I never know whether I’m being too light sometimes with my blogs. The policy which introduced them was so that everyone could keep a track of where the NEC had been and where they were spending NUS money. My problem in that respect is that I don’t travel the country much, not on union visits at least and do sometimes find it hard to actually find something to say.

For most days I would be saying “Came into the office, started to get through my emails, but got distracted all the time by various people, asked questions of and got asked questions by staff from the finance department (I’ll tell you what it is so much more sensible and efficient now that we are open plan and the Treasurer is sat with the finance dept), got various NEC coming over and expecting me to stop what I was doing so I could sign their expenses, was at the end of a bit of unnecessary bitchiness, got caught up in some general panic that was going on about something (there is at least one general panic per week in HQ) and left generally feeling that I hadn’t got done half of what I wanted to done in the day.”

Now I have done that, I can cut and paste it for every blog! The alternative version of that is “Sat through a four hour meeting that could have been done in half an hour if everyone a) didn’t witter on forever b) love the sound of their own voice c) desperately feel the need to say something which will make them seem intelligent” Whilst I get enough of that in the priority campaign meetings, the best example of that was at the start of the month with the exciting-as-it-sounds ‘Central Billing Scrutinising Committee” at NUS Services, which was so dull that by the end the committee came just a hairs breadth from recommending that it was abolished. Sadly now they will recommend that, but not for another year.

By the end of the week I was up to something far more interesting, visiting the non-affiliated UC Northampton to start off talks about them coming back into the fold. Anyway, what else happened in November? Well I actually got the feeling for once that someone was listening to me and I had achieved something real. Last year, I had bemoaned the fact that one National Council was held in the Britannia Hotel in Coventry. I had even said in my election speech that you could “See a student union building, my student union building through the window, with rooms empty that could have held the meeting, for much reduced price, which would keep the money inside the student movement”. Well guess what, we were having National Council at Cov Uni SU!

A feedback meeting in Manchester about NUS Extra was very interesting. There were lots of tales of successes, problems, mistakes and innovations. Overall, the unions which had taken part seemed contented, not necessarily that everything had been perfect, but at least that everyone knew why things weren’t perfect and how to sort that out. From the perspective of this being a trial, there could be no complaints. Of course there were complaints, but none that weren’t fixable, the whole point of doing a trial, and walking before we run.

The most difficult thing for me to do in November though was to do with International Students. I’d been pleading with Benson for ages to get me a photo so I could get him an ISIC card and he could get a Young Persons Railcard, as his budget was galloping wildly ahead of any predictions we’d made for it, and he was due to be spent up less than halfway through the year on his personal travel. Well things had kept going the way they were, and now the time had come, I had to do the only thing I could, and stop his budget. This wasn’t easy for me. Benson, for whatever reason, has a way of getting on the wrong side of people, but I’ve always been able to get on with him just fine. I’m the only one of the five NEC members at the time who voted for there to be an International Students Officer when it finally got passed. Some at the time voted against because of the cost, some voted against it to stop the NEC becoming too big, but most voted against it because they knew if it went through, Benson Osawe would get elected. I knew that would be the likely outcome and I welcomed it. Benson may have been brash and confrontational, but one thing you always know when he opens his mouth what he is going to say and that is “What about International Students?” Some may see that as him being a one-trick-pony, but as International Students Officer, what else is he meant to do?

So telling him I had to stop his budget wasn’t easy. We have always got on, being from ‘outside the tent’ as it were, but that was until I became National Treasurer and started to have real responsibility. The conversation it has to be said wasn’t easy, in fact one staff member came over and asked if we’d like to go and use a meeting room halfway through, as then we wouldn’t be disturbing everyone in the ‘finance wing’ of our open-plan office. But it had to be done. Bensons travel expenses were just getting too large and it was the only thing to do. It didn’t mean there was no money to spend on the IS Campaign, just no more for now on him going to random events. I could tell this one wouldn’t go away.

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