I attended ULU Council as an observer – ULU rolls on, grinding out successes with the TFL discount scheme, partnered with the NUS and supporting the LSA as a key partner in its delivery. I was a ULU council member for 2 years and like many democratic mainstays within the movement it can be a bit of a circus.

November NEC meeting – I’m hell bent this year in dragging the scrutiny capacity of the NEC into better focus, asking some hard questions and some foolish ones – remembering the only stupid question is the one that isn’t asked. As ever, not an accountant among us we are scrutinising financial forecasts at a time when extra scrutiny is essential, the culture of scrutiny in this years NEC is improving and I think everyone understands that we all have a part to play in the delivery of a strong campaigning and financially sound national union.

I sat on the interview panel for a new management accountant – a critical staff position at a time when much needed financial reform is underway. As ever, it is vital that we have student representation on the panel, not just as a tokenistic position but to make sure candidates understand the pressures that the student representatives experience and how their role is critical in supporting them.

Finance Committee – areas of discussion included; the affiliation fee review and dealing with hardship requests. Finance committee recognise that every year it gets harder for SU’s to pay affiliation fees; this poses a massive risk to both unions and NUS. It is clear NUS needs to provide better support to SUs in their financial livelihood, I think there is some mileage in a future national treasurer committing to developing a financial health check scheme for student officers, to support them in recognise inefficiency and risk within their institution.

Finance committee hosted and Affiliation Fee review day at ULU – attended by about 70 people, giving our key funders the opportunity to shape the funding system for NUS and the scope of the work that we undertake.

The reality is that all the SU’s in attendance were keen on seeing a lowering of affiliation fees across the board. That message was clear, but why? The answer to that is clear; see my next blog on unions and financial wellbeing.

The only criticism I have of this process so far is that the tone of delivery from NUS has to change, cut out the history, get rid of the in jokes – change the culture of the way we operate.

Sound Impact Award Scheme – well over 50 unions signed up and credit is due to the environmental committee for pushing some of this on the ground as well as major thanks to the E&E committee at NUSSL and there support staff for making this happen.

NUS London – The LSA project has been agreed by the GLA, and as such the project is all go for February. There was a LSA project steering meeting in December that I was unable to make as I was on my way back from a holiday at Butlins. The bad news with NUS London is that the roof collapsed at our king’s offices and filled the office with effluence, a shame as we lost some really nice NUS history and not least because it is my one haven for NUS work in London and only 6 minutes from home on the train.

Environmental network day – held in late December, it had a pretty poor turnout due to many late cancellations but those that attended seemed to get a lot out of it. At this meeting a joint NUS/ P&P training day, focussing on targeted environmental reporting was tentatively agreed. If you would be interested in attending this event please get in touch with me.

December NEC – some big moves forward and for once I feel really upbeat about the future of the NUS, there is much work to do, and over the next 12 months there will be a lot of hard decisions to take and with them some genuine heart ache, the opportunity to do this can’t be missed.

Well that is me; sorry you had to wait a little while for it.

Best for 2007 Dave

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