It’s a little over a month since my last factual update, barring my NEC meeting report, so it seems appropriate to give you the chance to catch up. In truth, I’ve not done very much NUS work in the last five or so weeks, but I suppose this is my opportunity to explain as to why.

You’ve already had my report from the NEC meeting at the beginning of the month, so I’ll not go back over old ground. Around this time, I also had an interview for the TUC Organising Academy, and got through to the candidate pool as a result. For finance fans, that means that I got paid some money from the TUC for expenses.

I also started working in London full-time, for the Community trade union. It’s a joint project as part of the NUS Trade Union Partnerships initiative, and is effectively a three-month placement, a bit like the Union summer programme in the States. I’m one of two students (or similar) on the programme, with Matt being based up Manchester way.

The aims of the placement are twofold; firstly, I gain lots of valuable organising experience which I can bring back to NUS, while also helping to push forward Community’s betting shops campaign, recruiting and organising workers in the gambling industry. Secondly, I’ll also be working with the lovely people at NUS London and NUS’ own Trade Union Partnerships Manager to map the Students’ Unions in London and develop links with Welfare officers. Expect to see me pretty soon if you fall into that category!

I spent quite a lot of August searching for accommodation, too. I stayed with friends briefly in London, and then with another friend’s mum in Watford, and am now installed in a third friend’s boxroom down in Clapham, where I plan to stay until the project finishes at the end of October. At the same time, back in the Midlands my housing contract ran out at the end of the month, so I also found the four of us (three friends from outside of NUS and I, improbable as that may sound) a house in Bournville, right next to Cadbury’s, of all places.

Another thing taking up my time was learning to drive. I had my test on August 15^th, rearranged following industrial action, and passed with six minors, which I was quite pleased with.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone to Dave Charlesworth lately, too, planning for the E&E Campaign and conference, to be held on October 16^th in the Midlands. Please contact me or Dave for more details. The idea is for the E&E campaign to really kick off this year, so we’ve already been linking up with NUSSL and The Ecologist for the Sound Impact Awards, and talking to Stop Climate Chaos, Friends Of The Earth and People and Planet about ways to work together.

Although it happened in early September, I may as well report on the British Youth Council AGM I attended, with Ellie. Ellie spoke in support of the right of young people to receive confidential sexual health advice, and I spoke in favour of NUS’ motion on a no platforms policy.

As it happened, we were on the losing side of both decisions, the first being pre-empted by the proposers of the motion accepting the amendment, and the second seeing only Ellie and I vote against an amendment to our motion, which deleted all our text and proposed instead to make the BYC’s existing Equal Opportunities Policy extend to external events attended by BYC representatives.

While we succeeded in at least moving the BYC further towards an inclusive policy, we failed to get them to see the difference between equality of opportunity, and equal ability to access those opportunities free from intimidation. I was particularly frustrated that we only sent a delegation of two people, when we are entitled to ten votes, and that it was me, rather than a member of the Anti-Racism/Anti-Fascism Campaign Committee, who spoke in favour of the no platform policy. While I’ve no doubt that my speech was good, I don’t doubt that an AR/AF specialist could have done better.

Yesterday was the launch of NUS’ campaigns, at the NEC in Birmingham. Not having been there for a long time, except to work part-time selling tickets to exhibitions when money gets a bit short, it was interesting to be part of the organisation running the event. I was really pleased with the day, overall, and I’m grateful to everyone who worked hard to make it happen – I certainly can’t claim any credit! In particular, Gemma and Kotomah gave stonking speeches, both in terms of content and delivery, and I’m really pleased with the quality of materials that we’re using for this year’s priority campaign.

On the subject of things that make me proud to be one of the National Union of Students’ elected representatives, my time as a member of the “bureaucracy of the labour movement” has already been instructive. Mergers have a long history of taking power away from union members; just look at the old AEEU, my grandfather’s union, and modern-day Amicus. At the moment, I’m working for a union formed from the merger of two other bodies from quite different sectors, which is now organising in a third sector. They have “delegate conferences” every two years, with the delegates chosen by Regional Secretaries – staff members. Only when you have “paid your dues,” by being a member for at least five years, are you eligible to stand for election to the Executive Committee. The Women’s Officer is a man (yes, you did read that right), and there is no formal representation for LGBT people. Only one of the nine regional representatives is a woman, and none are from the BME community.

Don’t get me wrong; Community is a great union to work for, and frequently delivers for its members. It committed itself to the “new unionism” project at the very beginning, and is right at the forefront of the organising agenda. It’s just that my experiences there have made me ever so proud to be able to say that I come from a union that decides policy via annual conferences, with democratically elected delegates and active debate. I’m proud to be able to say that I come from a union where minority and oppressed groups have guaranteed representation and self-organisation. I’m proud to be able to say that I come from a union where we reach beyond those guarantees, and deliver on representation.

No, we’re not perfect. Our record on BME and disabled representation, in particular, shows that we need to divert more resources to supporting our officers and pushing those agendas forward. But let me tell you this: for all our faults, for all our divisions and for all our problems, NUS is damn good at what it does, and we mustn’t let anyone tell us otherwise. We should all, from the NEC right through to the grass roots, be proud as punch to be members of such a democratic organisation as our national union.

I can tell you something else: at the start of August, I never thought I’d be saying anything even remotely like that. That’s what this post’s subtitle is about; in our quest to be more like the trade union movement, we mustn’t fool ourselves into thinking they have all the answers. The learning process is, and must be, two-way.

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