Well my March blog starts in a most logical place, February. The 28th to be exact. A focus group about the NUS extra card, was on and unlike the other meetings, I’d actually found out this one was happening. When I put in to book my travel for it Martin had ummed and ahhed, about my legitimacy to go. Cynically he may have thought I was only interested because I was standing for Treasurer, that wasn’t the case, it was just that this time I actually knew a meeting was taking place. I pointed out that the members of the management and strategy teams were allowed to go. I hadn’t been asked to attend Management Team for a very long while, whilst strategy, I’d never been asked to but to be honest reckoned it had never met anyway, this meeting could be a start. Sian Davies and myself tried our utmost to persuade the assembled masses that McDonalds and ASDA might not go down too well amongst the membership, apart from that it all sounded, well I wasn’t sure. At this point I could see as many positives as negatives and was so far sat on the fence I had splinters up my arse.

The next day there was the never-ending fun that is national council. Quite a tame affair, given the political climate, ie that national conference was just a month away. At least it was in Coventry, so I felt OK about going. Well having said that, I wasn’t too impressed it was in the Britannia Hotel. After all, I could see my students’ union through the window, and was at a loss to figure out exactly why we needed a hotel for a one day event when one of our member unions, my union, was just over the road and could easily have accommodated it. That was definitely going in the Treasurer speech!

The next day there was a parliamentary lobby, I’m still not sure why. Then it was off to Newcastle for their affiliation referendum. I do enjoy a good referendum. Campaigning on campus can really bring things back into focus and of course has that election-type feel to it, but it’s not yourself you are trying to sell, it’s the whole concept of NUS and even the students’ union itself. All that, coupled with a good night out over the road at Northumbria who were in the middle of RAG week. That meant sabbs in drag presenting Kareoke. This served to remind me just exactly what it is this movement is about!

On March 9th, we had the ridiculous farce of an emergency NEC meeting to discuss the estimates. I still had my notes handy from last time when we didn’t discuss them, and I had a few problems, questions, queries, call them what you will. Like; why have we got a figure of £20k for building depreciation, when we don’t own our building? Why has the cost of the NEC suddenly risen by £130k? And most importantly, why is there a projected loss for 05-06 of £676k, over four times higher than the actual operating loss in 03-04?

I definitely got the impression I was doing the right thing by standing for National Treasurer, but all the debates ground to a halt when I pointed out that the whole thing was unconstitutional, in that the NEC were meant to pass the estimates seven weeks before conference. We were now less than four weeks from conference. Oh dear. The resolution? Take the estimates to conference, and stitch it up properly there. The bottom line was they were not only late, but also crap, if conference rejected them, and there was no way conference would pass them, NUS would have the opportunity to re-write them, more sensibly. The only question was how Martin and the NEC could save face by asking conference to reject a document whilst presenting it at the same time.

And then it was back to the affiliation referenda. At Worcester, I felt very proud, the only person there from NUS and a poll that returned a 98.46% ‘Yes’ vote. I was gutted, 0.05 more, less than one vote and we could have legitimately rounded up to 99%. Next was Portsmouth, a little tighter, but still in the 90s, again fun, as it was held in conjunction with elections, which meant I got to play Jim Dickinsons deputy returning officer for a little while. Some of the complaints seemed just a little silly, whilst some of them seemed extremely serious, but there was nothing we could do about allegations of canvassers driving round town, shouting out car windows with a steering wheel in one hand and a bottle of cider in the other. Hey, their candidates didn’t win!

The joy that is compositing rounded off the week and then it was back on the referenda tour, this time to Cardiff where, just to mess up all our generic referendum publicity, they had swapped the question round, so students would have to vote ‘no’ to stay in NUS opposed to the usual ‘yes’. It didn’t work as no matter what the sabbs thought, or were told to think, the students, as they invariably do decided that they could see a point to being in NUS.

Next up were trips to Leicester and Staffordshire Unis. At Leicester they were running a ‘union week’ to show the benefits of having a students’ union, one day of which was focussed on NUS. Somehow it turned out that the Regional Officer had become permanently unavailable, and the materials for the stall I was running weren’t there. Luckily, hidden away in a leaflet rack at the back of beyond there was lots of stuff to give out which NUS had produced in previous years, and I managed to give pretty much all of it away, whilst acquiring a lovely yellow umbrella, with ‘The union’s got it covered’ on it. That’s going on the next demo I’m at! Staffs was much easier, just a presentation to their council about NUS and what was happening at the time.

Of course the one thing I didn’t go to in March was NUSSL Convention. I had pointed out to Martin that realistically all the candidates for National Treasurer should go. After all which is more dangerous, going to the event and maybe picking up some votes, or ending up being elected as Treasurer, and therefore NUSSL Company Chair, without having been to their Convention? I mentioned I was in Liverpool with Lorna and Alex at her mothers house anyway and it wouldn’t cost anything. I also pointed out attendance at the AGM, the important bit was free, and asked if there were any other parts which were free. I was told no, not a bit, no chance whatsoever, NEC members who had not been involved that year in NUSSL could not attend any part at all. That sort of principled stand you have to respect.

Of course there was no shock or surprise when I found out later that both Gemma Tumelty and Hannah Essex had been at the opening night party, just disappointment. Though why would no mean no to members of your faction when there is a big event going on two weeks before an election? Or maybe it was just that my ‘no’ wasn't deserved, who knows? Of course with a few days in Liverpool on my hands and nothing to do, I decided to spend a day in Blackpool instead, doing something which in the end probably had far more impact on the election than attending NUSSL Convention ever would have had.

The final act of March was of an MSNC meeting. For some reason, co-convenor Helen Symons had said the conference couldn’t be on a weekend in May. Something about an election happening nationally apparently. So after discussion with the Events department the only date available that fit around her busy schedule of canvassing for a party which screws students was the Monday-Tuesday directly after NUS Conference. Great, just what I needed. At least the meeting was highly constructive and it looked like we had everything under control for conference.

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