Photo provided by Stephanie Spagnuolo
Scarlet and Gold Commissioner candidate, Stephanie Spagnuolo tells The Strand about her plans if elected, and future plans to maintain a successful Highball.
The Strand: Can you tell us why you chose to run for this position?
Stephanie Spagnuolo: I really like getting involved on campus, I have been getting involved since my first year. I’ve never been on VUSAC before, its something I’ve tried to do in the past and I think now would be a good time to take on a position. I think that I found the position that spoke the most to me was Scarlet and Gold, based on prior experience, it’s something I really like to do – plan events– and I have experience doing that with orientation and WinterFest. It was something that I found I’m good at and enjoy doing at the same time. [Scarlet and Gold] is a way of staying involved in the Vic community and trying to improve it, and make it something that I can be proud of, and others can be proud of as well—and make events that speak to that.
TS: How do you plan to engage the Vic community more in the scarlet and gold commission?
SS: Our events are typically traditional, from the last couple years. Everyone typically knows what event is coming up if you’re an upper year student, and I find that a lot of first year students don’t really know what they are getting into, and people’s interests change. So one thing I was going to bring into this portfolio is asking for insight from Vic community by sending out Google forms about what they want to see in events. Then taking that and making my events from that—taking what we usually have and then maybe adding a couple other ones that are more targeted at a different personality type. Similar to how you have orientation week events that are more high-key and more low-energy, and you find your stride in that environment. I will try to do more “low energy” events that still have a lot of time and energy going into them but will target a different personality type that doesn’t get privileged.
TS: Would this be changing the current events to be more low key or would it be an addition?
SS: It would be an addition. I am also thinking of adding two events that are rather high energy, like highball or semi, and adding decompression rooms. So that sometimes people with social anxiety disorders, if you know you are going to have a space that is private, that is monitored by, say, dons, so its safe and you can go there, decompress, breathe, take a breath from people being around all the time. Adding those types of safety places that are there for people so that they can feel more comfortable coming to events.
TS: What is one thing on the current Scarlet and Gold portfolio that you would like to change and keep?
SS: I really liked what Zahavah did this year with getting a lot of people able to go to highball based on pure mass numbers of tickets. I want to keep a lot of people able to go. I might try to bring back dinner tickets so that people can pick and choose so that you can have a discounted ticket for people who choose to come later; more accessible for different price points. I would want to keep the google form sign in for ticket reservations. I thought it made it much more organized for an event that a lot of people want to go to.
