Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya aka EB!

a group is “a collection of individuals who, as a result of interacting with one another over time, become interdependent, developing shared patterns of behaviour and a collective identity”

Trenholm (2004)

if based on what Trenholm describes a group to be, i would say that i have been blessed to be able to think back now, and smugly tell everyone that i’ve been involved in a successful group communication; in my opinion. but what will the application of my coms knowledge say about it? before that, let me introduce…

The EBs of 2008/2009

we are most commonly known as EB, short for ELECTION BOARD. we are a neutral, task-oriented group, formed by the school in order to ensure that the election of the STUDENT COUNCIL is fair. basically, we are a group of students who help organise events and provide help to all the new, prospective candidates of the new student council each year. the main task that we have been set out to do was, to promote student council to the campus, while ensuring an impartial and unprejudiced election of the student council.

there were 18 of us in the group, each in charge of different parts, throughout the entire 3 month period of our service.

our group consisted of...

- 1 Chairperson
- 3 Vice-chairpersons
- 1 Secretary
- 1 Vice-secretary
- 1 Treasurer
- 2 Promotion leaders
- 2 Nomination leaders
- 2 Leadership Camp leaders
- 2 Fixed & Free Campaign leaders
- 2 Election Day leaders
- 1 Year-one Election Board coordinator

to start off, our chairperson is the leader of the group, often overseeing everything. if i were to assess her, i would probably say that she's the opinion seeker-encourager. habitually, during meetings, she will be the one who initiates the discussion by seeking opinions on the ways we could go about our tasks. and if we ever encounter problems along the way, she will be the one to encourage us not to give up with our task at hand.

then there are the 3 vice-chairpersons. i would say that having 3 vice-chairpersons is the weirdest part about our group. however, certainly it was formed that way for a reason. which was to maximise our group synergy and simultaneously, minimise our workload. to me, our vice-chairpersons consisted of the combinations, evaluator-harmoniser, energiser-standard setter, initiator-expediter.

the first vice is always evaluating the nature of our discussions and views, making sure we understood them well before settling for any, so as to not make any wrong decisions which could bring about an irreversible mistake. besides that, she is also the harmoniser in the group. whenever there are any expression of dissimilarities in opinions which could result in arguments, she will be the one who resolves it peacefully, preventing conflicts between us.

the second vice, will surely be the energiser of the group, always giving us the strength to continue when we need it most. he is also the standard-setter of our group, constantly ensuring that no matter how little time we had for our tasks, we should always abide by a certain standard.

as for the third vice, she has been the initiator every time. being an 'action' person, she's constantly the first to carry out all the decided plans, initiating the 'working mode' in us. not forgetting her expediter character in controlling the direction of all our discussions, making certain that it does not deviate, thus speeding up our discussion time, making us more efficient in completing our tasks.

as for the secretaries and treasurer alike, are recorders-compromisers. they are always there, to record everything. the secretaries, writing minutes of the meetings so that we do not forget the details of every idea. while the treasurer accounts all the expenses of our group, making sure that we do not overspend unnecessarily. they are also the compromisers in the group because they are always the few that listens to opinions and are ready to accept diverse approaches to the tasks, by contributing towards the completion process no matter what.

now, Promotion leader as mentioned before, promotes the Student council (SC) in order to encourage the new students to take the initiative to nominate themselves. they are to create posters, banners, film advertisements or any other way possible, to attract the attention of the new students to nominate themselves. below is an example of advertisements that i meant... but it's not from our year.

later, after the 2 weeks promotion period, Nomination leaders take over, by organising an interview session for all the nominees. after the interview, EB would proceed to eliminate nominees which have failed to meet all the stated requirements.

as soon as the list of nominees have been narrowed down, the Leadership camp leaders take over by continuing with the 3 days 2 nights camp where all the potential candidates are taught a thing or two about becoming a leader. during the camp, the current SC and also EB will silently appraise all the potential candidates, to shift out more outstanding ones, that show leadership qualities. at the end of the camp, more nominees will be eliminated based on their performance during the camp. from there, the freshly shortlisted students will be known as, candidates. following, is a picture from the camp...

upon returning from the camp, it will be the Fixed & Free campaign leaders' turn to organise a series of events to create opportunities for the candidates to present themselves to all the students, to earn votes.

once the period of 2 weeks of campaigning is up, Election leaders step in to organise the election day, overlooking every minor detail from the ballot papers to the arrangements of voting halls to the vote-counting, to see to it that the voting fair. then at the end of it, the 10 students chosen, will be elected formally as the new SC, in a Swearing-In ceremony.

throughout the entire period of the EB service, each leader will step into place, taking up the role of a chairperson to the rest of the group, consecutively. therefore, in the overall evaluation, these leaders will portray different roles in dissimilar tasks, giving every member a chance to contribute.

lastly, the Year-one EB coordinator, who is in charge of leading the year-ones who aspire to be the next EB following our retirement. of course, they would first need to contribute to the requirements of manpower in our organisation of events, and at the same time gather experiences so that they would be able to familiarise themselves with the job of an EB. which makes our year-one EB coordinator, a people person. unquestionably, this was the main reason he was chosen to take up this particular position in the first place, since he was required to manage a great deal of people, and make certain that they listened to him.

so you see, this must be a very strong combination right? and we dont even have symptoms of groupthink, i hope...

groupthink is “a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action”

Irving Jarvis

well, that was my personal experience of a group communication. so, what's yours?