The first few weeks of January have absolutely flown by, my diary is fuller than ever and I’m learning first hand exactly what ‘NUS silly season’ is like!

The first few days back after Christmas were spent in the office, catching up and gearing up for the start of term proper, as many students and students unions returned the following week.

Over the following week, amidst planning mature students’ committee meetings, catching up on pre-Christmas blogging and preparing presentations and reports for a range of conferences later in January, I also did the following-

Tuesday 10th January- Meeting at Office of Deputy Prime Minister along with UUK and ANUK to discuss the progress and timescale of approval of the codes for university owned accommodation.

Following this I attended the Votes at 16 lobby in Portcullis house- which was very interesting.

Thursday 12th January- Attended launch of Warwick’s One World Week- which was an eye-opening, colourful spectacle. I was pleased to attend on behalf of NUS. OWW at Warwick is legendary, so I loved witnessing it first-hand. It was then on to Birmingham for an early start the next day.

Friday 13th January- Started the day by attending the Matthew Boulton college protest, in solidarity with the 2 suspended students. There was a decent turnout, and we managed to speak to many students and collect lots of signatures for the petition.

Following the protest I went back to the WM Area offices to go through the Co-op project, where we are up to with it and how they can support it, as they passed policy to that effect at their Winter conference (well done BUGS, for submitting it!).

I then went to Dudley College to meet some of the student officers there. It was great to hear how their first year with a sabbatical president is going, and we sat down and planned some welfare campaigns which they could roll out over the coming months, and looked at trhe ways NUS could support them in terms of providing resources materials and advice.

After Dudley I went to South Birmingham College to touch base with one of the officers there. We talked about setting objectives and running campaigns based on what the officers hope to achieve this year.

W/c 16th January

17th January NUS Annual Reception- we were really happy with how the event went, and I know many of my NEC colleagues share my view that we were lucky as an organisation to have so many high profile and well respected organisations in attendance, who we have strong relationships with- many of which I hope that Coalition 2010, launched at the event will endeavour to strengthen even further. To find out all about Coalition 2010, click here

Following the lobby, I attended the All Party Parliamentary Group on Disability, along with Sian, where the topic was the Mental Health Bill. Recently things have gone very quiet in terms of the bill’s progress- and it was confirmed that the bill will not be coming before Parliament in this sitting- and appears to be in the recycling bill. We have been fighting against the bill for the last year, and so this is a great result. Paul Farmer, Chair of the Mental Health Alliance, of which NUS is a member, paid tribute to the role that we had played in this campaign. All in all it was a fascinating meeting with a satisfying outcome.

Wednesday 18th I attended the inaugural meeting of Drink Aware (the newly launched charity wing of the Portman Group), following a pre-meeting at Alcohol Concern.

Thursday 19th I went to Sheffield College, for a meeting with some students, the Principal, and Clerk to the Governors. The meeting was discussing the re-estabishment of a proper students union, and the guarantee of proper elections, recognised by the college. The students were satisfied with the outcome of the meeting, which was very constructive. I loved the chance to get back to basics (though that phrase always makes me think of the Tories unfortunately) and discuss the core role of students unions, why it is vital they not only exist, but are active, and the benefits everyone can reap from engaging with the learner voice.

Friday 20th The day was spent in HQ, and I attended a meeting about NUS and trade unions- to get an idea of what everyone has been doing on this issue and co-ordinate our approach.

…And yes, to be perfectly honest, in the first few weeks back I have started gearing up for elections and getting things in order for the close of nominations on Friday, since as many people know I am running for re-election. Im not going to use my blog to big myself up, but I couldn’t honestly blog without mentioning what this time of year is dominated by- ELECTIONS ELECTIONS ELECTIONS! I have reached the conclusion over the last few weeks that its worse running for election as an existing NEC member rather than as a student in your own students union- just because the topic of elections is on everyone’s lips all the time and its really difficult to escape- feelings of paranoia. I could go off on a real tangent here, but instead lets just say roll on Friday, the close of nominations, and with a bit of luck, at least a partial break from silly season until conference gets nearer.

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