My last blog was as much an opening comment than anything else, this Blog aims to provide a bit more of a factual account of my work on the Blog thus far.

I have been allocated my zones and some responsibilities to go hand in hand with these areas. I am now working in the Society and Citizenship and Strong and Active Unions zones. So in some respect the inside and the outside of NUS and student unionism. I have also been assigned a seat on finance committee and the co convenor-ship of the Ethical and Environmental campaign. These are all welcome responsibilities and I have thus far relished the challenges that they have brought me. The main focus of the zone work to date has been to support lead officers in the delivery of campaigns plans.

My work has been framed within various confines/ areas of interest. As such I have been trying to get a sense of what has gone before me. Picking up the loose ends of projects that have been either long forgotten or long dead. Joe Rooney and I have been looking at the policy that we have in place to steer the Ethical and Environmental campaign in the right direction. It turns out – and I don’t think either of us was under any allusions of this – that there is a remarkable deficit with regards the amount of work that has been conducted by the E&E campaign over the past number of years.

Understanding that NUS is at the forefront a representative body for students and as such the resources are prioritised to that end, also understanding that with pressure of resource that NUS is facing, there will be no argument for me to see a growth in our small but representative budget.

So a deficit in policy, product and resource, what are we planning for the year and what have we done thus far.

First off we have kicked off some of the projects that have been hanging over the campaign for the past year. I took a paper to NEC about a joint project with Green Books. The aim of this project is to provide a resource in the form of a book to be made available to first years students in participating unions nationwide. These books provide a reference point for interested students to learn how they can reduce their impact on the environment and work positively with their fellow housemates to organise recycling, reduce water consumption and to give them ideas of what they should be asking for in halls of residence to help them lessen their impact.

We also passed policy to develop the environmental output of NUS. Reducing carbon emissions, energy waste, transport and better implementing sound sourcing of materials. This will be developed in a number of ways, NUS will take part in the Sound Impact Awards Scheme with NUS Services and will also develop and seek to implement a officer/ staff environmental charter to ensure officers and employees of the National Union are working to improve the positive environmental output of our National Union. From developing this policy we have partnered with NUS Services to deliver the Sound Impact award scheme to more students’ unions nationwide, if an officer from a students’ union is interested in taking part in the Sound Impact Award Scheme they should contact me on dave.charlesworth@nus.org.uk .

Joe and I are working to develop a manifesto for the E&E Campaign so we can frame the work that we conduct now and in the future. We have also booked some provisional dates for E&E conference. These projects are starting to take shape and I feel like I am getting closer to my full working capacity on NEC.

I have been to or will be attending the following meetings

Strong and Active Unions zone meeting

Society and Citizenship One meeting x2

An NEC meeting

Meeting with NUS Services E&E committee

NUS London regional meeting

Active Political Leadership Training 14th- 17th August

Finance Committee 18th August

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