24th June-6th July

24th & 25th June was Mature Students handover training weekend, in the Coventry Britannia. As VP Welfare, I convene the NUS mature students campaign. We’ve put a lot of work into building up the campaign over the last year, and one of the problems we recognised is that as there’s no dedicated officer continuity from year to year has been a problem. The campaign is one of NUS youngest, and still in its very early stages. The outgoing and incoming committee were committed to wanting to develop the campaign and make it much more prominent, and so this weekend was an opportunity to handover existing work, induct the new committee into how NUS works so they can get the most out of it, and plan our priority campaigns for the next year. We’re currently putting together our first ever webpages which will be up very shortly. However in the mean time if you want more information on the NUS Mature Students Campaign or want to get involved, you can e-mail me, or Bubble, who is co-convening the campaign with me this year from the NEC on veronica@nus.org.uk or bubble@nus.org.uk . It was a very positive weekend, thanks to everyone involved for their hard work!

26th & 27th June- London & East Anglia regional receptions (at KCLSU & Essex SU respectively). These were a great chance to meet incoming officers for the year, talk about their plans and what they want from NUS. I really enjoyed both receptions. I’ve found the summer handover period strangely quiet at times as a continuing officer, so I’ve really enjoyed meeting new, enthused officers and getting to grips with the campaign for the forthcoming year.

28th June- A day in the office, with a trip to the TV studios at Millbank to do an interview for Meridian TV.

29th June- Day in HQ, planning meeting for the welfare network day we are holding in January.

30th June- SWEDA ‘The hidden student’ conference, Bath. This was a brilliant event. SWEDA (Somerset & Wessex Eating Disorder Association) received funding from Comic Relief to run an 18-25 project. It is for 18-25 year olds, either originally from Somerset & Wessex and studying elsewhere, or studying at FE’s or HE’s in Somerset & Wessex.www.swedauk.org The project is to “develop and run a programme for young people, 18-25, who are trying to manage their eating disorder whilst in education (college, university etc.) or training. The aim of the project is to enable and support young people in this situation to continue and succeed with their studies, to help them move forward in their recoveries and, hopefully, to leave them feeling empowered, motivated and excited about moving on into life after study”. It’s a great, and unique project, and I found the conference an education in eating disorders. Last year, we really struggled to make links with eating disorders organisations as part of the mental health campaign, but it is an area I am committed to doing some work on this year, and I’m looking forward to running a positive body image campaign in conjunction with the women’s and disabled students campaigns.

That night it was Kat’s leaving do in Camden. It was a lovely evening, great to catch up with old friends, and I made it through the night without getting too drunk and emotional!

Of course, 30th June was the last day in office for last years NEC- so a fond farewell to all my outgoing colleagues. I think I probably learnt something from working with just about all of you last year, good luck to all in the future, and I’ll really miss some of you.

3rd July- 6th July: NEC induction

I’ll lay it on the line, over the weekend between ‘old’ and ‘new’ National Executive Committees, I had moments of worry about how the dynamics were changing and how that would alter my experience of being on the NEC (I’ve never been the best at dealing with change). And to that end, if I’m perfectly honest I felt some trepidation about spending the entirety of the next four days with my colleagues. But I’ll say here and now I was very pleasantly surprised! For me personally it was one of the most valuable training programmes I’ve been on, and I think I got a lot out of it. I would have loved a similar event at the start of last year, as it was brilliant for getting to know people and finding out about their experiences and motivations- hopefully it will prevent the misconceptions that can fester when NEC are thrown together with no induction. We even had a really positive, inclusive and fairly consensual NEC meeting. I suppose it would be easy to fall into a false sense of optimism following such an enjoyable induction. However, I think most of us recognize that everyone has political agendas, and you’re not elected on to the NEC to make friends-but I can say after a year on the NEC that it makes such a difference if you are able to have healthy and respectful personal relationships with NEC colleagues, and it really does the organisation a lot of good. I think events like our 4 day NEC induction are crucial for us tacking the culture of NUS and some of the old preconceptions about the issues of trust, elections, factions, and motives that are often thrown around. I feel the culture has shifted whilst I’ve been on the NEC. Ultimately, if we are serious about tacking these conceptions further the changes have to start from within.

Following NEC induction it was off to Keele’s graduation ball, where I had a truly lovely time!

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