Xenia Menzies Not Running

Sixteen days after launching her SFSS Presidential Exploratory Committee to gather feedback from friends and colleagues, Xenia Menzies announced that she would not be running in this year's SFSS elections.


Xenia made the announcement on Facebook on Monday, February 11. Gradually, news of her decision spread around the globe as her friends and supporters checked for new status updates. Yes, SFU politics are dramatic like that.

Xenia's decision apparently came after much thought and discussion with those around her. I must admit, I was surprised when Xenia asked me for my opinion on the matter a couple weeks ago. Although we've been in the same class and we seem to run into each other with increasing frequency at events around town, we don't know each other well. Maybe she was looking for an objective opinion. At any rate, I noted that she did quite well last year considering she was out of the country on exchange during the campaign. My advice was for her to take a Trudeau-esque "long walk in the snow" to sort things out.


It snowed. Did she take that walk? I don't know. But I do know that according to her message to the Exploratory Committee, she's ready to move on (after previously serving as Business Rep and twice unsuccessfully running for President) and feels that she can give just as much back to the SFU community as an alumnus as she could if she were in student government.

Although she feels the SFSS should be more efficient, less bureaucratic, and more transparent, she believes other candidates could do just as well as she could in bringing about those changes. In her announcement, Xenia was critical of the past two SFSS Presidents for being too far removed from the average student. Apparently concerned that further extending her time at SFU would too remove her from the average student, she decided against running again.


In my experience, Xenia is a great person. I like her. However, in the spirit of competition, I must point out that thanks to our crackerjack team of reporters, Instant Blog is the first VFM blog to break this story, even before Xenia's own VFM blog. Nevertheless, now that she's decided not to run, I have no doubt we'll be reading her take on the elections soon enough.

Patrick


Photos:
"No Running With Fish" by Tristram Brelstaff
"Footsteps" by John Haslam
Both photos used under Creative Commons Attribution license.
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