By its nature, and largely because of summer training, the summer months in NUS tend to be very ‘bitty’, so I will try and give you a brief over view of what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks, and the significant events…

10th August- met with Alex Kemp to plan NUS Mental Health Training Day (29th September, Manchester, book your place now- events )

14th August- met with Terence Higgins Trust & Dr Thom, to discuss a pilot project proposal we are taking to the Department of Health, to encourage more young people, in particular men to get tested for STIs.

15th-18th August Action through Advocacy mark 2- Another great course with good feedback. On a personal level I loved being back in the north west, and had the opportunity to catch up with some old friends (a rare treat in NUS!). A sad end to the week however, with Glyn losing big brother on Friday!

21st August- Welfare zone meeting. A great, really productive meeting. I won’t pre-empt the campaigns launch, but for those of you not attending I will post up my presentation and materials next week, so you can hear all about the welfare & student rights campaign 2006-07 (very exciting and lots of potential for you all to get involved!)

22nd August- Went for an eye test ( and yes, thanks to the long hours, late nights, and reading and working whilst on trains, having dodged my genetic odds for 23 years, I shall shortly be sporting glasses), and then went up to Communications in Action for the day to help out as they were an NEC member down. It was really refreshing for me to see a completely different course to Advocacy, and I certainly felt I learnt stuff whilst I was there.

23rd August- trip to Oxford to meet People and Planet with Kat Stark, and to look at how we can work together over the forthcoming year. Very inspiring campaigning!

25th August- WMANUS housing training day, BUGS. A much anticipated event, this was a fairly specialist day, concerning accommodation in Birmingham, and more broadly across the west midlands. I think (and hope) it was productive and off the back off it we are going to kick-start some anti-privatisation campaigning, and get an accreditation scheme up and running in Brum. Big well done to Paul for organising such an effective day!

29th August- NEC Press & Public Affairs training day, ULU. I think it’s a shame more of the NEC didn’t try and come along to this, because I think despite already having served a year on the NEC, myself and Ellie felt we got a lot out of the day, and it gave me some real food for thought in terms of planning the welfare campaign for this year, and how we can get wins off the back of using the media and parliament to the best effect.

30th & 31st August- Management team meeting, HQ, then off to Leeds for Unipol student housing training. Even more accommodation training for student officers (there’s a lot to learn y’know!). Unipol kindly arranged this for us, with 25 places for student officers, very valuable, as we enter the fist full year the housing act has been in force. The housing act is a good thing which I commend the government for, and which NUS can class as a ‘victory’, as large parts of it came about from our lobbying. However, it’s not going to be effective if students don’t know their new rights under it. There’s a great explanation of it here, and if anyone has any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

4th September- In HQ, attended Sam Lebens’ RAG week planning meeting, and met with No Smoking Day to plan next years activities and discuss supporting unions implant the smoking ban.

So, a bitty but busy few weeks. I have to say, at the moment I’m really loving my job. It’s the campaigns launch this week, which I’m fired up for, proud of the campaign plan the welfare zone will be presenting. The forthcoming weeks will be some of our busiest and most important of the year, as we must capitalise on the flood of media attention we inevitably gain at the start of the academic year, make our presence felt at freshers’ fairs, always a brilliant opportunity to convey to students everything their national union does for them. And above all else, the forthcoming weeks are about building for a spectacular national demonstration, on October 29th. We have our jokes, but let’s be serious, our organisation is here because of education, and surely it is imperative that this takes priority for all of us this year. I re-stood for a multitude of reasons, but one of the key ones was because I wanted to play a front-line role in our fight for a free education, the year top-up fees were introduced. I will be putting my absolute all in to it- inevitably it will be incredibly stressful at times- but I for one am ready for action….and I hope you all are too!

VK

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