August

The next week I had some more time to get to know the office and read reams of pages of numbers which is something we all love to do. On the Thursday I finally got to have sometime with our Business Development Manager and her team to discuss any pertinent issues and see how a lot of our non-affiliation fee income is raised and accounted for and get to now the work of the department. In the afternoon myself Kat and Lloyde met with the Managers to talk through some big staffing issues and followed this up on the Friday with a full house staff meeting were every member of staff had a chance to ask us any questions on the future of the organisation which was quite a daunting task. By this time in case you don’t know we were pretty much without a directorate and had Ian King and Martyn Williams ready to take over when they returned from holiday in a few weeks time.

The next week it was People and Money 2 at Aston form Monday to Thursday which was again attended by a great bunch and hopefully enjoyed on a learning and social level by all. On Friday it was time for another NEC meeting at ULU. This meeting was the one that really made get sick of them. I feel NEC meetings achieve little bar upsetting people, letting people let off steam directly at others, let factions play games and also argue about things that don’t effect you guys, he work you do or students in the main. However, I also learnt that it seems that everyones shares this view. No one seems to like NEC meetings so hopefully there is some scope for reform internally and to add some structure to the meetings themselves.

The next week I had a day in the office on Monday, and an NUS Card working party on Tuesday. I have got a section devoted to this section alone elsewhere on my blog so please read it as I judge it as possibly my, and the organisations biggest priority not just for this year but for the future.

As I have mentioned I have responsibility for Northern Ireland so spent the next two days with Damien Kavanagh (top bloke) visiting NUS-USI, getting to know the work they do, the issues they have over there. We visited Queens University SU as well as Ulster University SU (Jordanstown) and I got a feel of what the priorities for officers in Northern Ireland are. We were joined for the second day by Peter Leary who also has responsibility for Northern Ireland and we both found it very interesting and thought provoking. On Friday I caught up with the office work once again.

The last week of training had come upon us so I made my way to the TUC for People and Money 3 in London. A fine week from my view and it wrapped up a summer f excellent training for me. On Friday I travelled up to NUS Scotland for the NUSSL Scottish Informal which took place on Friday and Saturday.

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