. 

Lucy Hayward, a third year Drama student and secretary of the Wine Society, said: “[The change from polling stations to online voting] confused a lot of people.
“There are a lot of people who did not vote because they thought it was too complex.” 

KUSU has defended its decision to move to online voting despite being aware of the big drop in turnout the switch often produces.  The student’s representative body claimed that the online system would encourage more KU students to have their say in who put their views across, especially those away on work placement and at campuses other than Penrhyn Road. 

Mr Horne added: “In a world where students increasingly do not need to be on campus to be at university, this seemed a much fairer system.”

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By Sinead Noble and Fiona Murray

Kingston University's student bars face closure after racking up losses totalling more than £115,000 in the last year alone.

The losses were revealed in the last set of student union accounts and show that the only one of the university's three bars to turn a profit was at Knights Park.

Every week the bars are open they lose £2,500 between them.

Kingston Student Union general manager, Mark Horne, said: "The current student union model isn't sustainable. It won't be here in the current model in five to six years. It's a mad business model.

"Many unions have already opted out of bars or downsized their bar offering, and this trend will continue for many unions."

Around the country, student unions are ditching their failing bars.

Anglia Ruskin University turned its pub into a gym and Wolverhampton has handed its drinking venues back to the University.

Kingston's bars have been propped up by large hand-outs from the university.

Mr Horne said: "Kingston University recognises that the bars are part of the social fabric of life at university; that they are another of the services the union provides - not just a commercial activity."

• £115,000 - how much KU's student bars lost last year
• 33% of KU students teetotal (according to Mark Horne)
• £3.28 for a pint of Fosters in The Spring Grove 
• £2.20 for a pint of Fosters in KU's The Space bar, the same as Scream's The Mill

 

On Wednesday evening there were only around 30 people drinking in The Space bar on the Penrhyn Road campus which is described by the student union as KU's largest and busiest bar.

Third year student, Ryan Nash, said: "The SU's have got a bad vibe. I wouldn't care if they closed."

Mr Horne attributed the bars' problems to students choosing to drink in town, as well as the large numbers of teetotal students and students who commute. 

He also admitted that the venues could be of a higher standard.

The highly successful and popular KU Taekwondo team is being evicted from its current training location because of health and safety concerns.

The Taekwondo team recently won the inter-university competition held at Cambridge University for the third year in a row. The Cambridge Open is the first taekwondo tournament of the university calendar and the Kingston team won seven individual gold medals at this year’s event. The very next day the team won three more gold medals at the London Open in Crawley. 

The club has a big problem though as it has been told it can no longer use its current training venue at the Kingston Arena. The hall capacity at the site is 30 people but the Taekwondo society regularly has between 40-50 people training with them each week.

KU Taekwondo President Michael Nathan-Pepple said: “Taekwondo is a great sport. We have a great instructor who makes the training sessions fun. When we go to the student nationals we always get good results. We have a good structure, a good student base; we just need more people and a bigger hall to practice in.”

Finding a new place for the team to train has proved difficult however, as Rhiannon Hiscocks VP Activities for the KU Student’s Union, told us:

“Taekwondo’s facilities are too small. We could move to a bigger hall (if there was one) but the instructors may not be able to make that time and it would cost more money. We’re already pumping a lot of money into Kingston College and local schools that are better facilitated than Kingston University. The Students' Union, the University and even students themselves are paying to use these facilities. The College and the nine other venues we use every year charge hire fees. If we re-invested this money into our own facilities instead of wasting it on renting, that would be a much better use of our money.”

A Kingston University spokesman said:“The University is trying to identify sites for sports facilities and recognises the importance of students’ sporting ambitions, however as is the case for many town and city-based universities, there is a shortage of suitable land in the Kingston area on which to build facilities. The University will continue to work with the Council, through the local development framework, to try and identify potential sites for sports facilities, in particular a sports hall.”