Part 1…

Reunited with my desk - Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd November

My desk and I don’t seem to get to see enough of one another at the moment, so it was a welcome relief to be back in the office, catching up on e-mail, committee papers and pretty much everything else that comes with this job. Thank goodness for the 21st century and the ‘mobile office’, that’s all I can say.

Senior Management Team meeting – Friday 3rd

Friday was spent at the Guys Campus of King’s College, London for a meeting of the Senior Management Team, catching up on organisational issues, looking ahead to the forthcoming round of regional conferences and throwing around ideas about the strategic direction of the organisation. Let me reassure those of you who yearn for change in NUS that you’ll find no bigger critics of aspects of NUS than those of us who make up the NEC SMT and I’m personally looking forward to a fresh period of change and development.

North West Regional Conference, Man Met – Monday 6th

As per usual the NEC split in half and took to the road for the first round of regional conferences, starting (for us) at Man Met for North West regional conference. As ever I’ve nothing but praise for the cheap (and very tasty) food on offer. It was a somewhat different experience for me this year as I was leading on far more agenda items than when I was on the Block of 12. Throughout the week I led the Education Policy Commission, Priority Campaign update and the NUT Scholarship workshop.

If you haven’t done so already, have a good look at Richard Angell’s blog on the NUT Societies project, which generated a lot of interest (more interest than capacity for the pilots!!) and makes the work I did as NUT Scholarship Holder look pale in comparison!

I was particularly glad for the positive and constructive feedback I received about Admission: Impossible. The North West did a great job in mobilising for the demo and even organised their own regional demo and some interesting new ideas were generated which we’re currently looking into.

West Midlands Regional Conference, UCE – Tuesday 7th

Same format, different people – it’s what keeps the NEC looking vaguely interested by the end of the week. West Mids again generated a lot of interest in the Priority Campaign. WMANUS has been leading their own take on the priority campaign ‘Sentenced to Debt’, which has really taken off on campuses in the region and just goes to show how crucial areas can be in rolling out campaigns and generating involvement.

South West Regional Conference, Bristol – Wednesday 8th

Third regional of the week; by this time last year I was generally weary and not really energised to cope with another day of the same agenda. Perhaps the Admission: Impossible roadshow gave me an added layer of resiliance and stamina, because this year I was still totally wide awake and on the ball and enjoyed the third regional conference as much as I enjoyed the first.

The only negative thing about the day was the long long drive to Canterbury later that night – a mammoth drive made bearable by a service station stop for some of the Colonel’s original recipe chicken made from his secret recipe of herbs and spices, some logic problems provided by Steven Findlay and a competitition to see who could name the most NUS affiliates (yes we sometimes are *that* sad!).

South East Regional Conference, Kent – Thursday 9th

Final day of regionals and a new-look South East region as we were joined by new additions to the South East in the form of Oxford Brookes (moved over from South West) and Bucks Chilts (from my old region East Anglia). Sadly I had to leave early as I was off to…

Imperial Referendum campaigning – Thursday 9th

Myself and Kat Stark spoke alongside Yes to NUS campaigners at Imperial College against the No campaign. It was a good debate that I hope dispelled some of the myths about NUS. I’ll use this as an opportunity to say a huge congratulations to those who led the campaign to get Imperial back in, especially the students on the ground backed up by Stephen and Team London. Welcome Imperial! It’s good to have you back!

OIAHE Induction, Reading – Friday 10th

On Friday it felt like I was all over the place. It started in Reading for my ‘induction’ with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE, of which I am a director. It felt funny having an induction having already attended two board meetings, but it was time well spent.

FE Leadership Training, Bournemouth – Friday 10th, Saturday 11th, Sunday 12th

I then travelled down to Bournemouth for the first FE Leadership event of the season. It’s a brand new course replacing FE Essentials, which is run in association with the Centre for Excellence in Leadership (CEL).

I have to say that I really enjoyed the event, but I genuinely did. The content was really good and there were some real stars amongst the delegates who kept me entertained and really challenged me on a few things.

One of the workshops I ran was on NUS democracy, after which we generated loads of motion ideas for them to develop for conference. Grapevine tells me that many of the issues raised were still not submitted to conference, which is a shame because they raised some issues that often slip through the net. More work needs to be done on changing that culture, which we are well placed to do thanks to the new staff we have in the regions and with it the acknowledgement that one VP FE, however talented, cannot do everything alone.

The issue about whether my role should be changed to VP HE. I spoke against this last year but am happy to take soundings and hear the arguments again and it’s coming back to conference this year!

Back in the office – Monday 13th

Another day in the office. Have I mentioned one of my plants died yet? If not, I’d like to take this opportunity to lament the departure of my plant. Bereavement didn’t prevent me from dealing with the stack of mail, e-mail and faff (ranging from necessary but dull to very important and urgent) that was waiting for me.

National Council meeting – Tuesday 14th

Where to start with National Council? It always get bashed. I actually think it has a lot of potential for keeping the NEC accountable and on track but it’s not used to full effect. I felt that the morning agenda was pretty much a repeat of what we’d covered on regionals (and therefore a waste of time going over old ground), which is a shame because the people and ideas in that room could have been used to achieve so much more.

The excitement of the day was motions, commendations and censures. I’ve covered the priority ballot motion in another blog. A contentious issue was a motion from the Disabled Students’ Campaign to restore their two-day annual conference to three days. I’m sure/hope Alex will blog in more detail about the issue but essentially the Disabled Students’ Campaign were screwed over for making a decision a while back to reduce the length of their conference to save NUS money at a tight time and other campaigns didn’t follow suit. We got a bit of a compromise situation that I don’t think the D.S. Campaign reps were at all happy with. The whole situation reinforces to me the need for a full strategic review of resource allocation, conferences etc.

I was grateful to those National Council reps who voted to commend me for various aspects of the priority campaign along with other NEC members and myself and Richard for the RAE Consultation event we ran. People don’t do things for a pat on the back, but it’s nice when you get a thank you. I should also point out that I spoke against a censure for Suzie Wylie for not doing enough for the demo. Suzie and I have very different politics, but she’s been very ill lately and whatever our disagreements on policies I know building for demos comes as second nature to her and she would have been a real asset.

HE Academy Board Meeting and Away Day – Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th

Straight after Council I went down to London for a posh meal in a swanky hotel with the rest of the Higher Education Academy Board, on which I sit as a director. It was part of a strategic away day and was a good opportunity to engage with people from across the sector. This spread over to Wednesday.

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