Monday 23rd I was in the Regions and Development meeting all day, updating on the Participate Priority Campaign and the Year of Change Project and discussing the development of the National Training Programmes. The Participate Campaign has several activities this term, a Pledge Day on the 13th February and the Activities Walk in on the 22nd March, we will also be meeting Bill Rammell to deliver all the postcards students have been filling in about EMA’s and Time, Facilities and Funding for student activities from institutions. For more info about the campaign visit www.officeronline.co.uk/campaignsupport/participate/271340.aspx

Ellie Russell also attended and updated on the FE Priority Campaign and the “loud and clear” Lobby on the 15th February to find out more visit http://www.officeronline.co.uk/fe. Its really important that both FE and HE students and student officers attend, we have a real opportunity to make a huge difference to the lives of students in the further education sector thanks to the hard work of so many in NUS.

On Tuesday I had a National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship/NUS working group…

“The National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) was formed in 2004 with the aim of raising the profile of entrepreneurship and the option of starting your own business as a career choice amongst students and graduates.

By understanding the circumstances in which graduate entrepreneurship can flourish, NCGE's goal is to influence, and inspire, an increase in the number of students and graduates who give serious thought to self-employment or business start-up. The Council, which is based in Birmingham, is not only focused on graduates starting businesses, but understanding, developing and promoting a culture of entrepreneurship within Higher Education through research, education and facilitation. NCGE aims to become the national focal point for graduate entrepreneurship and will collaborate with bodies across the UK.”

www.ncge.org.uk

There is much work going on in Students’ Unions throughout the UK on Entrepreneurship and we brought several staff members and student officers from FE and HE together to talk about the ways in which we can progress this agenda in Students’ Unions. NUS believes that Students’ Unions are best placed to run all forms of student activities and student development and as such really want to ensure that the employability agenda is linked in with the entrepreneurship agenda in Unions. Interestingly NCGE also do a number of research projects and have an ability to influence Government policy. I am going to set up a meeting with relevant staff in NUS with the NCGE and look at what policy areas we could work on together.

Wednesday 25th was spent in the office, again, working on regional conference presentations and responding to emails and phone calls. Thursday I had an interesting and somewhat overwhelming experience, I attended LSE’s UGM with Kat. She had been asked to speak to their meeting about NUS, the work we are carrying out and the campaigning work we are doing. Now, I admire a Union that can hold a quorate general meeting weekly but had heard some stories about things being thrown at speakers, heckling and jeering and ejecting people from the meetings, so I was slightly intrigued as to what would happen. Check out photos here: www.lsesu.com/main/representation/ugm

Kat did excellently and got nothing thrown at her! Some other speakers were not so lucky! Thank you to Chris and Rishi for letting me observe. Issues discussed included campaigning to rename Tower 1, Tower 2 and Tower 3 (built on the site of the suffragettes headquarters) after three suffragettes instead, sabbatical and officer reports, and India week celebrations. There were numerous motions that fell off the agenda including one about the Thames Whale.

Thursday afternoon I traveled to Cardiff for Holocaust Memorial Day with a number of my NEC colleagues.

“Holocaust Memorial Day is about both the past and the present. It is about commemorating and continuing to learn from the events of the Holocaust, and about relating those lessons to the ever-changing world around us”
www.hmd.org.uk

I was deeply moved by the stories, music, films and readings that we saw. The theme for this year was the courage of the individuals or groups of people, the rescuers, that put their own lives at risk to help the persecuted Jewish, LGBT, disabled, Roma and other communities during WWII. www.hmd.org.uk/2006theme/default.asp

When we got into the Taxi at the end of the night to go to the Station, the taxi driver told us a story that horrified me, he said that two 20-22 year old women got in his taxi earlier on in the evening and enquired as to what event was happening at the Millennium Centre and why the roads were closed, he replied that it was a HMD event. They then said, “What is the holocaust?”

That is why these events are necessary, to be reminded and re-educated about the horrific events, to be reminded of the displaced children, the entire Jewish communities that were destroyed and the bravery of thousands of people who did not turn a blind eye to the atrocities is vital to ensure we do not forget, that we do not let it happen again.

There was also focus on Rwanda and Darfur, and the lack of help that the rest of the world offered in Rwanda until it was really too late. The situation in Darfur is still continuing yet the eyes of the world are still turned away. It is very easy to say “never again” or “we mustn’t forget” but over the past two years more than 400,000 men, women and children have died and another 2.5 million people have been forced to leave their homes and communities in Darfur and only two days ago Kofi Annan declared that the crisis has worsened: www.miami.com

Students have always campaigned on internationalist issues, NUS was founded as a peace movement after WWI and students can have a real impact on word events. The student movement could have a real impact, for more information on how you can help visit. www.savedarfur.org, let us mean it when we say “never again”

Friday 27th I took a days annual leave as it was the close of nominations. I handed in my manifesto for National President.

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