In which things are just getting started…

My first three weeks as an NEC member have been pretty busy – there’s already been an Emergency NEC and one NEC proper, plus NEC induction just before our official “terms of office” started. In between all that I’ve been working two part-time jobs (one as a “Temporary Midday Supervisor,” and one as a cleaner at my local comprehensive), five days a week in order to save up some money for living in London next year. On top of that I’ve been up to Scotland for the G8 mobilisations, so it’s been a fairly hectic start. I guess I’m starting as I mean to go on, though, because I don’t intend to spend the next year sitting on my arse.

For anyone who doesn’t know me, I figure I better stick in a bit of an introduction. I’m from Nottingham, I’ve just finished my A-Levels, and I’ll be working part-time on the NEC during my gap-year. My interests include reading, music, film and organising for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by the working-class.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, I think I’ll say a few words about what I think these blogs are for and explain how I’ll be using mine over the coming year.

I don’t see this blog as the be-all and end-all of accountability. I don’t think it’s politically reprehensible if an NEC member doesn’t fill his or her blog in for a while if he or she’s been really busy working on a campaign. I also don’t think blogging is a substitute for more basic forms of accountability and participation in campaigns at the grassroots of the student movement. I don’t plan on spending my whole year bureaucratically wasting my time and then thinking it’ll all be okay as long as I tell people about it in my blog.

I do, however, think blogs are a useful extension of general democratic accountability and they’re a useful way for grassroots student activists (who might not see NEC members in the flesh very often) to check on what elected NUS representatives are doing with their time; whether they’re arguing for the political principles on which they were elected within NUS and whether they’re taking forward the campaigns they promised to in their manifestos.

To that end, expect to see reports of every NEC meeting I attend along with regular updates on my campaigning activity. Anyone with particularly keen eyes (and any Educationet visitors) who might be reading may have noticed that I’ve already got a blog running over at the Education Not for Sale (ENS) site. (For those not au fait with the current factional situation inside NUS, ENS is a group of left-wing, free education campaigners working to re-establish a grassroots activist network inside NUS following the collapse of initiatives like the Campaign for Free Education - CFE.)

It would be a waste of space to reproduce my previous blogs in their entirety here, so I’ll simply point out that reports of the NEC meeting on the 13th May and the National Council on the 1st June are available at www.free-education.org.uk/nus.shtml

(I’ll continue to blog there as well as here throughout 2005/2006.)

Retrospective reports of the Emergency NEC on the 6th July and the NEC on the 11th July will follow soon, both on this blog and on the ENS site. Until then, if anyone has any questions I’m contactable at daniel.randall@nus.org.uk

The next political event I’ll be attending will the training event for student activists organised by ENS and Students Against Sweatshops (the student wing of No Sweat), along with the University of East London SU Exec. It’s at the UEL Docklands campus on Saturday 3rd September (12-6pm) and if you’re interested in turning the NUS into a fighting, democratic union then you should come along. Get in touch for more details.

In solidarity –

Daniel Randall
NUS NEC

PS: There’s a fabulous mystery prize for anyone who can identify the origin of the quote that provides the title of this blog.

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