News

The Otago Daily Times last week ran a heart-warming tale about 73-year-old Wakari resident Tony Brosnan getting some students around to do his housework.

Brosnan, who had read about the Student Life Scarfie Card programme that will launch next year, decided that he couldn’t wait that long to get his house in order, and cheekily rang up to see if he could get some student ‘volunteers’ around to tick off a few tasks. The ODT coverage had it all, even including a photo of student volunteer Maki Pattillo chopping wood. 
   The Scarfie Card scheme is unique in that it allows students to choose jobs they would like to volunteer for. Tasks are placed on the Scarfie Card website by people that require volunteers. All tasks have a brief description including their location and the time required for their completion. Students then accept the tasks they want to partake in. Student Life Director Aaron Thomson compared the Scarfie Card system to TradeMe, as participation is conditional on membership to the site. All members are assigned profiles enabling them to give feedback and be reviewed. Ideally this will stop people from taking advantage of the Scarfie Card services and 'free student labour'.
    Critic was impressed by Brosnan’s cunning ability to manipulate Student Life into providing help despite the scheme not actually starting till next year. The Critic office is an utter shithole at the moment, and as such Critic will be submitting a request for some Student Life slaves (volunteers) to come in and give the place a spring clean, and we had better not be discriminated against just because we’re not old.