• Joint Negation Committee
• Future of Students Union Governance event, Westwood, Warwick. This was the second of the two-day joint events organised between NUS, NUSSL and AMSU. This time I gave the opening address and sat on a panel discussion entitled ‘life after 2006’. Personally I enjoyed this event more than last terms and felt it engaged student officers far more. The debates around governance are going to become of increasing importance to us all as a movement especially with the charities bill fast approaching and questions such as where GM’s sit into the trustee system and the law need to be tackled. One of the biggest frustrations in NUS is that we don’t seem to find the time or motivation to debate these complicated ‘out of the norm’ problems. Book now for November.
• NEC mtg, Woke up this morning with major teeth issues, don’t ask. Therefore had to ask James Lloyd to step into the chair. Unfortunately for James what followed was by all accounts the worst NEC meeting all year, very long, lots of rows over Ken Livingstone and even a few tears. But you’ll have to find out the detail from elsewhere.
• Mtg with the company chair of NUS Holdings, which holds NUS’s assets for us. The Chair has also for a very long time been an additional legal advisor to NUS so we chatted over various upcoming issues, which was incredibly useful especially with his extensive knowledge of the ups and downs of the National Union.
• Met with the new chair of the Council for International Students, following various matters raised by CM’s. Am currently waiting for a briefing on how their affiliation fee is calculated as I was asked to clarify on behalf of a member union.
• Spent Saturday In Oxford writing speeches for national conference.
• Spent Sunday driving with Sian Davies up to the Student’s with Disabilities Conference in Blackpool. Got the familiar feeling of dread as I hit the M55.

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