Writing these blogs every 2 weeks is making me realist how fast time is going, can’t believe how fast a fortnight rolls round.

The main feature of my last fortnight was the first ever Action through Advocacy training course, which was a momentous occasion. I was a bit nervous about it beforehand, particularly as I was the lead officer, but it went really well and we’ve had some really positive feedback from delegates since, which has delighted me and Julio.

I hate it went people describe welfare as ‘fluffy’. To me, the stuff that the welfare remit covers- both nationally and in individual student unions, is life-changing, cause it’s the most fundamental stuff- where you live; how much money you have; what health provisions are in place; and therefore there’s nothing remotely fluffy about it. It was that reason that I was so impressed with action through advocacy, it had a really strong focus on getting political, in your union, in your institution, and focused on actually CHANGING things rather than simply ‘raising awareness’. I feel this is much more the role of welfare and education officers than comforting a crying student in their office and hopefully the officers who attended went away thinking that too and feeling mobilised and empowered.

It was great to meet lots of new officers and here about people’s plans for the year ahead. Thanks to Herts for being such gracious hosts to us. Julian and me are now looking forward to the second Action through Advocacy, in Preston next week.

On Friday it was back to the office, trying to catch up with a backlog of a week and a half’s emails. I hadn’t quite recovered from the last four days and I have to be honest and admit it wasn’t the most productive of days.

I had a pretty productive week last week, largely spent in the office. I did a lot of work on the mental health campaign, which we’ll be launching in September. I’ve also been trying to get the mature Students Committee Meeting organised.

My highlight of the week had to be finally getting the NUSSL condom-buying consortium sorted out. There will be a letter and order form going out to all unions in the next mailing (that goes out this Friday) and the form will also be going up online here ASAP.

In terms of meetings I chaired/co-chaired the Welfare and Equal Opps taskforce NEC meetings on Tuesday. ON Thursday I went to the headquarters of the Terence Higgins Trust and began planning some work I’ll be undertaking with them over the coming months. They’re a fantastic organisation and the stuff we’ve been organising looks like it will be really useful to officers- so I’ll keep you posted on that. On Friday I went to the Priority Campaign Planning meeting, which it was good to be able to contribute to.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, but reckon they’re basically the highlights of the last fortnight!

Veroncia

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