Conference 08 report by Lily Priggs

The whole experience was fantastic – It brought a whole range of emotions out or practically each and every delegate there, I included. My frustration that the change in governance didn’t go through is based not only on the white paper but my own experience as a trustee. It’s difficult not to be annoyed with the knowledge that there were probably enough students around who didn’t make it to conference floor who could have secured the change in governance. The event as a whole was interesting and some of the motions that went through were well written, well argued and definitely well voted on. These include a motion on Education Funding where by the first conference resolves was ‘focusing on any attempt to lift the cap, opposing the marketisation of education and campaigning for a fairer funding system for all students.’ and a motion on Recognising Extra Curricular Skills along with many others. Of course some motions went through that were just in for the sake of putting a motion in! Listening to all motions was really eye opening and has definitely put ideas into my head about our Students’ Union.

I found some of the debates and some of the candidates lobbying really disappointing. The debates particularly around the governance review weren’t convincing, and didn’t sell the review as well as it could have been sold. It was the leaving speeches of the fulltime officers that really highlighted the amount of work they had done and the complicated politics behind the debates.

Many of the candidates and their campaigners who were running in the elections showed little respect and commonsense which I thought was pretty outrageous especially given that they should understand the basic rules to the representation of ALL people. I’m referring particularly to disabled students, at least 6 times a disabled student stood on the platform reporting on the lack of accessibility – yet every time we left the conference floor, people were STILL leafleting in the most inappropriate areas.

I felt that for many of the debates – delegates weren’t shy of throwing out random statistics in the wrong context which delegates who were not aware of the facts could easily be swayed in my opinion – the wrong way. These weren’t only statistics been thrown out, one delegate suggested that roles such as my own aren’t important and that Students’ Unions should just be campaigning organisations. This to me didn’t show a good argument, but a very, very poor understanding about the development, employability and Student Experience opportunities roles such as mine bring to Students.

Finally, I was really inspired by this event and it really has made me realise how much we need to make sure our students are part of the shaping of the NUS movement. Next year I want to make sure we discuss and put forward motions to ensure the latter is achieved.

Lily Priggs

Sports President