w/c October 3rd

Monday-The NEC meeting. It was a pretty productive meeting in which we discussed various issues around NUS finances and the future of the organisation, in addition to the priority campaigns, and we passed 11 motions in 45 minutes which has to be a record. This meeting also saw the resignation of JK as President of NUS Wales. I’m sure all the NEC wish him the best for the future. For me his resignation was a shock and a shame. I know his resignation speech is on Wes’ blog and I would recommend anyone reading this to have a look at it. There’s no doubt that NUS can be a tough environment to work in at times. I’m so proud of the work we’re doing around Mental Health this year, but it seems to me in terms of the organisation we need to overhaul the culture we work in and what is acceptable in terms of the way people are treated. Me and Damien were talking about this, and as colleagues on the NEC we felt what we want to say to the membership is this “Challenge our politics but don’t attach us personally’. The NEC are still people, though we sometimes forget it! We all respect (and positively thrive on!) the democratic environment of NUS and want to be held accountable. However we’re not elected on how thick-skinned and able to shake off personal insults we are, and quite frankly I for one wouldn’t be on the NEC if we were. I hope the membership will try and take this on board- it’s easy to snipe and we all do it but its about time the culture shifted and it became entirely unacceptable. I don’t want to be part of an of an organisation ‘paying lip-service’ to mental health, but one which strives to put positive mental health at the forefront of every action we undertake.

Tuesday and it was off to Keele for Student safety week, and fire safety day. The fire brigade were running chip pan fire demonstrations, and we spent the day talking to students, getting them to watch the demo and promoting the other events going on as part of a very comprehensive student safety week, which the officers there were doing a very good job of making safety exciting with lots of innovative ideas. I don’t know where the hunky firemen I was promised where though!

Wednesday I was In HQ during the day, catching up with e-mails and paperwork and starting work on National Student SHAG Week (28th-2nd December). That evening I went to UNIAID drinks reception at Universities UK. I had some problems with Bill Rammell and various Vice-Chancellors banging on about the importance of Widening Participation. UNiAID as a charity is doing a fantastic job and the Welfare campaign is very supportive of it. However I struggle to get away from the principle that it’s a sad state of affairs its down to a charity to cover the living costs of some less well off students. That said, the event had a good turn out and it was good to forge links with some organisations there we can work with around student finance.

Thursday, my last fresher’s fair, at UCCA Rochester, in Kent. It was probably the most receptive fresher’s fair of the season for me, as shock horror, students actually wanted to talk about welfare issues such as free prescriptions and the women’s campaign with me rather than running round grabbing as many freebies as possible!

Friday, I was in HQ in the morning then in the afternoon at 2 meetings. First of all a Unipol meeting around the code of standards, with all the private providers who are signed up to the code, which is making steady progress. Then a Student Stop AIDS meeting, where we discussed their plans for World AIDS day, and where NUS can link in with those.

W/c Ocotber 10th

It was World Mental Health Day- and to celebrate this I had compiled some ‘This is What a Mad Person Looks Like’ testaments for display at ULU to highlight the campaignand de-stigmatise the stereotype of mental health service user.

I actually spent most of the day in a radio studio in central London, where I did about 15 interviews for local radio stations about gas safety, as part of a campaign British gas launched around safety in student accommodation. I was trying to push out the message that students shouldn’t have to chose between cheap and safe accommodation, and that safe housing for students is a right not a privilege. It was good fun, and we covered about 4 million listeners in total so hopefully it made a difference.

Tuesday and a meeting at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster, around publicity for licensing of HMO’s which comes into force next year. It affords students some key additional rights, and therefore is absolutely imperative that students find out about it. In the afternoon I met with No Smoking Day to plan our work with them around No Smoking Day next yeat.

Having battled with a sore throat for several days I took the morning off on Wednesday which was incredibly novel. I was in work by 1pm, feeling much better, and in the afternoon I was at a UNIAID board meeting at Lloyds in London.

Thursday, and again I was in HQ cracking on with arious key pieces of work including the sexual health resource pack. In the afternoon I met with a rep from the GLA who had specific funding to spend on student safety events for International students in London (quite specific remit you might say!) so we looked to planning some joint work.

Friday, I attended the Internationalism and Anti-racism task force meetings, It was helpful for me to get a clear idea of specific pieces of work I can undertake – and both campaigns fit clearly into areas of the welfare campaign. In the afternoon, I spent about an hour with an ambassador from the Department for Education in Sweden, talking about student perceptions and in particular the impact on International students of top-up fees,before handing him over to Benson who was due to meet him but his train broke down en route. It was really interesting to hear how our counterparts in Sweden are getting on in their fights against fees!

Monday 17th October

In the morning we met with NUSSL to look at ways the welfare campaign can tie in and capitalise on work they are undertaking. In the afternoon we met with InterAct WorldWide, whom we are producing the Sexual Health & Rights Resource in conjunction with, to see how work on that is going.

Tuesday, I went to Liberation 2005 in Chester, which seemed a successful event, which the liberation officers had clearly put lots of work into so well done to them for that.

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