It feels like a lifetime already since I began handover with Tom Page two and a half weeks ago! Since then we have all been away on residential training and have been in the office properly since Friday. Much of my time so far has been, frustratingly, taken up with admin like getting my email account sorted!
 
A highlight so far has been NUS Regional Reception. We all travelled to Surrey University yesterday and met up with many other sabbs from the South East region and with some members of the National Executive Committee of NUS. NUS is the National Union of Students but for most Kent students they probably only recognise it as a discount card. This needs to change. We are so lucky at Kent to have a fab University and Union that sometimes we forget that a large part of our role should be campaigning. Not just sticking up a few posters to create awareness of an issue but actively pursuing change for our students. The support from NUS for our campaigns should be utilised and NUS campaigns brought back to our members - we are the National Union of Students and we will get out of it what we put in. Wes Streeting, NUS National President, compared membership of the NUS with joining a gym - paying the membership is not going to make the weight fall off just as only paying our affiliation fee to NUS isn't going to deliver change for students. It is for this reason that one of my aims this year is to ensure that as a Union we take the issues facing Kent students to the NUS and ensure that their policy reflects the Kent student experience, we can do this through networking, through regional events and through NUS National Conference.
 
This leads me onto the recurrent issue of the 'South East Weighting' campaign. At Kent we have compiled stacks of petition signatures but this is a campaign we simply cannot succeed in on our own. We need to work with all Student Unions in the South East and even consider working with the unions of other demographics, such as teachers and nurses, who face the same financial difficulty in comparison to their colleagues receiving a London weighting on their salary. The time and planning involved in doing this is likely to take more than one sabbatical term, which is where the support from NUS in coordinating the work of several unions will be invaluable.
 
On a completely different note, next week I am off to a training event in Leister on Understanding and Supporting Liberation. Over the last year policy has been developed to support our liberation officers (women's, students with disabilities, lgbt and ethnic minorities officers) in running truly autonomous liberation campaigns. This is not something that will happen overnight but something I want to really support this year and hopefully I will come back after next week with exciting plans to share! In the meantime I would encourage you to have a look at'Liberation Officers in Every Union'produced by NUS to understand why Kent Union are pursuing this policy and see how you can get involved!
 

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