| April 18th- April 24th |
| 25/04/2005 |
|
Another week has been and gone- so here is what I got up to this week. Monday was just spent emailing and still trying to catch up with myself after conference. Tuesday was the NUS Extra working party meeting in Macclesfield. We discussed some of the different companies that would be involved, support for FE unions in bringing in the card and the criteria for the trail. It’s going to be interesting to see how it all works. Wednesday I spent the day at Surrey Inst. on Art & Design who are merging with Kent Inst. of Art & Design. It was their RAG week as well as their one Union Campaign- demonstrating the commitment to the merger. It was great to see the 2 Unions working together and the day finished off with a sport event SIAD Vs KIAD which SIAD won- well done. Thursday was spent at the National Self-Harm Inquiry into young people and self harm www.selfharmuk.org. I am the person representing young people and service users on the panel and I will admit to you at times it can be a bit frustrating- it’s other people telling me how things should be and what is it like to self harm. It is also quite difficult because also the age range of young people is 11-25 year olds and the way that different organisations treat the issues of self harm seems to be very dependent on age. Also at the moment there doesn’t seem to be much in the way on 16-25 years and self harm so if anyone has any ideas or thoughts please do get in touch. The panel is going to be reporting to government and launch its report in January next year. It should have a huge impact because it is the only inquiry of its kind so please do get involved. Friday it was off to my old Uni. For the Bournemouth University Celebrating Diversity Day. This was a day I helped to set up a couple of years ago and it was great to be invited back to be part of the day. They had a whole load of activities going on including workshops, speed debating, food form round the world, stalls etc. For me there were a couple of highlights. The fist was meeting Double Paralympic Games gold medallist Darren Kenny. It was great to chat to him- particularly because we had lots of policy passed as NUS SWD conference about disability and sport and student activities. I am hoping he would be willing to come and speak to some students.
The second highlight was the comedy session that the students’ union put on. It was a great line up and definitely was a diverse selection of views presented through stand up comedy and debate. I found that the session was thought provoking, not always comfortable and very funny. It was good to see the issues of diversity been put into the entertainment arena making it more accessible to all and getting to those students who maybe would not usually engage with the ideas and motions of celebrating diversity. The 3 comedians info I will post here ands it would be great to see more comedians like these at Union events:
Steve Day- www.itsmyround.com
Josh Howie - www.comedycv.co.uk A big well done to Bournemouth for putting on a fab day. Saturday- it was off to Liverpool Guild to watch Peter Andre (I paid to go myself- not on NUS expenses can I just add as it was a social.) Have to say Peter Andre was not that great but it was a good night out with the NorthWest, which we got very drunk. So much so that I ended up walking into a shelf which had a large telly on which proceeded to fall on my head. I am sure that if I hadn’t dunk so much wine it would’ve hurt like hell!! Oppsie- but it was a great end to another non- typical week in the world of NUS. The Blogs on this site represent the individual views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or practices of the National Union of Students. All links in blogs will open in a new browser window. The permanent URL for this specific blog entry is: http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/siandavies/270724.aspx |
