November was definitely a month of conferences and campaigning. I hit the Regional Conference trail, on the West stream this time round, attending conferences in Roehampton (London), Bristol (South West), Wolverhampton (West Midlands – where I’m from – hurrah!) and Manchester (North West).

I left the North West regional a couple of hours early to attend my Sister’s graduation in Worcester, saw my family briefly and Jon (her husband), before catching the last train down to London ready for compositing. On the way back up I stopped off in Redditch and managed to squeeze in two days helping them move house before extraordinary conference in Wolverhampton.

On behalf of NUS I’ve done a fair amount of work with the British Youth Council (BYC), to which NUS is an affiliate. This month, I attended another meeting of the Democracy Commission where I’ve been helping to advise and lead their reform processes on becoming a more member-led and focused organisation.

Extraordinary Conference was quite exciting – I got to act as Chair’s Aide again and felt things went pretty smoothly on the whole. Having taken a speech on it last time around I was pleased to see that, along with some solid cost-saving reforms, Conference reaffirmed its recognition of Jaffa Cakes as cakes, and not biscuits.

Key dates from my diary this month…

• London Regional Conference (Roehampton)
• South West Regional Conference (Bristol)
• West Midlands Regional Conference (Wolverhampton)
• North West Regional Conference (Manchester)
• BYC Democracy Commission (London)
• Compositing (ULU)
• Extraordinary Conference (Wolverhampton)
• Welsh Winter Council (Aberystwyth)
• National Council (Birmingham)
• Visit to Exeter College SU
• NUS Services Focus Group (Macclesfield)
• St. Andrew’s Day March Against Racism (Glasgow)
• Edinburgh Referendum
• NEC Delegation Meeting (NUS HQ, London)

There’s been a fair bit of lobbying to do on different issues around NUS campaigning work and I’ve met with various different MPs where I have a genuine reason for talking to them about their constituency; either living in, or having a more permanent home in.

I’ve also been to an NUS Services focus group up at NUSSL HQ in Macclesfield – not just an opportunity to feed into the debate, but to learn some of the things that, as a member of the NUSSL Board, I simply don’t get to hear from people on the ground – particularly on the operational side of things.

Went to the St. Andrews day march against racism and fascism in Glasgow and met with delegates from Stirling University and Kilmarnock College who were also there – we marched through the centre of Glasgow and then went along to the post-march rally where we heard several speakers, including Mohammed Sarwar MP and others from the anti-racism movement.

The referendum in Edinburgh was great – followed by the fantastic result a couple of days ago. I spent several days making placards, banners, lamppost posters, distributing flyers, talking to students in bars, halls and everything else that a good referendum campaign requires. Days started around 5am and went on till about 3 the next morning.

I was a bit disappointed to miss the last day campaigning as I travelled down to Cardiff for the National Demonstration on the free overnight coach from Scotland. It was about 7am when we rolled into Cardiff, following very little sleep, sporadically taken and extremely uncomfortable, but it was well worth it to have been part of the campaign; I heard someone remark recently that the referendum result, if it was a ‘yes’ would… “change the face of student politics in Scotland” and from my experiences there; Scotland and our National Union will be stronger for Edinburgh’s reaffiliation.

The National Demo seems to have been a success, but I couldn’t get a proper feel for how it went on the day as I spent the majority of the time stewarding and then had to leave immediately after the rally to go to an NUS Services Board meeting in London.

The Blogs on this site represent the individual views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or practices of the National Union of Students.

All links in blogs will open in a new browser window.

The permanent URL for this specific blog entry is: http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/darrenjones/270653.aspx