York, Newcastle, Durham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bournemouth, London, Leicester, Manchester (again), Leeds, Edinburgh (again), Belfast, Bournemouth (again) and Bristol.

November was probably one of the most enjoyable months I’ve had on the NEC, not far behind the HSBC victory and spending a month in a van with Gemma building for last year’s national demonstration, but like all the good times it was exhausting! The NEC had called for an Extraordinary Conference to discuss our proposed reforms to NUS’ governance. My job, as part of that coalition for change, was to make sure it happened!

On November 1, I was speaking at the Universities of the North East Conference as its after dinner speaker. The audience comprised the vice-chancellors of the North East, senior staff and representatives from national sector agencies. I spoke about the learner voice, widening access and higher education funding and received a good reception.

I used my time up that way to spend the day visiting the students’ unions at York St John and York University, mainly talking about the proposed reforms and encouraging them to attend the Extraordinary Conference (assuming – as seemed likely that we would get the required calls). Since I was speaking at a debate at the Durham debating union the following evening, I spent Friday 2 visiting the students’ unions at Newcastle University, Northumbria, Newcastle College and Durham talking about, yep you guessed it… NUS reform! It was also a great opportunity to catch up on what the unions were doing. Particular mention to Ruth Crowther and her team at Newcastle College; I visited last year as part of the Admission:Impossible road show and its amazing to see how much they’ve achieved during the past year on learner engagement and improvements to students’ lives at the college. I was also impressed with Northumbria’s own governance review, the way they’d involved students in the process (we’ll be nicking some of their ideas, especially on communications) and the huge numbers they’d got to attend their AGM. Although they truly stitched me up with an appearance on a TV programme called ‘How to get more sex’. I’m not going into details and I’m not going to tell you when it’s broadcast because frankly I don’t want to know. But I’m gonna get revenge on Martin Farr for this!!!

On Saturday 3, I attended NUS Scotland Council with Dave Lewis to talk about… NUS reform! I’ve been to NUS Scotland events every year during my time on the NEC and try to take as active an interest as possible in Scottish HE and FE policy – where NUS Scotland has made a great impact across a range of issues.

The following week was a killer six day week. Regional conferences took place from the 5 to 8 in Manchester, Bournemouth, London and Leicester with some lively exchanges on governance, some interesting debate on HE funding and all in the new super regional setting. Exciting stuff, but exhausting to say the least. On 9 November, I was back in Manchester chairing a HE academy conference called Student Life Uncovered. I was chairing sessions from 10 til 4.30 so it was a long old day (and so sadly I wasn’t able to visit any students’ unions while I was in the area), but it was extremely informative and eye opening as we received papers across a range of issues affecting the student experience. On Sunday 11, I ran a workshop at the Student Action for Refugees conference on using new media for effective campaigning, for which I received really positive feedback from the delegates’ forms.

At this point Gemma also informed the membership that she had received more than the 25 calls required for an Extraordinary Conference, which was to be held on 4 December in Leicester, so it was really hotting up!

Not totally finished off by the schedule of the preceding week, I was in Leeds on the evening of Monday 12 addressing their union council on NUS’ governance proposals and was pleased that the Council endorsed our proposals! Sadly I had to head straight back to London to pack my bags as the next day I was in Edinburgh for 24 hours attending a board meeting and away day for the Higher Education Academy, where we were discussing revised aims and strategic objectives and the strategic plan. Having gone through this process with NUS I felt better able to contribute to discussion, though I do feel like I’ve got strategic planning coming out of my ear holes at the moment! It was incredibly productive though and more student centric than in previous years.

Thursday 15 and Friday 16 were spend in the office. On Friday I met with the Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute.

On Monday 19, I was in Belfast for the NUS-USI demonstration against fees. It was a great day and politicians from across the political spectrum turned out to speak. For all the accusations moderates on the NEC get for being right wing bureaucrats/sell outs/careerists, etc. (delete as appropriate), I did find it strange that not a single member of Student Respect, Education Not for Sale or Student Broad Left attended the demo. There were a handful of SWP activists there though and some Socialist Students were telling me how dreadful the NUS leadership is and how Socialist Students had forced the National President and VP Education into action last year… Before realising I was the VP Education! In the immortal words of Catherine Tate…

Tuesday 20 was spent at that delightful democratic showcase known as NUS National Council. No offence to national councillors but the event is farcical. They did their best to make it worthwhile though and there were some really valuable contributions in the Report and Plan sessions.

On Wednesday 21 I had lunch with one of the research directors of the Russell Group to discuss internationalisation and the student experience. On Thursday 22 I think the previous weeks caught up with me as I was laid up at home though made it in for Friday 23.

The following week was ludicrously busy. Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 were spent either on the phone to students’ unions to get them to register for Extraordinary Conference or in sessions at the NUS South Presidential Residential with Gemma. On Wednesday 28, I spoke at two conferences – first as one of the keynotes at the 1994 Group/NUS Conference on enhancing the student experience (will blog the speech at some point) and later on a panel with James Alexander, Bill Rammell and representatives of the funding councils at a conference on the Bologna Process.

On Thursday 29, I attended UWE’s annual general meeting where I was pleased that they overwhelmingly defeating Student Respect’s Save NUS Democracy Motion and then dashed back to London at the Times Higher Education Supplement’s Awards (http://www.thes.co.uk/Awards/2007/).

At this point, I just want to pay tribute to Steve Smith, VC at Exeter and the Guild of Students. Steve also spoke at the ‘94 Group Conference and his institution won University of the Year. I just think it speaks volumes of his leadership and regard for the Students’ Guild that at the same time the Guild were fighting the Chemistry Department closure he was tripling their block grant. At time of writing there’s a great photo of Steve and Jess Dow on the front of the THES. Congrats to other winners and nominees.

Friday 30 ended with myself, Gemma, Stephen, Dave and Ama in the bar with several large glasses of wine having spent the day on the phone driving up registrations for Extraordinary Conference. Stephen and Dave in particular had been crucial to raising awareness of the conference. Because of this, attendance looked set to be higher than active participants at annual conference. So much for the ‘small and undemocratic’ attacks on the idea of an Extraordinary Conference.

The next blog is about Extraordinary Conference.

Wes

wes.streeting@nus.org.uk

07738 477 353

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