The last few weeks have been incredibly busy, I’ve been traipsing all over the country and am feeling quite worn out, but I’m happy as the last few weeks have also been pretty positive and inspiring at times.

Monday and Tuesday were sent packing up the office ready for the move, which predictably enough took longer than envisaged, and I uncovered some interesting files along the way. Me and Sian were also very busy getting all the last minute preparations ready for the Mental Health Network Day- from running around Holloway Road ordering T-Shirts to chasing up The Samaritans in Manchester!

On Wednesday I was at Sheffield giving a presentation on Co-op Housing to the Aldwych group. It was a good opportunity to go out there and dispel some myths about what co-op housing actually entails, and discuss the potential of the project. Hopefully as a result some unions are going to go away and write policy on supporting the pilot so it was worth the trip! On Wednesday evening I headed up to Manchester for the Mental Health Network Day on Thursday.

Thursday 15th September was NUS Mental Health Network Day, organised by myself and Sian. I had spent weeks preparing for it and plugging it and could barely sleep the night before, running through it all in my mind. We knew over 100 people had registered for the event, which was amazing, even more so was the fact that they all turned up. I was really happy with how the day went. It was an important day for me for several reasons. The Mental Health campaign (which the welfare & SWD campaigns are running together) is one of my key areas of work this year, which I have strong mandates from national conference on, and it was the first major event I’d been responsible for. In addition to that, and as I said on the day, it was through a similar NUS event run last October I started properly engaging in NUS, wrote policy for national conference, carried out the work I’m most proud of in my own union, and all in all ended up where I am now. I was so happy then with the feedback I have had on the day and since from officers saying they found it inspiring, motivating and are determined to go back to their unions and make a change. One officer even said to me “This is the kind of thing NUS is good at and SHOULD be doing…I wish I had brought the rest of my exec as they’re sceptical about NUS and this would have made them see how good NUS can be.” So from me and Sian, a huge thank you to everyone who made the day possible- everyone at Manchester Students Union, all the organisations who gave up their time to help out, the staff, NEC and committee members who helped the day run smoothly, and the delegates, who were fantastic and contributed so much throughout the day. There’s pictures and resources from the day on officeronline, under the campaign support section- and this really was just the beginning of the Mental Health Campaign.

After that, its fair to say a glass of wine was needed so it was lucky then that we had been invited to Manchester Met Student Unions’s formal reception just up Oxford Road which was a very nice swanky affair, with people from the University and local community.

Friday, and I went to De Montford Union to discuss work one of the officers is undertaking around supporting care leavers and foster children at University, and how we can roll it out nationally in the future. By the way thanks for the DMU condoms guys!

I was at home for my brother’s 18th birthday that weekend, and on the Sunday did a 10k Cancer Research Race for Life at Harewood House in Leeds with my Mum and Auntie. It was very steep and hilly, I did it in 1hr 10 which is slower than my last one but I was happy with under the circumstances. I’m going to be cheeky now and say that if anyone would like to sponsor me belatededly you can e-mail me your pledges to veronica.king@nus.org.uk

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