26-1 August

• Lead & Change Summer Training - London
• Visits, City Uni, City & Islington
• Mtg Ian King, CEO NUSSL, re NUS directorate

2-8 August

• Visits, Huddersfield Uni, Lincoln C
• Participate & Develop summer training course
• Interviews for new Regional Officers, which also gave me the opportunity to pop in Support & Represent training.
• Managers Meeting
• Full staff meeting
• Mtg with president of London Met SU, re the recent industrial action by Natfhe, will update.

9-15 August

• Introductory meeting with Paul Mackney, General secretary of NATFHE. www.natfhe.org.uk Discussed our various campaign objectives and building close allegiances between the two organisations. Both NATFHE and the AUT www.aut.org.uk have been strong supporters in our campaign against the recent HE bill, and our links are vital at a time of increased attacks on many elements of the education system.
• Present & Facilitate summer training course (York Uni 3days)
• NEC. Focussing primarily on internal re-organisation.
• National Postgraduate Committee Conference in Coventry, where I got to address the Conference on post grad representation. www.npc.org.uk

16-22 August

• Lead & Change summer training (Aston)
• 6 internal meetings
• A Level results day. One of the thing that frustrates me the most year after year is the press’s continual down dumming of students achievements on A levels results day, always lined to a rejection of the 50% target. I believe that we should celebrate success, and other countries have already reached, and overtaken their target of getting 50% of young people in Higher Education, they seem to have no problem in finding skilled workforce. Spent the day doing press including sky, BBC, Channel 5 (who were rather mean), and various radio shows.
• Bilateral Meeting in Dublin. Over 25 years ago the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and NUS, set up what we call the bilateral agreement. This put into the simplest of terms means that students unions in the North are affiliated to both organisations. The Presidents of both organisations along with the Convenor of NUS – USI, meet every few months to discuss relevant issues. www.nistudents.com USI is not going through the easiest time at the moment and it was good to catch up with Ben Archibald USI president who was a member of the NEC last year and made a memorable speech for National Treasurer. After the meeting there was some time to spend the evening in Dublin, which was much needed time out.

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