I know why I am involved in this National Union! But every now and again I feel that the mountain of change is just too big, but quickly realise that we are climbing and that’s all that matters!

Regional Receptions

I attended the North and London regional reception.

On my way to London regional I managed to walk out of the station and get hopelessly lost although the Kings College union was straight in front of me! It was a day to that went from one thing to another. Halfway through the Endsleigh presentation there was a fire alarm that had been sounding for about 10 minutes before we could hear it and leave the building.

It was great to meet the new officers in both regions and talk to them about what their plans are for this year to come. We had a lot of group work and the officers had a chance to let us know how we can help them out in their campus. Plenty of ideas came out and I will be working with these officers on the great ideas that they generated.

Lets talk NUS and anti-social behaviour

Went to Staffordshire University Students Union with Paul Butters WMANUS convenor to give them an introduction to NUS and WMANUS. They are a very enthusiastic bunch and had so many questions to ask about NUS, WMANUS which was great. I wish them the very best while they are at Staffordshire Union this year. Good luck guys! ?

I attended the launch of a study that was conducted by BYC and Youthnet around the perceptions of anti-social behaviour and young people in society by youths themselves, this was at the houses of commons. The study revealed expected results, well to at least myself anyway. 1030 young people and the conclusions were formed from the answers of 747.

Some of the quotes that came out were:

“You cannot judge a group of people by a few that you see on the streets”

“Media is a very powerful tool and influences the way older people view us, and therefore treat young people”

“Older people fear me, I don’t know why; I’m a teenage girl who wears baggy clothes. Who cares, why should it make a difference?

I thought that the only downfall of this study was that the idea of anti-social behaviour not only is it attached to the young community but also quite focused on the BME community. But sadly the demographics of the young people asked did not reflect this! Only 6% from the BME community were asked in this study what their perceptions were on anti-social behaviour and them as youths in the community.

British Youth Council

Youth Net

Welfare and Strong and active Unions

I attended my first zone meetings. All NEC work is being done in the four zones of conference. Strong and Active Unions, Welfare and Student rights, Education and Society and Citizenship.

I sit in the Welfare and Student rights and the Strong and active Unions zone. These meetings were to form a priority campaign for the zone.

To find out what the priority campaign for the two zones are come along to the campaigns launch September 6th Birmingham NEC

See you there!

NEC

It was our first official NEC meeting which took place at ULU. It was a six hour meeting that was very productive and action-packed.

I submitted my first motion on safeguarding the right to a fair trial. Although the motion was brought about by the case of the NatWest 3. I think that it is important that no matter what country you are in this world you should feel safe that you are under the watchful eye that your country of origin and you will be protected from any injustices that face you. In this case it has not happened! 13 people before ‘The NatWest 3’ have been shipped off to the USA as part of this ropey extradition agreement which hasn’t even been ratified in the US senate!............. Imagine that!

The motion, passed if I remember unanimously!

I gave the background of ‘One’ water in my last blog Stephen and I took a motion about how the students movement can really change lives in Southern Africa.

I feel that this is something that we can all get involved with and the changes that we can make are incredible!

NPC

I am really interested in the issues postgraduates face. This is something that is not often mentioned at all. So I attended National Postgraduate Committee Conference with Wes Streeting VP Education. We arrived in Aston Business school conference centre after our NEC meeting and were greeting by the outgoing communications officer who I think it is fair to say mis judged his audience in terms of what he had to say to us and really wasn’t interested in the idea of ‘Safe Space’.

As we arrived quite late we thought we’d spend the rest of the evening chatting to the other delegates and catching up on what the day had been like.

The next morning and the day before elections I sat at breakfast with one of the candidates going for General Sec of NPC and asked him a few questions about himself, why he was running and does he feel that NPC had credibility as he admitted that they do not have many postgraduates engaged and the conference itself was a very small size. I have to admit all were answered well and there was also a strategy to change behind it.

One of the sessions that I attended was one about engaging postgraduates and their student experience. This tool seemed that it would be very useful for Unions to lobby their institutions to have in order to get a great student experience for postgraduates that are all too often forgotten about.

Elections at NPC were interesting, interesting being the blandest word to describe the events that took place here.

During the election of chairperson a question was asked and the candidates gave quite sexist answers which were challenged quite rightly and before long the room had lost control.

When one delegate said that a sexist comment is ok to be made because the person, who said it was gay, it has to be the most stupid thing that I have heard in a long time!

I for one am a person who will stand up for what I believe. I believe in equality.

I don’t think that because you define as one minority or liberation group that that automatically gives you a ticket to make derogatory comments and hide behind your race, sex, sexuality etc. That’s just wrong!!

Although I was so aware that peoples views are different to mine, it was still for some reason a bit of a shock to get that reality check. But at the same time it strengthens my determination to do what I am doing and get the job done!

The room soon came to order but the damage was done. RON won that election!

On a brighter note a highlight of (sorry Wes) of NPC conference was finding Wes Streeting hiding behind some decking outside as he was being chased by the likes of Tim Roll-Pickering in an attempt to get him to take part in the evening activities!

The conference as a whole was interesting and I have never been to anything like that before. I believe that the right people duly won their elections and I’m going to look forward to working with NPC this year and getting some great wins for postgrads.

I know why I am involved in this National Union, but every now and again I feel that the mountain of change is too big but quickly realise that we are climbing and that’s all that matters!

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