Welcome to my blog. It’s an entirely new concept to me, so if it seems a bit random many apologies! I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it soon enough.

As a second year part-time member of the NEC, NUS life tended to carry on for me, rather than being a new experience...

July/August

Our first NEC meeting on July 1st passed NUS’ two Priority campaigns for this year: “Education, Education, Education” & “Developing Our Unions, Supporting Our Members”. I am Co-Convening the DOU campaign with Sian Davies the SWD Officer, and it’s looking good.

Due to the resignation of Laura-Tuesday Brickwood, I have ended up as Lead Officer for FE & Union Development! This has resulted in a large amount of my time being allocated to running the FEUD campaign alongside the Priority Campaign.

Early July was very busy with regional receptions, FE Officer training events, Small HE Officer training events and external meetings with MPs and the Association of Colleges. I have also devoted some time to setting out to develop a strategy for FE within the national union, through a new group composed of NEC and staff which is working very well. In addition to this I also attended National Convention, NUS’ Officer event and was present as an NEC member on the summer training programme.

During August, we held the planning and creative meetings to develop the priority campaign from the document passed by the NEC into a campaign reality. I also attended further summer training events around the country. I also spent a considerable amount of time during August reviewing and revising the work plan of the FEUD campaign. I also ensure that FE freshers fairs got attended, either by myself, or other members of the NEC.

September

At the beginning of September I met with Alan Johnson (Minister for HE & Lifelong Learning and highlighted some of the issues that are facing students in the FE sector, ranging from funding to support. The FE strategy group met again and continued its work, linking in with the work of the priority campaign to ensure that both groups are working together effectively and not duplicating work.

I have discovered that the FEUD campaign does an awful lot of “behind the scenes” work and so spent a lot of time balancing freshers fairs, NEC work generally and the FEUD/priority campaign work. I met again with the AoC regarding Governance in FE colleges and gained their support for a joint NUS/AoC/CEL FE Governors Convention which is being held in early December.

October

October has been busy with a lot of office-based work, primarily Priority campaign development and the creation of a new FE Officer training programme, due to be rolled out in November. This brings me up to the last couple of weeks, with the completion of the FE training package, Governors convention and a meeting of the priority campaign implementation group and FE strategy group. The largest piece of work at the moment is a FE survey, which will be used in FE colleges across the country including NUS Wales & NUS-USI (unfortunately NUS Scotland declined to participate). The purpose of the survey is the identify where FE unions are in terms of development, what further needs they have, how NUS can support them and ensuring they receive the relevant, focussed support they require. The survey will also provide us with accurate statistics that can be used with external organisations from Government to the AoC to make the case for better support and facilities for FE students and their Unions. The final draft should be ready shortly and I will update you on it’s success.

To close, I apologise for the brevity of this blog, it has been difficult to remember everything I have done, however, I promise to update you more regularly in the future. Feel free to email me if you have any questions, and for more details on my work please look at the FEUD & Priority campaigns sections of the report & plan. Good luck to you all for the year ahead.

Regards,

John Dickinson-Lilley (JDL)

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