Hello, hello. And welcome to my second year blog. I’ve been reading some of my old ones of late and have decided that they’ve been a bit boring recently. Mainly because life as VP Ed during the first year was so difficult at points that writing up my blog was like reliving my nightmares. Thankfully though, things are on the up. After a very difficult and painful restructure internally, I’m more confident than ever that our new structure will better deliver for our members and I’m really looking forward to recruiting some key staff in our new Education & Quality Unit. The governance review is also getting underway and I think the mood music within the membership and the NEC places us in a position to genuinely transform the organisation if we have the nerve to see it through. And I’m confident we will. So I’m really looking forward to taking on a second term in this job I love. On that positive note, here’s how I got cracking for a second term in July.

On Sunday 1st July I attended International Students’ Committee to facilitate their priority campaign planning and introduce them to the NUS governance process and the Green Paper that the Steering Group had put out to consultation beforehand. It was an incredibly positive meeting and I’m confident that Evita and her team will do a great job this year.

During the following week I hit the road with NEC colleagues for Regional Officer Welcome events in the North, Midlands, South and London. I really enjoyed meeting officers at the start of their term in office and it certainly helped shake off some of my June blues during a difficult time for the organisation, even if I did come down with a pretty nasty cold during the week. Ama and I also had the pleasure of attending the Amnesty International Media Awards in London on the 4th July. We also got news of a pretty major government announcement on changes to the student support system. Around 2/3 of students will now receive some form of grant and while the system is by no means perfect, this was a positive step in the right direction from the new government and it’s brand new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS).

After a day in the office on Friday 6th I went over to Belfast for the Aldwych Group handover from Sunday 8th to Monday 9th event at Queen’s University. It was my first visit to N. Ireland and the event (I can safely say) was the best Aldwych handover I’ve attended so congratulations to Brian Duggan and his team and to the new chair, Josh MacAlister and his team.

From Belfast I went straight over to my own handover in Chester for NEC Induction from Tuesday 10th to Thursday 12th which was ace if a little difficult at times with so much formal business to discuss as well as the inevitable team building and training. At this point I must point out to readers that Kat Stark is THE DREAM on karaoke and Stephen Brown does an excellent rendition of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights. I’m not sure if there was a political message in Chief Executive Matt Hyde’s performance of Suspicious Minds…!

Unlucky for some, but not for NUS it seems as Friday 13th was a particularly busy day which began with a meeting with Sir Martin Harris, head of the Office for Fair Access where we had a very productive discussion about bursary arrangements in the wake of changes to the student support package announced by John Denham. At our request, he agreed to write to all HE institutions encouraging them to contact their students’ unions to involve them in the redesign and publicity of bursaries. If you are NOT being involved in discussions locally please let me know asap and I’ll do my best to help you out!!! Myself and Be Pringle are working with our Student Finance experts on a briefing to help students’ unions with their bursary redesigns. Straight after the meeting it was back to NUS HQ to meet with Beth to recruit our new Education Research Assistant and I’m delighted to report that Mark Leach, formerly of Kent Union, has joined the team at NUS.

The following week was busy but spent in the office which made a welcome change to recent working patterns! Thursday 19th was a very busy day out of the office, however, involving a Coalition of Partners meeting for the Student Finance Information Campaign with HE Minister Bill Rammell, followed at 5pm with an initial meeting with new Secretary of State John Denham and Lord Triesman both at DIUS followed immediately by a reception at DIUS for all the major stakeholders in FE and HE. All of these meetings were productive and both Gemma and I were impressed that the Secretary of State called us in so soon after his appointment to talk about his departmental priorities. We reinforced our message about the need for the forthcoming fees review to consider other alternatives to the current model and he emphasised to us the need for a full debate about the size, purpose and structure of HE, which we essentially agreed with.

The last full week of July began on Monday 23rd with the England round of the Governance Consultation events series, which I found really useful. I took copious notes throughout the day, which then fed into my own submission with Labour Students. What struck me was the open-minded way in which we collectively approached the day, resulting in a very honest and inclusive atmosphere.

Tuesday 24th was spent planning our campaign against HSBC’s graduate account charges to build on the Facebook group I’d set up previously. As lead officers on the campaign, Ama and I planned a series of media announcements and rallying of the troops to culminate in a press student outside their headquarters on the day of the Campaigns Convention. In addition to writing to HSBC we also wrote to the other major student account providers to get their assurances that they wouldn’t be following suit!

On Wednesday 25th I attended a major conference organised by the Institute of Education to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the publication of the Dearing Report at which I managed to speak with Lord Dearing himself. After a day in the office on Thursday 26th I spoke at a conference organised by the 1994 group with their students’ unions looking at common features of the student experience across the 1994 Group.

My month essentially ended on Monday 30th with a meeting of the National Student Survey Steering Group at which we discussed plans to include HE students studying at FE institutions and I also kicked off about one of the features of the new Unistats website we’re launching later this year. I won’t go into detail here as I won the argument, but sufficed to say it should make life a lot easier for applicants when making choices!

After that, it was off to Action Through Advocacy round 1 in Lancaster, but I’m afraid that’s a story for my August blog!

Until then!

Wes

wes.streeting@nus.org.uk

07738 477 353

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