Well, the last month has probably been the busiest I can remember in my time in the movement. To all you officers out there (especially second years!) suffering from burn out I can sympathise! I shall now attempt to take you through the last month, from the demo onwards.

29th October- National Demonstration!!!!

Many of us had spent September and October visiting unions and building for the national demo, yet wee were all quite anxious about how it would go, but I think it was a great day, and well done to everyone involved before hand and on the day for all their hard work, especially all those unions who went all out for building for it, at a time of the year which is traditionally so hectic with so many things vying to take priority.

I was in Liverpool on the Saturday night for a Guild officer’s reunion dinner, with officers from as far back as 1938 at which was amazing, and I travelled down at 4.30am on one of the guild coaches to the demo, and it was brilliant to be in the midst of the action- thanks for the lift guys!

I was a steward on the day, for the North, and whilst it might not have been as much fun as my usual preferred tactic of screeching down a megaphone it was a great day nonetheless.

30th October

The next morning, it was up to Aston (more on that union later) for a WMANUS housing meeting. I’ve been supporting WMANUS and UCE, BUGS and Aston in trying to establish an accreditation scheme in Birmingham. It astonished me that a city the size of Birmingham with such a huge student population has nothing like this. I’m a real fan of accreditation schemes as they are a great way to reward and promote good landlords, and educate students about what they should expect and demand in terms of accommodation standards, without resorting to additional licensing. The council came to the meeting and after extensive lobbying, agreed in principle to support and get on board with the accreditation scheme. There’s still a lot of work to do, but this is good news!

31st October & 1st November- office days, catching up!

2nd November- Met with UCU with Ama to plan the anti-bullying campaign, and attended the Holocaust memorial day local activities group to give student input.

3rd November- Senior Management Away Day, at KCLSU, preparing for regionals.

4th November- Spoke at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign conference, (in a personal capacity).

5th-9th November- Regional Conferences!

This term I ‘rode westside’ with Stephen, Bubble, Wes, Louise, Fin, Rus and Claire. As it was just after the demo, and it’s the first year of extra, we were a bit apprehensive, but in fact regionals were the most optimistic that I can remember, and the new more interactive format was a vast improvement. But I must say, and I know Stephen will agree, Bubble and Wes’ singing could be inflicted on people as a form of torture!

10th November- UUK mental wellbeing conference. Me and Alex are on the committee which organised this event, and we both spoke on the student panel in the afternoon, which went well and we got good feedback from.

13th & 15th November I was at Imperial as part of the affiliation campaign, talking about NUS. Highlights included dressing up in a penguin suit for lecture shouts. I was also pleased to report a uni friend of mine who’s a post-grad at Imperial voted ‘yes’ online, despite being on holiday in Australia!

14th November- National Council in Loughborough, the first one I can remember leaving without wanting to pull my hair out. In my view it’s a vast improvement now that NEC can’t vote, and we passed some good policy.

15th November (evening)- I spoke at the All Party Parliamentry Group on Universities about Student Accommodation. This was quite a big deal for me, with lots of influential stakeholders there, and I’m pleased to say it went well- hopefully NUS will get invited back.

16-18th FE leadership in Wigan

20th- Much needed office day!

21st NUS Beat Bulling Day, Leicester

22nd- NUS pro-choice lobby of parliament- I didn’t get to see my MP, as he is Blair’s PPS, but I got a letter of strong support from him which was very welcome, as some of the MPs I saw on the day were very offensive- in particular one Tory who told us ‘some women have abortions just because they’ve got a holiday booked and its not convenient to have a baby’!!!

23rd- Management team meeting, HQ

24th- met with Emma Thompson, West Midlands Police to discuss welfare safety products, and ways we can work with PAHELO (police association of Higher education liaison officers).

I also met the Family Planning Association, to look at some joint campaigning.

27th- Met with ACTSA to plan a meeting on Youth engagement in the fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa.

29th- Aston referendum. As many of you will know we lost the referendum, despite out best campaign efforts to the contrary. Personally I was very disappointed as this year the welfare campaign has given lots of help, information and resources to Aston, and its quite frustrating to feel like this is all in vain. I believe that every student should have have the right to be part of a national union, NUS does things a local union doesn’t and never could do. Does the government want a strong NUS as top-up fees are implemented? Do Vice-Chancellors want a strong NUS when their funding is at stake? Of course they don’t. So whilst unions may think that saving the pennies per day per student is good for their unions, its bad for students at Aston, its bad for students at in the UK, and its bad for education in this country.

30th- Office Day

1st December- Met with Liberty to take forward our joint work. Went to Goldsmiths in the afternoon to speak at a World AIDS Day event, which was really informative, well attended and well organised, and I enjoyed spending world AIDS day there.

Launch of the Accommodation Costs Survey in London, with Bill Rammell and Boris Johnson:

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