Amidst all of my recent ranting and raving on my blog, I thought it was about time that I updated you on what I’ve been doing over the past month or so!

Despite finishing early in December for the Christmas break, it was a busy – if festive – time. On Tuesday 6th December I spent a lonely day at the House of Lords, tracking down the Lords I built contact with a President of my union last year and trying to do some last minute lobbying. With Benson away on leave, I made arrangements for a press release to go out and for the membership to be referred to the briefing documents online to support their work. Being there by myself might have been a bit depressing had I not been very aware of the vast amount of work that some unions did by ‘adopting’ a Lord connected to their institution for lobbying!

Last month was also my first formal bilateral meeting with the NUT on the 7th, where I updated them on the work I have been doing for the scholarship and my plans for the coming work. They were very pleased with the high level of activity taking place.

I also secured NUT support for the WMANUS campaign against PGCE top-up fees (more on that later) and also for the Coalition that Julian is currently building as part of the NUS priority campaign. Julian has met with the NUT since and has formally signed them up, which is great. We also discussed mutual concerns about the Schools White Paper that has recently been published by DfES.

After my meeting with the NUT, I headed up to Birmingham for WMANUS Winter Conference, as I have been working with them on a joint campaign against PGCE top-up fees as part of my NUT scholarship work. Paul from Keele reckoned that I couldn’t get Paul Farrelly MP to put down our Early Day Motion, but myself and Joe Keenan have proven him wrong! ? More on that later. Overall the day was really good. Congratulations also to Manishta Sunnia from Dudley College, who was elected onto the WMANUS Exec.

As well as an Education Team meeting, December also brought festive joy to our collective hearts with not one, but two (!) NEC meetings. Despite some tense issues and debates, I actually really enjoyed much of our discussion and the good feeling around the table that came with the festive season (even if Jo Salmon did insist on saying “bah humbug” repeatedly!).

The first day was dedicated to discussion of organisational/management. We managed to get through all of it, including a rather difficult discussion surrounding the extremely damaging and inaccurate statement put out by Sam Rozati, resigning Chair of Finance Committee, about the state of NUS finances, presumably for electoral gain; presentation of the MORI findings by Gemma and some other management issues.

The second day was dedicated to motions discussions. Aspects of our discussions made me feel particularly frustrated, but that’s life I guess. And the day rounded up very nicely with some festive gifts from Kat and the exchange of Secret Santa gifts. Thanks to Veronica for my Little Britain calendar, eye mask and picture holder complete with an Ellie Russell photo!

On the first evening, the NEC and observers headed over to Tower Hill for a dinner with our European partners as part of the European Student Convention, organised by Dan Chilcott and Julian Nicholds. It was a nice opportunity to catch up with some familiar faces from USI and Germany, whom I’d met on a previous conference as well as getting to know some new people and share experiences. Afterwards we went over to King’s for far too much to drink. I can’t remember much from thereon in! I’m not quite sure how I made it to the NUS Party the next day!

The New Year has been busier than I could have expected from the get-go! You’ll be pleased to hear that I’m not just referring to collecting nominations either! Officers reading this blog will no doubt be aware that I’ve been working before and since Christmas on my campaign with WMANUS against PGCE top-up fees. I frantically put together a PGCE top-up fees action briefing for an Early Day Motion (EDM) we got put down at the 11th hour thanks to Joe Keenan and Paul Farrelly MP. As part of this campaign I’ve:

• Written to all CMs with Julian, including a model letter and press release to use in local campaigning
• Emailed CMs as soon as the EDM went down to get in urgent action before Christmas
• Wrote to MPs urging them to sign up to the EDM
• Arranged for a press release to be sent out, which gained local and national press coverage

The response from unions so far has been fantastic. We’ve got over 70 signatures so far, but I know we can do better. Over the past week I’ve had a renewed push on this, Andy Wilford at WMANUS has been pushing the campaign hard there and we’re working with Kat Stark at Warwick to arrange a Lobby of Parliament later this term. Watch out for further info.

You can read a copy of my letter here

You can find a copy of the model letter to MPs and press release here

You can read the article on Education Guardian here

You see who’s signed the EDM on the database here

Whilst this has taken up a fair amount of time, I’ve also been kept busy this month writing my updates for the NUS Report & Plan on my work with the NUT Scholarship and also my report on the Youth Matters Project I led in response to the government’s Youth Green Paper. Do have a read of what we’ve all been doing! Other bits and pieces include a panel discussion on Radio 5 Live in response to a YouGov poll claiming that 1 in 10 people would drop out of education for to appeal on reality TV, some enquiries about our work with AUT, NATFHE and EIS on fair pay for staff and chasing feedback for our PGCE campaign.

This week, I also had the pleasure of attending NUS’ Annual Reception at the House of Commons. The attendance was fantastic, with MPs from all parties in attendance, trade unionists, educationalists and, of course, the launch of the 2010 Coalition www.coalition2010. I think this will be a real legacy that provides the foundations to get our funding campaign going again and ensure that we really are on course for a fair future. Highlights for me were a great speech by Paul Macknay, Kat lambasting the Tories over Cameron’s U-turn on fees and Boris Johnson turning heads by smashing a glass!

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions and apologies for taking a while to get down off my soapbox to give you an update on my donkey work!

wes.streeting@nus.org.uk
07738 477 353

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