The week started in Wolverhampton at Extraordinary Conference. I’m really pleased the day went so smoothly, and a broadly consensual package of reforms was passed to help save the National Union money and reform some of our (very outdated! processes.

Whilst change is always hard to accept, I think it’s great that the NEC was virtually united in this. I’m particularly pleased the zoning proposal went through with two-thirds as it’s been my pet reform project for a while now! Hopefully it will help more people get involved and broaden the debate at Conference, so we don’t just spend 3 days re-affirming our opposition to top-up fees! It was also great to see an NUS Conference finish (almost!) on time and get through everything on the order paper…. Here’s crossing fingers for Blackpool to be the same...

It was a long day, and an early start the next day as I (finally) had my meeting with Keith Hill (Housing Minister) about the Housing Bill. It went well, and although we obviously have our policy differences I think we gained ground on a number of points, including:

1. Students are hit particularly badly by withheld deposits, and it’s crucial that the new Tenancy Deposit Scheme resolves disputes quickly (we’re hoping the ODPM will propose a scheme in which students do not have to go to court to get their money back, but that’s being dealt with in regulations after the Bill - they have agreed to consult us though which is good).
2. Students are stakeholders in Housing, with particular concerns and housing needs (they’ve finally admitted that this is the case!)
3. Ideally there should only be one Code of Standards for Halls
4. A commitment to regular meetings and better dialogue between the ODPM and NUS.

Whilst the Bill’s not perfect I think we’ve laid the ground work for reviewing it and possibly changing it in the future, and there seemed to be agreement that the Bill might need to be broadened out at some point.

Wednesday was Anti-Racism Conference in Manchester, which was really good. Well done to Luciana and Pav for organising it, and I hope the delegates got as much out of it as I did. Thursday I attended an external conference about meeting the needs of Mature Students in HE. It was interesting, but I was disappointed that there seemed to be little regard to listening to what Mature Students think their needs are, and more focus on how universities can market themselves to Mature Students.

Friday I was in the office and then made my way up to Glasgow for Scottish Council, which was Saturday, where I ran a workshop on planning for World AIDS Day. Incidentally, I’ve spent a huge amount of time over recent weeks in preparing NUS’ resources for World AIDS Day, including a camapaign pack and a lengthy powerpoint presentation that I hope unions will be able to use at their events. I think it’s crucial that the student movement acts on the issue of HIV / AIDS both domestically and globally, and I really hope anyone reading this will get involved and start planning activities that can go on locally on December 1st.

www.officeronline.co.uk/worldaidsday

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