As anyone that follows MMUnion and its officers on Twitter, Facebook or online might know,  8 of us attended the NUS National Conference. It took place over 3 days, in Sheffield City Hall. The whole point of NUS Conference is to bring delegates from every FE (further education) and HE (Higher Education) institute together to discuss the direction of NUS and its leaders for the year ahead. There are debates, discussions, elections, voting and parties. It’s pretty incredible!

                The point of this blog post though is just to let students know how I voted, why I voted and how I’m representing you, this is so you can hold me to account as being one of your representatives and if you feel you want to discuss it with me, any student at MMU is welcome to do this! Ill cover mainly the big debates in this, as I won’t bore everyone with every vote! (However I will put a report together on all issues and debates I imputed on). The main point of conference is to vote on policy for the year ahead. Policy is basically a statement or action which is put forward by a Union and if passed by the conference becomes an action for NUS to carry out and support throughout the year.

                I suppose the main debate which arrived was around a policy amendment in the HE zone named 305b (Bit of jargon I know!) . This was basically calling the NUS for a national demonstration in London, much like what was seen last year when over 50,000 Students took to the streets to oppose Fee rises, cuts and attacks on Education. Overall this was a fantastically successful event; I attended it myself, marched round London and had a pint. Blooming brilliant day! However, after speaking to a plethora of Unions across the UK, it seems that this kind of action doesn’t help a lot of smaller Union located away from London and with low financial support to get its students to London to show support for this. In my opinion it should be more of a priority to work on getting local action to make sure institutions are not folding to this mentality of cuts and cut backs and that our own students are at the for front of this attitude. The motion did get passed however and NUS will now be supporting a National Demo in the first term next academic year! So I would love to hear MMU student opinions on this, to work out how much resource you want MMUnion officers to put into this? Do you feel this should be a priority for us? It wasn’t a manifesto point and national action hasn’t been laid out in plans, however if students are fully in support, then support it full force we shall! There are plenty of options open for us so please give some feedback on this. I don’t want this to drag on too long however, so Il write my report on conference and make sure it is available online!

                I must say, to be a part of it for the first time this year has been an absolute pleasure and a joy! I feel truly privileged to be able to represent MMUnion and its Students. However I am absolutely knackered, I enjoyed a whole lot of debates and voting, but I enjoyed my fair share of karaoke, pints and parties! So all in all, brilliant time and I urge any student to run as an NUS Delegate for next year’s conference. I’ll be there again that’s for sure.

Also I would like to congratulate this years Elected NUS Officers, who are –

President – Liam Burns - @NUS_Liam

VP Higher Education – Rachel Wenstone -@rachel_wenstone

VP Welfare – Pete Mercer @mercerpete

VP FE – Toni Pearce - @toni_pearce

VP Union Development – Vikki Baars @vickibaars

VP Society and Citizenship – Dannie Grufferty - @Dannigruff

Absolutely thrilled with the results! Its going to be a good year!