New Year, New Campaigns, New Officers

I was really looking forward to the first NEC meeting of the year on July 1st. While I was slightly sad to be ending my year as National Women’s Officer I was looking forward to my new role as VP Education and taking a lead on the Education Priority Campaign. The meeting was going well until the National Director came in to let us know that the HE bill which we had all been campaigning against for so long had passed through the House of Lords and onto the statute books. I was absolutely gutted and so very disappointed for all the thousands of students who had fought so hard all year against this damaging piece of legislation. After drafting a press release with Kat we headed back to the meeting totally deflated but with renewed belief in making this year priority campaigns the best they can be, driving forward NUS’ profile as a campaigning organisation that puts students first and pushes Education to the top of the political agenda.

At this meeting I was allocated the following responsibilities:

• Co-Convenor Education Priority Campaign
• Convenor of Education Team
• Co-convenor International Students Team
• Co-Convenor Equal Opportunities Team
• ESIB (Union of National Students Unions in Europe)
• Member of Internationalism Team

The next day after a day in the office I headed down to Royal Holloway with Kat to the ULU residential training. This is a weekend long event open to all student officers from University of London colleges. This was a great opportunity to meet many of the new officers and to get to know more about ULU and the colleges within it. It was also our first opportunity to talk directly to officers about our plans for the priority campaigns that we had decided on in our first NEC meeting.

Introductions and Campaign Planning

On Monday the 5th I headed up to Birmingham for the Aldwych Group handover meeting. Aldwych is a group of Student Officers from the Russell Group Universities who meet every few months to discuss issues of common interest. Again it was great to meet many of the officers I will be working with over the year and to introduce them to NUS and our campaigns. We had discussions about a number of things including the level of tuition fees being set for 2006 and the provision of bursaries. It is anticipated that all Russell Group institutions will be setting the maximum fee level.

I was quite shocked by the lack of women present at the meeting. We really were in a minority. There appeared to be a will amongst the group to address this and I hope that they will work with the National Women’s Officer on this.

After an entertaining evening out in Birmingham I got up the next day and made my way up to York for the North East Regional Reception before heading to Lincoln on Wednesday for the East Mids reception. These were, as always, great events.

The week ended with a priority campaign planning day. We invited a consultant to meet with us to get down to the nitty gritty of the campaign. Relevant staff and the whole NEC were invited, although few NEC were able to attend due to other commitments. By the end of the day we had really focused our minds on what our aims and objectives were, what our key messages are and who are key audiences are. While this was just the start of the process I ended the day feeling really positive and excited about the campaigning year ahead.

East Anglia, HE Academy, Liberation and Schools

July 12th was the last of the Regional receptions I was allocated to in my former region, East Anglia. I found all of the regional receptions really motivating. It’s great to know that there enthusiastic officers all over the country with so many plans and ideas ready to get involved in the work NUS is doing.

The next day I attended my first board meeting as a Director of the Higher Education Academy. This is a new body set up to promote good practise in teaching in Higher Education. All new teachers in HE will have to be trained and this body is responsible for making sure this happens. As it is a very new organisation most of what was discussed was about procedures and administration.

On the 14th I headed up to Leeds for Liberation 2004. Much of the planning of this had been done while I was National Women’s Officer and it was great to see that it was a success. This event grows and develops each year and I hope that it will continue to do so into the future. Our Liberation Campaigns are so important to the principles behind NUS it is essential to give students and student officers the opportunity to find out more about them and how they can support or establish local liberation groups.

This week as well as catching up on a huge number of emails and working on some of my on-going projects (e.g. QAA, Priority Campaign, preparing for Convention etc.) I also met with representatives from the English Secondary Students' Association (ESSA). This is a new body that has been established to represent the views of school students and help to develop school councils at a local level. I answered a lot of their questions about the work we do and how we are structured as well as find out about their plans. I am still in touch with ESSA and it will be interesting to see how this body develops.

Off to Snowdonia and back to Leeds

That weekend I made my way over Snowdonia, a stunning National Park in North Wales, where I had been invited to attend the Luton Exec training by the out-going President. It was a great to be able to go into detail with the officers about what NUS does as well as offer advice from my own experience as a sabb. There was also plenty of socialising around the bonfire, some great food cooked by the officers and a trip up a mountain which could have gone horribly wrong but I found my way back down again eventually! Unfortunately I could not stay for the outdoor activities as I had to head up to Leeds for an NEC meeting and preparation for Convention.

This was my third Convention and I think my most enjoyable. Leeds did us proud as a venue and there were more workshops and activities on than ever before. I was kept busy all day attending workshops and many of you will have seen me hitting the dance floor in the evening! The Priority Campaign session was on the second day. Kat and I spoke about the ideas and principles behind the Education, Education, Education campaign which seemed to be well received by Convention.

After an exhausting but productive few days I headed back to London and ended the week at the ULU Pirate-themed handover party which included a video of some ‘interesting’ scenes from around the UL colleges.

Last minute replacement

At the end of Convention week I was asked to fill in for one of my NEC colleagues on the first People and Money course of the summer (July 27th-30th). This is a great course that I have been on as a delegate and as NEC is the past and so I was really looking forward to it. As always the highlight was the Fibchester exercise on day 3. I got to play my favourite character, the irate hockey chair.

At the end of the week I headed back to London to meet with Andy Wilson, Deputy President of NUS Wales to show him round NUS HQ, talk about our campaign plans for the year and introduce him to some our student development staff, a particular area of interest for him.

Marrying, Supporting and Representing

On the last day of July, an old friend of mine from college got married back home in Portsmouth. I’ve never seen such a happy bride! Unfortunately my brief trip back home meant a torturous 5 hour journey up to Birmingham on the Sunday so that I was there ready for the start of Support and Represent on the Monday. Whoever said doing engineering work on a Sunday was a good idea?!

It’s strange to think that two years ago I was a delegate on Support and Represent and now here I was as lead officer. The course has changed dramatically since then, evidence that NUS really does listen to your feedback. There was a really positive atmosphere on the course and everyone seemed to take advantage of the opportunity to swap ideas and contacts and make new friends. I found the session run by HEFCE on the Natioanl Student Survey really interesting. It obvious that officers have a number of concerns about the project and while I had already raised many of them with HEFCE I think it was good for them to hear it straight from the horses mouth. Since this course, and also using feedback from the second S & R I have been working with HEFCE to ensure that officers concerns are addressed. I anticipate that a HEFCE briefing on the subject will be reaching unions in October. In the meantime, questions and concerns can be sent direct to NUS and HEFCE at mailto:nss@nus.org.uk.

At the end of the week I stayed in Birmingham for a meeting with NASUWT, a teaching union with which we run an advisory service for Initial Teacher Trainers. If a student has an issue about the teaching they receive they can get advice from their SU, however the SU isn’t always best placed to provide help and support when it comes to issues arising from teaching placements. This is where the NUS/NASUWT scheme can help. We discussed a number of issues around publicity for the scheme and a possible training event for student advisors. The meeting also gave me an opportunity to talk about our priority campaign for which we are seeking Trade Union support. The feedback was very positive as it has been from the other TUs we’ve spoken to.

Playing catch-up

Week beginning 9th August I dedicated to spending in the office. Hundreds of emails awaited me as well as a stack of paperwork and post that needed sorting. I spent a lot of time responding to emails and calls from officers, following up in things that had come up over the last few weeks, continuing to liaise with staff over the Priority Campaign, getting up to speed on some on-going projects e.g. NUS/Aim Higher HE guide, NASUWT scheme, reading paper work for National Postgrad Committee (NPC) AGM, design for HE Handbook, liaising with external organisations, bits and pieces of press work and just generally trying to get my office sorted. I also tried, without success, to get a date for a HENC meeting sorted. It’s very difficult to get so many busy people together in one place at one time. I also appeared on BBC 3 news to discuss the condemnation of so-called “Mickey Mouse” degrees, particularly surf studies, by a representative of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) a non-TUC affiliated teaching union. I felt that I got my points across well, pointing out the importance of widening access, of industry specific degree programmes and of the many transferable skills students gain from studying in Higher education.

The week ended with an NEC meeting and a trip up to Coventry for the NPC Annual Dinner. The AGM on the Saturday went well. It’s is great to see NPC doing so well financially as well as in terms of membership and productivity. It is an organisation that NUS works very closely with but which carries out careful research and policy work that NUS is currently unable to do. Jim Ewing was elected as the new sabbatical General Secretary and I am looking forward to working with him and Joe Rukin (NEC member with postgrad responsibility) on postgrad issues over the year.

Still to come… Creative campaigning, voter registration, QAA, the Schwartz report media circus and TUC.

The Blogs on this site represent the individual views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or practices of the National Union of Students.

All links in blogs will open in a new browser window.

The permanent URL for this specific blog entry is: http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/hannahessex/269887.aspx