The University Observer sits down with Entertainment Officer candidate, Luke Sherlock.
Luke Sherlock is running uncontested to be the new Entertainments Officer of UCDSU. He has experience in UCDSU, having been a class rep in first year and was on the UCDSU productions team last year, before resigning due to being too busy with work and academics. He formerly served as Training Officer with UCD Mountaineering Club, and is currently a OCM with Hort Soc.
In our interview with Sherlock, he claimed to have campaigned for a number of different candidates in the UCDSU election two years ago: Marc Matouc, Shauna Young and Daniel Devey. All three candidates were unsuccessful.
“In first year I tried to organise quite a lot of things. I think the bigger thing is that I’m keen to get them done and get people involved. At the end of the day, if people show up, they show up, it’s on then to go to the events. If there is good events aligned and created for them, then naturally that'll get them towards them. "
Throughout our interview, Sherlock mentioned on a number of occasions that students should vote for him because he’s better than reopening nominations.
Sherlock’s emphasis is on events that can take place during the day, not just in the evenings. He mentions specifically that he’d like to bring the food trucks back to campus. “If you have the umbrellas over with the food trucks, that's entertainment, you're entertaining yourself by being with your friends.”
He says the three biggest issues facing students today are housing, transport issues and “I don’t know, vibes”. "People come on campus just to go to their lectures. You don't get college experience on campus. It's a communal thing that isn't there at the moment."
Throughout the interview, Sherlock took a lot of chances to mention that he’s apolitical. When pressed on the fact that he may have to engage in politics as an employee of the union, he said “Of course, if I’m a sabbat I’m supporting the other sabbats more than anything. If they support me, I’m going to support them.
When asked what he’s going to do to increase attendance at UCDSU events, he says it depends on the event. When pushed for more detail, he said he’s thinking of engagement as a five year plan. His events, which he plans to host this year such as a charity football league and cooking classes, are to lay the groundwork for future entertainment officers.
“If you're going to an SU event and you see that the SU are doing cool things, giving you cool food, you know, you're going to be more inclined to engage with other things. But on the whole, it's up to the students, not the SU to get engagement. We can put things in place for people to be more inclined to engage, but it is up to the people to engage.” When asked how he would respond if students weren’t engaging with his events, Sherlock said he would seek out feedback.
Sherlock was asked how he’d react to the union giving him a mandate he didn’t agree with. “It’s politics, you just have to take it on the chin. If I disagree with it, I will say so, I’m an apolitical person but I’m going into a political role so inherently I will have to stand my ground on things I disagree with”.
Regarding why students should vote for him over re-opening nominations (RON), Sherlock replied, “That’s their opinion.” Sherlock says that if students wanted to vote for RON, he would ask them for feedback. “Fundamentally, each person is their own person.”
Sherlock says he has spoken to the previous ENTs officer about the role. “I had a chat with her about what the role would entail and then I'm fairly friendly with Neo [2023/24 and 2024/25 UCD SU Entertainment Officer] as well.” Sherlock believes that this has “given [him] a sense of what’s to come,” but without being in the role him, he can’t “fully see what it would entail.” He continued, “But, I mean, it's just a role, it's a job, you get through it. It's 9 to five, with a little asterisks.”
We asked how he would get off to a good start, given his late start in the role. “Emails, emails emails. I’ll check with Lily about what she has in place right now. So, we’ll see if Lectures on the Rocks [a new SU event] is working, see what the engagement is like with that and then get a sense of is this working? Will we continue this?”.
He plans to email UCD Sports to set up the football league. When asked how he would deal with pushback on UCD sports not giving the pitches free of charge or failing to get enough food supplied for his cooking classes he says “The SU has money. There’s also the cultural funds. I’m not sure if they’re still in existence but when I was previously working with the SU each college gets a cultural fund, so you can use those, hopefully, to get a bit of cash”.
Voting in the sabbatical officer by-elections is open online from the 22nd to the 23rd of October. Results will be announced on the 24th of October.