Meet StuCo Members 2023
Newly-elected Co-Presidents Sophia Keng (left) and Shahreen Chowdhury (right) | Photo Credit: Katja Radovic-Jonsson
After weeks of campaigning, Hamberites have elected their Student Council members for the 2023/24 school year, with winning candidates ready to take on the responsibility and represent student’s voices.
“I’ve always wanted to be on [Student Council] and this was my last year to do something, and I figured I want to be a leader, so Grad Chair was the best position,” said Grad Chair-elect Nina Mazzucco (11).
Mazzucco will be working alongside Grad Committee members Sidonie Lee (11), Ava Low (11), Kayla Szilagyi (11), Amy Tran (11), and Melissa Xie (11) to host grad events, such as Prom and Grad Karaoke. “Especially since it’s our last year, I would like to be the one to organize a lot of these events,” she added.
Several other elected members have ideas for what they want to accomplish. As next year’s StuCo treasurer, Daniel Choi (10) expressed that he wanted to “satisfy a lot of club funding,” starting with clubs that were not receiving any money.
Arianna Tham (11), elected as next year’s Student Council Social Coordinator, looks forward to bringing back events hosted by StuCo in the past and generating new ideas for events to make next year memorable for all students.
Kae Lin Whiton (10), elected as next year’s Director of Communications (DOC), is excited about her new role. “I used to do PA in elementary and I found it really fun and I like to connect to my community in that way,” she explained. “I thought if I ran for [DOC] this year I would get the same pleasure out of it.”
Next year’s Vice-President Arabella Mew (10), will be working alongside the co-presidents in a leadership position and assisting with planning and organizing Student Council functions.
“There’s definitely a side to these Student Councils that aren’t acknowledged as much, which is about the advocacy role you play, and I think my experience on the [Vancouver] District Student Council (VDSC) is going to be very beneficial,” explained Mew.
Mackenzie Chung (10) echoed that statement, as she served as the VDSC Secretary for the 2022/23 school year. Chung, who was elected as Secretary for next year’s Student Council, revealed that both she and Mew had wanted to run for Secretary. “[We] didn’t want to run for the same position, so we had to coordinate it so [we] weren’t fighting each other,” said Chung.
Co-Presidents Sophia Keng (11) and Shahreen Chowdhury (11) are already planning large-scale events at Hamber next year. “One thing that we’re really focusing on is having less events that don’t have a lot of engagement, and focusing on a lot of events that people want to see,” Chowdhury stated, listing Hamber’s Haunted House, a school dance, Canley Cup, and Carfreenival as the main events that will be hosted next year.
“Our goal is to get more students involved in Student Council and [know] what we actually do,” explained Keng, “cause no one knows [and] we do a lot.”