Hello, and welcome to my new NUS blog! Despite having blogging facilities available, I’ve never managed to successfully complete the process in a more than sporadic manner. However this year that is changing; I am determined through the medium of officeronline, and nus.org.uk (coming 4 August), to provide up-to-date accounts of my life and works! I am also anxious not to just post my diary on a weekly basis (despite how exciting that would be), so forgive me if I try and go off-piste as often as possible.

Since taking office at the start of July, all manner of weird and exciting things have happened to me, ranging from a residential at Warwick to finding my new email address came with more than 300 emails already waiting for me.

But, back in the real world, I was lucky enough to attend the Loughborough informal; a handover from new to old officers. It was great to get to meet new officers from unions which varied from NEWI (North East Wales Institute) to York Saint John. It was great to see the bounding optimism of the incoming officers, and listening to their plans for the coming year. It was also amusing to see the outgoing sabbs smiling nostalgically, no doubt remembering this time last year when they were full of the same enthusiasm. However, from Bangor to Liverpool Hope, I was very impressed by the levels of handover occurring and I can see some real prospect for improvements within institutions this year.

I was very clear during my election that I wish to visit Scotland once a month to make sure that Scottish student associations get the full benefit from being members of NUS UK, and I have begun to meet that commitment this week; visiting NUS Scotland HQ to discuss how best to utilise my involvement. If you are an officer in Scotland and would like a visit then please just give me a bell.

So it’s over and out from blog number one. More to follow (as soon as I get round to writing the imaginatively titled blog two), but as ever please get in touch if there’s anything you want to discuss.

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