And the year is flying by! Here’s a brief over view of the key things I’ve done over the last 2 weeks.

• Visited Exmouth campus of Plymouth University, where they’re facing a campus closure, to plan a 2 pronged strategy of battling against the campus closure but also trying to ensure that current students don’t suffer too much in terms of shutdown of provisions of the worst happens and the closure occurs. I’ll be back there on Sept 24th for their demo- Hope many of you can also make it and show solidarity as Exmouth strikes back!
  
• Attended NUS campaigns launch- thought it went really well so well done to all involved.
  
• Met with Student Stop AIDS society to plan some collaborative work
  
• Went to Home Office for meeting re co-branding student safety posters with them. The meeting was really productive, but very last minute, and I hadn’t known I was going to it when I’d got dressed in the morning… I think anyone who was in the session at Action through Advocacy where I was arguing that you should wear what you want in university meetings and not put a suit on, as at the end of the day you just look like a student who you’re representing when you wear jeans and hoodies would have been impressed….as I felt like I took it to a whole new level that day!
  
• Attended Portman Group stakeholders meeting to discuss best way to target young people. We all use the term binge drinking really lightly but I was shocked by these facts:
  1 in 7 people have had unprotected sex when drunk
  1 in 5 people have slept with someone when drunk and later regretted it
  1 in 10 people CAN’T REMEMBER if they’ve had sex when they’ve been drunk
  
• Thursday- up at 5.15am (oouch!) and up to Preston to talk about NUS and all its benefits with the officers at UCLAN. It was at times a challenging session but I was happy with how it went. One thing I found I kept saying and I really sincerely believe, is that if you don’t like something, the way you change it is by getting involved, rather than just moaning about it.
  
• Friday- spoke at a UNIPOL conference about the Housing Act and how it will affect students.
  
• Health campaign planning meeting- where as per usual I got very excited about condoms! The health campaign plan, the welfare priority for the year will be up online later this week, and I can’t wait to get my teeth into it.
  
• In addition to that I’ve been:
  - planning the education and welfare network days (October 17th-21st)
  - putting work together for the Mature Students Campaign
  - Writing an article for the independent on Student Accommodation

  Proudly presenting the NUS Mental Health Campaign

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