What we do together is amazing. Providing advice to students, supporting thousands to participate in sport, empowering young people to change the world around them, changing local communities for the better and campaigning against injustice. Day after day, week after week, year after year, we are transforming the lives of students for the better.

But there is frustration amongst student officers. Frustration that the pace of change isn’t quick enough, that there are too many resources focused on commercial areas and that campaigns and representation are seen as the sole responsibility of student officers. This frustration is far too evident, and leads to the student movement forgetting what it’s here to do.

My thoughts about the role of students’ unions and the role of the national student movement are fairly well publicised, but going forward it’s not just about what we think needs to be done today, it’s recognising where we will be in ten years’ time. Will the concept of students’ unions change?

Our success will be defined by our need to effectively campaign on behalf of students and ensure we are enabling them to represent themselves. If we can’t do this, why bother?

The responsibility to change doesn’t just come from some students elected each spring. From porters and bar staff to general managers and NUS National President, we all need to create opportunities so that our organisations are able to take bold, decisive decisions.

Don’t get me wrong. I know I am speaking to the converted. Chances are that if you have read down this far, you’ll be fairly interested in what we can achieve together, but we all know there are some who are not willing to change.

The time has come where it isn’t just good enough for us to change our own organisations and show our best practice. We now have a responsibility to change each other.

Lots of questions and too few answers, but that’s not always a bad thing.

We are taking action nationally. We know there shouldn’t be three separate national organisations with different mission statements and objectives. These need to be aligned for your benefit. Difficult discussions have already been had and will continue but, it doesn’t begin and end at a national level.

Any changes we make today must make it easier for our successors to be bolder and more able to take difficult decisions than ever before.

As we change what we do, its not just about being more operationally effective, its about having organisations which transform the lives of every student, not just the ones that turn up to see The Chuckle Brothers on a Wednesday night.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for supporting a student movement which has changed my life over the last four years.

Bye

dave x

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