This year I took the decision as National Secretary to fully co-ordinate our freshers efforts for the first time. Initially I felt this was integral to our success on two issues. The first being the National demonstration and our priority campaign Admission Impossible. The second to support and help unions promote NUS Extra.

Union’s have always criticised NUS in the past for not fully engaging with them at freshers time, often awaiting confirmation of invites from Presidents or officers who don’t realise that they have to invite NEC.

With this in mind I wrote a letter for the mailing in August asking people to sign and return their requests for freshers visits, and outlining the work they wanted us to do at their events. Suffice to say most were keen on National Demonstration promotion and for the most part the NEC and I delivered.

We visited more Unions during freshers than ever before, talking to students, making students angry and involving them directly in our campaigns. For many, this was a welcome relief and one that negated a burden of responsibility off union officers shoulders at often the busiest time of their office.

Unfortunately, with only a certain amount of NEC members and many unions, our presence was not always possible and I stipulated that I would use the fairest method I know to delegate – first come, first serve.

Although as previously mentioned, for the most part we delivered but it’s also fair to say that some unions were left without NEC members. Time obviously contributed to this and although not ideal was the reality of the situation when facing two referendums at BUGS and UWE.

But further, it’s true to say that not everyone was playing ball and some NEC didn’t visit a single institution during freshers and further some visited under the auspices of other organisations – this truly is disappointing. Even more so at a time when the co-ordination was difficult enough, certainly when the majority of people worked really hard to support unions. I’m not intending to single people out here, but would ask those unions who we will now prioritise to seek and find the real reasons people were unable to attend their events.

Overall however, its important to re-iterate that we managed to visit more unions than ever before, because we were co-ordinated I hope that this is the start of a much more organised and focussed NUS, focussed on the will of Students’ Unions.

This is written pre-demo, so I hope you all enjoy it and got a chance to laugh at me in my yellow bib!

Stephen.

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