Our day in Manchester started at different times. As usual, Wes sacrificed breakfast for an extra hour in bed while Gemma stocked up with eggs on toast.

We dropped in Manchester Uni to deliver some drinks mats to Patrick, the UMSU campaigns officer and then drove straight to Salford University to start another day of demo building.

We arrived on time, which was just as well since we were met by two dedicated, hard working and eager part-time officers, Ben and Alan (though we question just how part-time they are with the hours they’re putting in to this campaign!), to get the campaign started at Salford. Gemma met with Andy, the SU president, for a catch up while Wes set up the stall in the foyer with Alan and Ben. We were really chuffed to find that we were on the front page as the leading story in the student paper. Fatima, the comms sabb, seems to be doing a brilliant job with Student Direct up at Salford.

Opposite our stall was the union’s own promotional stall for the ‘Union Roadshow’ they’re running – a great initiative to raise awareness amongst new and existing students about what the union does and what the union could do to support its members. This is in advance of a major governance review that the union will be undertaking during the coming months.

After a bit of a stodgy lunch, we went on to Royal Northern College of Music to drop off some campaign materials, including those oft-cited drinks mats! Then to Man Met, where their imaginative campaign around the demo is beginning to really take hold. Similar story to before: working the bar, running a stall but this time also building interest for a planning meeting later that day where we spoke to activists who wanted to play a bigger part in building support locally. We generated a lot of practical ideas and spoke about the harsh realities of the new system! A good campaign team is key to building a successful campaign – more info on this can be found on the Campaign Toolkit CD-ROM.

We were really struck by just how united the Exec were and how far they’d taken this on as a priority as a team – not just a campaign for the president or the education officer, but a campaign led by everyone. Good work Man Met!

After the meeting, we put some money back into the union by having our dinner there. To be honest though, we didn’t put much money in because it was so dirt cheap. And good quality too!!! Kiev for Wes, fish burger for Gemma!

We then drove down to Liverpool where we were spending the night before hitting the campaign trail the next day. Now, this is where it gets a bit interesting… We’ve been very good on this roadshow, but we’ve not had a chance to unwind and chill out. We made up for it in one go! A quiet drink with the Liverpool Guild sabbs in John Moores’ union, led to a full-on night on the tiles, complete with cutting some interesting shapes on the dance floor and busting some dodgy moves as if we were John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. It seemed like a good idea at the time, just like the dodgy chicken and chips we were eating at 4am. We really must thank Carly, Alan and Adam for seeing us through til the very end and constantly rising to our requests for ‘just one more’ again and again. And again. Ouch. What would Veronica say?!

Over and out for the count,

Gemma and Wes

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