Day two of the Admission: Impossible campaign roadshow kicked off with a horrendously early start.

Wes left home at 6.45am in order to arrive at Gemma’s house an hour later, where a fully loaded, smaller (and undented) campaign battle van was waiting. It’s fair to say that neither looked their best at such an unsociable hour, but the Admission: Impossible hoodies provided warmth and comfort to take them on the long drive up to Sheffield where an active day of campaigning began.

After being ripped off with a £3.99 bacon butty from an over-rated service station, Wes was made slightly giddy by Gemma’s repeated circuits around the ring round circling the University of Sheffield Union, where we eventually parked on the concourse outside to begin rallying the troops. Mark Ansell, the Union’s Education Officer, was on hand to help and provided a much needed brew. We were also joined by a couple of student activists from the Union’s Respect Society, which was much appreciated and helped get the message out.

Gemma and Wes spent a good few hours flyering, haranguing and harassing students into joining us on the demo. Wes’ voice was a bit worse for wear after competing (with a megaphone) with a clubnight promotion, volunteering fair and Socialist Students, who sported our stickers! We also got the Nightline Mascots (a sheep and a penguin) on board with the campaign!

Following a fleeting visit from ‘rank and file’ activist Daniel Randall (NEC 2005-6), who is now a Fresher at Sheffield Uni, the difficult part of the journey was navigating the van out from the busy lunchtime crowd to head over to Hallam. Given that the horn appeared to be defective and given Gemma’s track record with campaign vans, Wes was forced to lean out of the window with the megaphone to warn passers by that their lives were in danger as Gemma shrieked with fear at the possibility that she might run over a student on their way to buying an NUS Extra card. Perish the thought!

After again navigating the streets of Sheffield we arrived at Hallam’s swanky spaceship-like students’ union where we received a warm welcome from Fiona and some of the other sabbs. We wasted no time in setting up our Admission: Impossible stall complete with posters, flyers and stickers and Fiona got the bar staff to cover the bar in our drinks mats. We were disappointed that Hallam was one of the unions affected by the late arrival of materials and had therefore found it difficult to mobilise so far. This was particularly frustrating for us, as we’d worked so hard to make sure that the materials had been sent off to the printers in good time for freshers.

Still, thanks to Jon – the Equal Opps Officer – we had a thoroughly rewarding afternoon going door to door meeting first year students in their halls. Not only did we find it useful talking directly to students, but we saw first hand how angry first years were at the prospect of soaring levels of debt and the mere idea that it could worsen in future years. It reassured us that what we’ve been saying is right: mobilising freshers is the key to making this campaign a success. We also discovered some of the flaws in the system, hearing about how late student loans and complex bursaries’ packages had proven to be a minefield for our new members.

We did this for the best part of the afternoon before rescuing the Union’s president Lisa from her horrendous workload. It’s such a busy time of year for everyone and we really appreciated the time that Mark, Fiona, Lisa and Jon took out from their jam-packed schedules.

We didn’t leave before putting some money back into the union with some dinner and (soft) drinks before heading off in the van to York for the night. It took a while to find our accommodation (in some student halls at York Uni). This time it was definitely the AA routemaster. Wes felt vindicated. Gemma felt vindictive, but once we found our temporary home, we settled down for a bit of telly and a bottle of white wine to write our daily update. Please note that at £3.99, the bottle of vinegar masquerading as wine cost the same as Wes’ overpriced bacon sandwich!

Tired, but fired up, we loved our second day working with officers, talking with students, working to make this national demo and this campaign the success it needs to be.

Maybe tomorrow, we’ll wanna settle down. Until tomorrow, we’ll just keep movin’ on.

Tune in for the next edition of the Roadshow update tomorrow.

Until then,

Gemma and Wes

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