Monday 23rd January- spent in HQ working on various presentations for the forthcoming week and writing and submitting the NEC welfare amendment on mental health for national conference.

Tuesday 24th January- Launch of UNITE Student Living Report in Sheffield. The report is published in every year and makes for interesting reading around things like students attitudes to debt, how much they are working etc. At the same event I was wholly unimpressed to see Bill Rammell officially open Unite’s new halls in Sheffield, given their track record for late delivery (which I witnessed personally in Liverpool 2 years ago) and unscrupulous rent hikes. NUS resolutely opposes PPIS and PFIs, with good reason, and in my mind it is not acceptable to see a Minister endorse a private provider in this way. As a result of the report I did extensive media work, including an interview on 5 Live and various presswork. Randomly also saw Prince Charles in Sheffield, as you do!

Wednesday 25th- Attended the Universities UUK Conference on Students and Communities, and the launch of the corresponding UUK report. Students and communities had dominated my work over the last few months- and I will shortly have a blog just on this issue up. I spoke on the panel, ran a couple of workshops, and asked Bill Rammell to condemn Charles Clark for the comments he had made about the students in his constituency- but to no avail.

Thursday 26th- Spent the morning in HQ and had a meeting about the Sexual health Lobby, which we are in the process of arranging for April- more details ASAP. In the afternoon I spoke at a conference on student safety and the role of students unions.

Friday 27th- Spent most of the day at the Student Stop AIDS Coalition Away Day, which was a brilliant event. Returned to HQ in the afternoon for the close of nominations, to hand in my own nomination for f re-election, and HQ was buzzing! We then went to the pub, to await the lists of candidates (and try and reassure ourselves we hadn’t messed up our forms). So there I was, fresh from having spoken at a conference just the day before about students and crime, than what should happen? I left my own bag unattended for 2 minutes and my phone and purse were gone. Gutting. Thank you to my lovely NEC colleagues for dealing with me.

I was due to fly to Edinburgh the following morning for a MSNC meeting, but due to my tickets, railcard (for the journey back) and photo ID all being in my purse I was stuck in London, instead spending the day talking to the police, and Orange, and being on the end of the phone instead. A massive THANK YOU to Judith for chairing the MSNC meeting in my absence- I owe you one!

Mon- 30th January- NEC meeting and delegation meeting at Birkbeck- one of the worst meetings we’ve had in a while- and I kept having to run out to do press work on the Loughborough situation. Then that night I went to Loughborough to appear on Breakfast news the following morning at 6.30am!

Then it was back to London, mid-morning Tuesday, for a conference at UCAS on student finance which I was speaking at.

Wednesday 1st Feb- meeting at the OIA in reading re their role in the UUK code, then back to HQ

Thursday- HQ in morning- then a trip to the Home Office to put our finishing touches to the student crime prevention partnership toolkit.

Friday- Co-op meeting in Manchester – then back to HQ in Afternoon.

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