For Fear of not being able to claim expenses and even worse, having Will Page have a go at me in an NEC meeting. I intrepidly write my very first NEC Blog. . . .

So what is this Blogging all about is it a waste of time or does it actually achieve something ??? - I've decided to run a little test. . . If a Union gets there LGBT Officer to eMail me the Words 'Web-blogs are great but not as great as Democracy, Equality, and Freedom' from their Uni eMail you will qualify for 'Union Idol' and will go through to the next stage :) Where big big Prizes are up for grabs!*

.::My Collected Views on LGBT Conference::.

No Officer likes to start their Term in office on a negative note. Although I understand and celebrate that NUS is, a politically diverse organisation, and that the NUS LGBT campaign is somewhat at the heart of our National Union, and that some negativity from within inside the NEC was always going to happen if I got elected. I would however, like to think in the main, that this is because many within our National Executive Committee care about our Liberation Campaigns, and it was fear of change and a sense of commaraderie and collectivism, that some peoples all at war to win was bourne out of, rather than any personal issue, that it felt like at the time. However, I cannot and will not except faux-liberation - "Liberation is no liberation if its not FULL LIBERATION FOR ALL", words I aim to stick by. Sexism, Racisim, Disablism or any other kind of bigotry, have no place in NUS and definately not in any Liberation Campaign - especially one I am co-convening.

Now, whatever your thoughts about the close of Conference on Sunday, it did look extremely bad to our membership, no matter what political side of the fence you are on. In a time when many institutions are reviewing the need for a National Union of Students, and dis-Affiliations popping up left right and centre, we do not need this kind of behaviour, especially as many from the LGBT campaign either are already, or go on to be, members of their Executive or Sabbatical Team. We need to concentrate our fighting energy on winning for our membership and not political point scoring between each other.

The way I relate to, and want to advocate this National Union to run, is as a best practice Students' Union model, taking up the principals and ideals that are inherent in most of Constituient Members, and ironically we enforce through our training programmes over the summer, as we are after all a representative body of them, and leaders within the student movement.

Would what happened been allowed to occur in an ordinary Students' Union? Probably not. Did this make all delegates feel comfortable and want to return and get involved again? Definitely not. We cannot afford to isolate our membership, we need to grow as a collective, and re-engage every student we come across, as they may have the ability to go on to be our best activists, campaigners and a force for positive change within our National Union, but we'll never know unless we inspire and make these students feel welcome, so that we can harness them, their energy, and vision, as that is our most precious resource.

As for working with each other, here and now, I may never be on some NEC members Christmas card lists, and we may never end up going for a pint after work, but I want it known that I am willing to work with you all, to put aside our differences and harness our abilities to further the rights of our membership. So on that note, I'm drawing a line. We have all had enough time to Whinge, moan and gripe, and if you do care and respect our Liberation Campaign you can't continue the scrap, you need to let wounds heal, and let Kat Louis and I get on and deliver for our membership, and we cannot do that if people keep trying to divide our campaign.

.::I Hate the NUS Mail Server And the Wibbly Wobbly House they call 'HQ'::.

So here I am, using up my annual leave as a Sabbatical, trying to get ahead of the game as an NEC member before July 1st and sort stuff out for the LGBT Campaign, and the mail server keeps on crashing :( This is no-ones fault, NUS's infrastructure is old and needs replacing. I thought they were joking when they said the higher spec PCs in Headquarters had a CD-Driver,a nd if you had been very good a Soundcard - sadly they weren't. It's actually quite impressive that NUS achieves what it achieves with such shoddy tools - could you imagine what it would be like if Unions paid their full affiliation fees??? Maybe those 5 votes would of been won. . .

As for the Wibbly Wobbly House that is HQ I have heard members of staff have had to be evacuated to other parts of the building because ceilings keep falling down and plaster keeps landing on very close to where people are standing, thankfully we are moving to Camden soon into a new shiny building so hopefully going to work wont mean putting your life in quite so much risk

Yours in Pride,

James-J
NUS LGBT (Open Place) Officer 2005/6

*NB You may not find them big or exciting, Well I at least find them exciting.

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