Mondays are not my favourite day at the best of times but when there is an NEC meeting on a Monday it suddenly feels like an even worse prospect. I generally wake up on the mornings of NEC meetings with an impending sense of doom, but this morning wasn’t too bad, I knew I’d organised all the papers, the emergency motions, had copies on blue paper and had stuff in large print, I knew I was organised. I went into the office early to pick up the papers and then headed over to Camden Town Hall for the start of the meeting, everyone seemed in reasonably good spirits and we waited for a few people to arrive before getting started.

We signed off a bank mandate, we discussed the International Student’s Festival which in principle seems like a good idea but in practice I’ve had some reservations. I was particularly worried about the financial liability and the fact that it seems that the International Student’s Officer has asked Principals and Vice Chancellors for money towards this project without letting the unions know first. There has never been any clarity on who exactly is co-ordinating this festival and where the money is going and why non-affiliates are involved (if this is an NUS project) the list of questions was as long as my arm! The NEC decided to say that no longer can this be a project organised by NUS but we can support it in name, I abstained on this vote because although I like the idea I wanted to see that we have drafted up and signed with Benson an agreement that assures NUS has no financial liability for the event should it go wrong.

We then moved onto the priority campaigns and campaigns launch update and this is where I felt like pulling my hair out, I would have rather been sticking needles in my own eyes than having an argument with the NEC about a national demonstration.

In my recollection, conference voted to remove the parts of the motion that called for a demonstration, in my mind a demonstration in September 2006 when top-up fees come in would be more worthwhile and in my opinion having a demo for the sake of having a demo does not make good campaign strategy sense nor does it make financial sense. However the NEC voted to have a National Demonstration and in the spirit of collectivism I will stand by that decision, and if that’s what our members want us to do then I will wholeheartedly mobilise people for this demo and swallow the fact that the money for a demo would have to come from all other campaigning areas across the organisation. The fact that I voiced my opposition to having a demo doesn’t mean I don’t believe in free education, it doesn’t mean that I’m right wing it just means I believe that we need to be more creative with our campaigning and that sometimes a march through London is not the be all and end all of a campaign.

For the record, I voted firstly that we should wait for the campaigns team to cost up some options for mass mobilisation and creative ideas of mass campaigning and decide these via email, but I think this was far too sensible for the majority of the NEC and it got voted down. Heaven forbid we wait for the facts about finance, where the money is going to come from and what other options we have before making a decision! We then had a vote on the “principle” of having a demo for which obviously most people were in favour, we then voted on having an actual demo and it went through. I abstained on this vote as I believe that we couldn’t vote on having such a mass piece of action without consultation with the members and without knowing the resource implications for the organisation…also the question remains, what piece of legislation are we fighting? What would be the slogan or the point? Are we not better to spend the summer building for a massive demo in September 2006? I wanted to let our professional staff do their job before making such a massive decision.

But no…we are having a National Demonstration.

We also did not get on to discussing all the motions that people had submitted but we did have a discussion on whether we agree with Tony Blair’s plans to proscribe certain organisations because Kat keeps getting asked for comments from the press and wanted an NEC decision on it.

I was shattered after such an emotional day and needed a large glass of wine!

The rest of the week I spent a day in Leicester for Public Speaking Training, a day in Leeds visiting Trinity and All Saints College and Leeds Metropolitan University and another day recruiting!

At the weekend I finally moved into my new flat after weeks and weeks staying with a friend (thank you Hannah!) and it was a relief that I finally can unpack and have my own space! On bank holiday Monday I went to the Notting Hill Carnival and I had an amazing day, I have never been and I thought it was great!

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