Apologies for the lack of blogging recently but here is some of the main things that I have been up to since Conference:

UEA Officer Training – 11th-12th April

TUC Young Members Conference – 13th – 15th April

I was part of the NUS delegation to the TUC Young Members Conference held in Leicester. They do things very differently to us, whereby statements are agreed on and these are what are worked on for the year. Workshops take place for discussion around these and we were able to contribute into these and liaise with Trade Union members about the Organising Agenda and how they can work with NUS to ensure our members are represented in the workplace.

Opening of Reading SU ‘Hub’ student representation building – 18th April

NEC Meeting – 19th April

It was generally a good meeting with all new NEC elect members there to see the joys of what they have to do once a month next year. There was a good discussion on Governance reform and the ways we interact with the membership and this looks very positive. Then the sense of ‘deja-vu’ kicked in as ENS had a dig at the Mayor of London and SBL in a motion, something that I remember from my first ever NEC meeting. Then in a further deja-vu moment we had a motion calling for a first term national demo. Now call me silly but I seem to remember a whole debate about this at Conference and it failing. Luckily the NEC saw sense and voted it down respecting Conferences decision!!!!

Mature Students Conference – 22nd – 24th April

The Mature Students Conference this year saw more delegates turn up than ever before. We had a wide range of people from students, to student officers, to Sabbaticals from across the age spectrum. Excellent workshops were held with full participation on different aspects of Mature student life from Childcare through to Engaging Mature Students within Students’ Unions. The motions debate was far ranging and saw us have some clear policy to work on next year, on issues such as Adult Education Cuts, Two-Year degrees, and Students in NHS placements. There was also near unanimous support for the campaign to continue its quest for better representation on the NEC so look out for this again next year. Elections for the Committee were very well contested and congratulations to those who were elected. Special mention for the year must go to Morag Maich for her work across the years on the campaign and Veronica King who has led the campaign for two years and moved things so far forward.

I will blog mine and Veronicas report and plan so you can see the work we have undertaken this year from an NEC perspective.

I have thoroughly enjoyed working on this campaign this year and hope to continue next year.

European Students Board Meeting (ESIB) – 7th – 9th and 12th May

During this week NUS hosted a European Students Board Meeting of all the National Unions across Europe. With a theme if tackling discrimination it was clear to see that issues around access and continuation of study in Higher Education are similar across the whole of Europe and this was a good chance to share campaigns and find out what our European counterparts were doing. It does go on a bit the old ESIB meetings with the Saturday going through until 1am but good policy was discussed and there are clear policy papers on issues that directly affect the study of students across the whole of Europe.

WMANUS Spring Conference – 10th May

I travelled to Sandwell College to observe the work that the Area had been doing this year and see students from the West Mids have policy debates and elect their next Executive. The Area has taken a lot of extra work on due to one of the two convenors leaving so credit to Liz Edwards for the work they have managed to do this year. Congratulations to Gary Hughes, and Ryan Slaughter who will lead the area next year through some tough challenges, but if you have ever met Ryan you will know he relishes anything slightly difficult!!!

Regional Conferences – 13th – 17th May

This year I have attended every regional conference along with Veronica and Stephen Brown. I believe that for regionals to work as a way for people to hold you to account then the best way to do this as an NEC member is turn up and do it face to face. It has been unbelievably frustrating, especially this time around, to have to sit there and keep saying ‘We will feed it back’ and being unable to answer questions. I enjoy regionals as they are a chance to see different officers outside of their office environment and for them to update as to what is happening, they do need to change but I believe the concept is a good one. This time round the ‘Fun Bus’ was just a ‘Fun Car’ due to only the 3 of us travelling around but here’s to next year I guess and don’t worry I will still fulfil my constitutional obligation and plan to attend all again!!

So that has been the key areas of my work so far, I am currently working out ways to get a head start on next years projects, such as NUS RAG week, Disability and Sport and the Activists Academy

Any questions please do ask me

Cheers

Richard ‘Bubble’ Budden

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