Well as ever annual conference, was emotional, exhausting and full of highs and lows. Its always difficult to summarise the event, particularly when you have no sleep and it all passes in a bit of a blur, maybe sometime things are better left unsaid.

But I do have a few things to say in addition to posting my opening remarks, closing remarks and election speech on my blog.

Firstly, congratulations to everyone that got elected on to the NEC for next year, I hope you have an amazing year, we have lots and lots to do!

Secondly, absolute commiserations to my friend and fellow OI, Daryn McCombe, I am truly gutted for you and for NUS.

Thirdly, to say that despite any divisions that took place over conference, I hope that we can all move on and work on the things that unite us over this next year. This truly is the turning point for NUS.

My opening remarks to conference:

Good afternoon Conference, and welcome to Blackpool.

And a special welcome if you’re a first time delegate. As any of the old hacks in the room will tell you, Annual Conference is an extraordinary, remarkable, and sometimes very special week. My advice to you is this: come to the debates, go to some fringe meetings, make a speech; it’s up to you to make your first experience of this event important and memorable.

Some of you won’t come to Blackpool again, but many of you will be back – I promise you – time and again. So I also give a special welcome to all those old hacks. We need people in this movement who are committed to their activism, and dedicated to our causes, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the familiar faces this week, as much as the new ones.

And we have some people with us today who haven’t had the chance to come to Annual Conference before. In particular we welcome delegates from Imperial College London, for the first time since the nineteen seventies, who are waiting on the balcony for Conference to consider their application to rejoin the strongest collective of students in the world.

And so that collective becomes yet stronger today, just as it has been strengthened by the continued support in referendums this year of students at Surrey, Sussex, Royal Holloway, Birmingham, Bangor, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Cambridge, the University of the West of England and most recently just yesterday Strathclyde.

To delegates from all those places, I say with most conviction: welcome back to Blackpool. Because NUS must be united to survive. If not always united on the issues, if not always united on the strategy of our campaigns, then unity, at least, on the values and the ideals and the principles that guide us.

The purpose of these three days in Blackpool is to decide, as fairly and democratically as we can, our position on the things where we are not united. It can be a difficult and tiring process, as many of you know. But as the process takes its course, we are reassured by the knowledge that there are some things, some points of common judgment, which will always unite us. There are few of these, but they are the most valuable principles we have.

We stand for education to be accessible to all.

We call for the people in education to be safe, secure, and supported.

We defend the oppressed, and seek to deliver their liberation.

We believe our movement should be culturally, socially, and politically diverse.

We champion peace and security on our campuses, in our country, and across the world.

These things we always strive to do, often against the will of governments, often against the tide of public opinion, often when we disagree ourselves, about what they mean, about how to secure them, about the ordering of their importance.

So this week, as we do every year, we’ve come to Blackpool to argue and disagree. Don’t be afraid of it; embrace it. If you hear something from this platform you don’t agree with, don’t just sit there and stew about it; get up here and argue your case. If the debate becomes heated – and it will – don’t walk away believing we are hopelessly divided. If the position you voted for doesn’t win out, don’t blame corruption or factions or the process; go back to your seat and vote again. A division of view, expressed fairly and truthfully on both sides, and resolved democratically, isn’t something to be afraid of – it’s something to be proud of, now more than ever.

So lets look for a few moments at the issues that we will debate this year.

We’re going to decide what we really mean when we say ‘no platform’; does it encompass racism, as well as fascism? I have my view, but you should listen to the debate and make up your own mind.

We’re going to consider our position on higher education funding issues. This will be a contentious debate, and you need to think about whether a means test for student support is right and appropriate. Again, I have my own opinion, but you must listen to the debate and make up your own mind.

We’re going to talk about what the world should do about Africa. I don’t know the answers to that, and I suspect that neither do any of you, but we’re going to talk about it anyway, because we have an obligation not to talk about the relatively small problems of students in Britain without also talking about the plight of people in the world for whom formal education is a distant dream.

We’re going to discuss some of the most important issues today, those of faith and freedom within our education system. More than any other question facing us, those regarding the civil liberties of our membership are at the heart of our mission. But we must discover what this really means, and we will, in the course of the debate.

We’re going to decide whether NUS should have new officers for student activities and mature students. Some will argue that it’s too expensive for a national union in a financial crisis, and some will argue that you can’t put a price on representation. As ever, the arguments on both sides are valid, and it’s important that we have the debate about the way our organisation is run.

And it’s not just the way that NUS is run that’s important. We’ll talk this week about students’ union governance. The new ideas about best practice in representing students are exciting and challenging. But these ideas have significant and legitimate critics, and we will listen to the arguments on both sides.

And on NUS Extra, we will consider the outcomes of the project, and debate differing views on what should happen next. And, as ever, views will be expressed with which I do not agree. But I know those views will be honestly expressed. So the debate will be real, and we will know by the end that we have done justice to the opportunity to have it.

So these are the things that will dominate our week. I will be part of the debate, and so will you. We will reach some conclusions that many of you will disagree with. In fact, we will probably reach some conclusions that I won’t agree with. Because, in a very real way, this is your conference – the decisions you make won’t always meet with the approval of the leadership, they won’t always put a smile on my face. But I ask just one thing of each of you this week.

Whenever you take a speech, whenever you vote, please think carefully about the consequences. Think about the likely costs involved, think about whether the measure you’re voting for will distract from our most important priorities, think about the practicalities of whatever you support.

continued in part II

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