Two weeks after the resignation of the past auditor, Eri Farrell, UCD DramSoc held a Special General Meeting in the Fitzgerald Chamber to elect the new editor for its 96th session.
The Special General Meeting was held at 2pm on Tuesday February 20th in the Fitzgerald Chamber. The emergency committee meeting was called two weeks after the resignation of ex-auditor Eri Farrell and saw two candidates vying to replace her.
The two candidates, Tech Manager Lizzy Verhs and Training and Development Officer Nathan Langlais are both UCD DramSoc veterans and considered their past experience with the society to be an asset during their speeches.
Notably, Verhs said: “I’ve supported the society as a Prostups Manager and have been there during its hard times including Covid and the theater closure”. They continued on to say: “I plan on hitting the ground running as auditor and getting the theater back up to code is one of my main priorities”. They placed great emphasis on the need to foster an environment where people want to be a part of the society and feel welcome.
Both candidates cited “insufficient communication between committee members and the auditor” as a previous point of friction they would like to see change under their jurisdiction.
In his address to the committee and attendees, Langlais exposed his plans to restructure some key DramSoc tenets. Namely he vowed to “Increase activity and reduce individual workload, create a committee wide calendar to stay up to date on upcoming events, place a greater emphasis on semester three show applications and set clear objectives and deadlines through committee brainstorming sessions weeks ahead of time for more efficient planning”.
When asked how he would fill the Training and Development Officer position, he answered: “I plan to have the position filled as soon as possible. I have asked someone to step up and after committee approval, my vacant position could be filled tomorrow”.
His allocation made it clear that he included committee members in his plans as he said: “As auditor I plan to set the foundations needed for the next session and make sure we don’t get lost and make use of the time we have efficiently”.
He vowed to bring “organization, confidence and communication” to the role of auditor and made clear how much he values all forms of feedback.
Speaking to The University Observer about his victory, he had to say: “ It’s a lot of pressure because we’ve already had someone who’s been trained to deal with all of this. There’s always inevitably going to be this fear of comparison but I trust in my friends and my committee members, so I feel confident that I’ll be able to represent them correctly because I have been on the committee myself. So with that experience in mind, I think I’ll be able to attend to their needs just because I know what they are because I’ve been there myself”.