November

This month was fast from the start. Due to university and the pressures of third year I couldn’t make it to the first day of regional conferences. I was in Middlesex on Tuesday 2nd where all election positions were contested and there was a buzz surrounding the day, a theme that followed for the rest of the week. For Wednesday’s regional conference I was in Nottingham, it was made exciting by the enthusiasm of all the unions bringing display boards of the campaigns being run in unions.

There seems to be plenty of healthy competition in the East Midlands and a real feeling of collectivism. Everyone was keen to hear about each others campaigns and give support to each others problems. After a curry with the NEC on my side of the country, we had a good nights sleep before heading North to Bradford. Thursday’s conference didn’t have a great turnout and after some ‘technical complications’ the NEC managed to give their presentations and gain positive feedback from the region. Thursday night was time for me to head back to Brum and catch up on all the work I missed during the week.

The following Monday of course was Extraordinary conference, whilst many of you reading this were debating the future of NUS, I was giving a presentation on the inter-relationships between ethnicity and nationality in Russia, Ukraine and Poland.

The 16th saw the first national council of the year where I was pleased to see the NEC challenged on a variety of issues. I’ve often felt the NEC though technically accountable is never forced to be accountable enough. It can only be a good thing when National Council Reps question NEC members on their actions. We can only lead a union with the memberships direction and National Council appears to offer the opportunity for the membership to do this.

According to my diary I spent the rest of the month in the library working, eating or sleeping.

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