My voting record at NUS national conference 2013...

I was present for every motion, except for the final three in the union development zone, as my electronic voting pad broke and needed to be fixed in order to be used to recount some earlier close motions.

I've explained why I voted the way I did on the motions and amendments I feel were the most contentious, but if you’d like to ask about the reasoning behind any of my other votes, please do!

The motions document is available here:

http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/pageassets/conference/about/NC2013_CD10_FINALv2.pdf

Membership and Priority

Motion 001 – voted for

Motion 101 – voted for

Welfare zone

Motion 601 - voted for

Amendment 601a – voted for

Amendment 602a – voted for

Motion 602 - voted for

Amendment 602c – voted for

Amendment 602b – voted for

Amendment 603b – voted against

I voted against this amendment, because from talking to a lot of students, both FE and HE, at the conference but also beforehand, a lot of students really weren’t satisfied with EMA; it did not cater enough for a lot of students, while often giving money to students who did not need it. On the other hand, there were many students who would not have made it through college without EMA. This is why I voted for motion 602, which called for a more radical, creative and flexible alternative to EMA which caters to all students’ needs. I do not believe spending time and energy lobbying a government that isn’t listening to bring back EMA in its original form is a worthwhile time of NUS’s time, when we could be working on a better alternative which we can put on the agenda for the 2015 election.

Motion 603 – voted for

Amendment 603a – voted for

Amendment 603b – voted for

Amendment 603c – voted for, but voted to remove conference resolves 1

I voted to remove this part because it specified that no one should pay over £100 a week, and while this would be lovely, and I think reasonable for a place like Leeds, I don’t think that’s a possible or reasonable demand for more expensive parts of the country like London or Canterbury.

Amendment 603d – voted against

Although I think tenants unions are excellent, I do not see the need to create them for students, who are already represented by their students union, which should be fulfilling the role that a tenants union would normally.

Motion 604 – voted for

Motion 605 – voted for

Motion 611 – voted for the procedural motion that this should not be debated at this conference

Motion 612 – voted for

Amendment 612a – voted for

Motion 613 – voted for

Motion 614 – voted for

Motion 615 – voted for

Motion 616 – voted for

Motion 617 – voted for

Motion 618 – voted for

Motion 619 – voted for

Education zone

Motion 201 – voted for

Motion 202 – voted for

Motion 203 – voted for

Amendment 203a - voted for

Motion 204 – voted for

Motion 211 – voted for

Motion 212 – voted for

Motion 301 – voted for

Amendment 301a – voted for

Amendment 301b – voted for

Amendment 301c – voted for

Motion 302 – voted for

Motion 302a – voted for, but voted to remove conference resolves 1, 6 and 7

I voted against these parts, because, especially as a representative of Leeds University the idea of a “Take Back your campuses” campaign seemed strange and unnecessary to me; of course our union’s democracy is not perfect, but we are constantly working to try and improve it and I think the idea for this campaign was rather sweeping and geared a tackling problems that a lot of unions don’t have. I also voted against the idea that we should work alongside NCAFC; NCAFC is a faction with NUS which runs candidates, and I don’t think that NUS should be mandated to work alongside any faction which participates in its internal democracy.

Motion 303 – voted for

Motion 304 – voted for

Amendment 304a – voted against

Amendment 304b – voted against

Amendment 304c – voted against

I voted against these amendments because I simply don’t think free education is a realistic possibility right now, and I also don’t believe that, with our current structures, it would make university more accessible. Simply trying to lobby the government – or any government – for free education is a waste of time and resources that will get us nowhere, and we should be focusing on making sure university is accessible to all and that cost is not a barrier to any student. I voted against having another demo because right now I don’t think it’s an effective strategy; demo 2012, despite a great deal of effort from campuses across the country failed to bring in enough students, it wasn’t effective and there are better ways for NUS to keep fighting for students.

Motion 311 – voted for

Amendment 311a – voted against

Motion 312 – voted for

Motion 312a – voted for

Motion 313 – voted for

Motion 314 – voted for

Motion 315 – voted for

Motion 316 – voted for

Motion 317 – voted for

Motion 318 – voted for

Motion 319 – voted for

Motion 320 – voted for

Amendment 320a – voted for

Motion 321 – voted for

Motion 322 – voted for

Motion 323 – voted for

Motion 324 – voted for

Union development

Motion 501 – voted for

Amendment 501a – voted for

Amendment 501b – voted for

Amendment 501c – voted for

Motion 502 – voted for

Amendment 502a – voted for

Amendment 502b – voted against

I voted against this, primarily because it’s implication of general meetings as a preferred model for union democracy is at odds with the experiences of Leeds University Union, and with the democratic structures we use, which work for us.

Amendment 502c – voted against

Although I do not think it’s right or democratic to have external trustees voting on trustee boards, I voted against this amendment because I think the decision should be that of the individual Student Unions, not NUS.

Motion 503 – voted for

Amendment 503a – voted for

Amendment 503b – voted for

There was some discussion here about whether it’s right to target unions in swing seats; although I do not believe any union should simply fall off the radar in terms of increasing student voter turnout, I agree with the amendment that we have to be realistic with our time and resources and target to them to where the student vote can make the most difference.

Motion 511 – voted for

Motion 512 – voted against

I voted against this motion because of its preference for a style of union democracy built around General Meetings and councils (although councils are not specified as mandatory by the motion, General Meetings are). This is not the model we have at Leeds, nor a model that I think would work for Leeds, and I do not think NUS should prescribe ridged democratic structures on Students Unions which will all have different structures which work best for them.

Motion 513 – was unable to vote because my electronic voting pad was being fixed, but would have voted for the procedural motion that this not be debated at conference as it’s a matter for the disabled students campaign, which passed.

Motion 514 – was unable to vote because my electronic voting pad was being fixed, but would have voted for (motion passed)

Motion 515 - was unable to vote because my electronic voting pad was being fixed, but would have voted for (motion passed)

Society and Citizenship

Motion 401 – voted for

Motion 401a – voted for

Motion 402 – voted for

Motion 402a – voted for

Annual General Meeting

Amendment to estimates CTE1 – voted against

The task of the NEC is not and should not be to travel round student unions; although it is great if they can, their primary task should be scrutiny of the work of the full time officers, therefore dedicating money to a travel fund for them, I don’t think, is a valuable use of resources.

Motion 701 – voted for

I don’t want this to turn into a rant. So I’ll just say that I’m really disappointed this motion fell. This motion was not about giving women an unfair advantage; it was about correcting the unfair disadvantage they already face in society. The majority of people in education are women but the majority of delegates are consistently men and it’s just not right.

Motion 702 – voted for

Amendment 702a – voted against

My thoughts on NUS national conference 2013...

NUS national conference 2013 was my first time at an NUS conference. Overall, I found it an incredibly positive experience; in fact the more I think about it the more I feel invigorated and excited about the student movement and proud to be a part of it.

From working on a better alternative to EMA to raising awareness about mental health to increasing student voter turnout in elections to fighting for proper careers education in schools and against the reforms to GCSEs and A levels, some really excellent motions passed. The quality of the discourse was really high and there were some fantastic speeches from delegates. I really enjoyed the zone reports, which reminded me that for all its faults NUS does some incredible work, and I think the motions we passed at conference put NUS on course to continue doing great work, research and campaigning that helps students on a day to day level.

My biggest disappointment of the conference was that motion 701 fell. I understand all the issues with gender quotas, and I honestly wish we didn’t need them, but we do. Even mainstream political parties use them…even the Tory party uses them! NUS should stop fantasising that all we need to do is encourage more women to get involved. Frankly, it was really patronising to hear delegates stand up and say that delegates should be elected “on merit”. The fact that only about 30% of delegates to conference are, on average, women, despite women making up the majority of students is not because of merit, it’s because of our societal structures which disadvantages woman. I’m angry that a floor made up of mostly men voted against this motion, but I’m also angry at the women who voted against. To get elected as a woman is awesome, but it doesn’t mean you can leave other women behind. The main losers from this motion falling were the women who should have been at conference but, because of the way of society is structured, weren’t. Oh, and to all the delegates who didn’t get out of bed in time to vote for the motion; what the hell?!

Rant over.

In better women related news, I’m thrilled NUS elected a woman as its president (and also thrilled her main opponent was a woman…go women!). Toni Pearce is quite simply fantastic in every way, and will be an incredible president. That she is NUS’s first president from FE is as wonderful as it is shocking; the majority of NUS’s membership is FE students, and it shouldn’t have taken us this long to get here. But at least we have now. The number of FE delegates at this conference (many of whom I had the pleasure of hanging out with) is a tribute to the work Toni and Vice Presidents have done before her to engage FE students with NUS.

I’m also thrilled that Joe Vinson was elected Vice President Further Education, Dom Anderson Vice President Society and Citizenship, Rachael Mattey Vice President Union Affairs, Colum McGuire Vice President Welfare and that Rachel Wenstone was reelected as Vice President Higher Education. They are going to make a fantastic team.

I still think NUS needs to do a far better job at reaching out to ordinary students. As a delegate, I did my best to consult students about the motions I was voting on, but it’s difficult to create that engagement, especially when what you’re sending them is a god knows how many page document. I can’t pretend I have all the answers, but it starts with NUS being more present on our campuses. NUS needs to go to students because students aren’t going to go to them. I was really pleased to see full time students like Rhiannon Durrans and Ben Dilks standing for Block of 15; it’s good to have someone other than sabbs (nothing against sabbs, but…) standing, and I hope to see more of this in future.

NUS is very factional, and I don’t think this is a completely bad thing. I agree with what Liam Burns said in his leaving speech; factions are about students coming together and organising around shared beliefs to put those beliefs into practice and that’s a good and admirable thing to do. But though I do think factions are a force for good, there needs to be a way into NUS for students who don’t ascribe to this factions or that faction.

There were also some quite serious access problems at this conference; most notably the length of the days. It was hard for me to maintain concentration but for students with certain disabilities it would have been close to impossible. Additionally, with issues such as whooping and clapping in the middle of speeches, the importance of not doing things like this should have been outlined clearly at the beginning. The chairs (who all did a fantastic job, by the way) did keep reminding people throughout, but as they hadn’t been told properly in the first place I can sympathise with delegates who were confused and didn’t fully understand why they were being told not to clap and cheer.

None the less, it was fascinating to final see the sovereign body of NUS in action, and I would defiantly encourage anyone who wants to to run to be a delegate. Sitting through slightly more procedural motions than you would like (to note I think the Democratic Procedural Committee did an excellent job, and I certainly do not envy them!) is worth it to get to be part of setting the direction of the student movement. 

My motion to Labour Students National Conference 2013, on democratically electing the Chair of Steering.

Labour Students notes:

- Currently, the constitution states that the Chair of Steering will be nominated by and from among the democratically elected three members of the steering committee.

- The constitution is unclear as to how this decision should be made.

- Although the Chair of Steering does not have voting rights on the committee, they none the less perform a very important function, requiring an in depth understanding of democratic process. They are also a very high profile position, as they chair debates at democratic events.

Labour Students believes:

- The current process is unclear and confusing, especially for those on the steering committee who are required to make the decision as to who the Chair of Steering should be.

- The current process is not transparent, and means that the Chair of Steering is not directly accountable to Labour Students members.

- All positions on the Labour Students national committee, whether or not they have voting right, should be elected in a way that is clear, open and transparent.

Labour Students resolves:

- That the Chair of Steering should be directly elected by the Labour Students membership at Labour Students National Conference.

- That a steering committee of three should still be elected at council, and the Chair of Steering be elected from among them.

- A person may still stand for steering committee but then choose not to put themselves forward to be Chair of Steering.

- When standing for steering committee, candidates should declare their interests in running to be Chair of Steering to ensure transparency.

- The Chair of Steering should be elected by club delegates, until such point as One Member One Vote is introduced, and then they should be elected by One Member One Vote.

(motion was passed and will go to National Council, where if passed a second time it will become constitutional)

My motion to Labour Students National Council 2013, about postgraduate funding...

Labour Students notes:

- Relative to its undergraduate equivalent, postgraduate provision has suffered neglect from successive Governments.

- Even before the recession, the number of UK students taking up postgraduate degrees increased only marginally between 2002 and 2008.

- The removal of over 80% of teaching funding to universities by the government in the comprehensive spending review will hit postgraduates particularly hard as they are not eligible for fee loans.

- The proposals for increased scrutiny of international students is likely to put many off, choking off this source of funding for universities; which risks universities raising further their already high postgraduate fees.

- This combination means many are excluded from postgraduate education all together, while many are partly funding their course through ‘highly unstable’ sources such as overdrafts or credit cards and many others have to work such long hours it hurts their studies.

Labour Students believes:

- The UK’s future growth, both economically and socially, rests on a highly skilled population and we cannot rely upon attracting international talent to provide this base for the future; we must therefore seek to encourage more students to take up postgraduate study by working to remove financial barriers.

- No one should be unable to take up postgraduate study because of their financial circumstances.

Labour Students resolves:

- To work towards an NUS policy of lobbying for a system of low interest Government loans, as are available to undergrads, for up to £10,000 of postgraduate fees; not to be paid back until the graduate is earning over £21,000.

- To work towards an NUS policy of lobbying for better terms for Personal and Career Development Loans (PCDLs) and to make these more widely available.

- To encourage NUS to lobby and work with universities to encourage them provide better and more widely available bursaries, targeted at students from lower income backgrounds.

- To encourage NUS to lobby and work with industry to encourage them to sponsor postgraduate provision; and efforts must be made to encourage employer sponsorship of individual students.

Sources:

http://www.1994group.ac.uk/documents/120215_PostgraduateCrisis.pdf

http://www.nus.org.uk/PageFiles/12238/Broke.pdf

http://www.centreforum.org/assets/pubs/mastering-postgraduate-funding.pdf

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/227102/fair-access.pdf

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/postgraduate/postgraduate-study/facing-up-to-the-funding-crisis-8315920.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/17/postgraduates-funding-cuts

(motion was passed)

"What do you want to do when you grow up?" is the wrong question.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”; it’s the question that we’re asked from about as early as we can conceive of what growing up and having some sort of job means. And for many of us, the question keeps getting asked, again and again, maybe in slightly more sophisticated ways that involve paths into industries or quizzes that probably tell us nothing we didn’t already know, but it’s essentially the same question. Of course, careers education varies greatly from school to school, but for too many students the approach to careers education is still far too linear and far too simplistic.

Careers education is still too often based upon an increasingly outdated view of education, of jobs and of careers. It's based on the idea that you go through education, get a job and stick with that job. And therefore your decisions in education are to be made with this career goal in mind. But increasingly, people aren’t staying in one career or even one industry for most of their lives. People are increasingly likely to do one job for a while, and then move into a whole other sector. And so people don’t so much need to know a lot about one field, but instead be well equipped to take on a wide variety of roles. And so our careers education needs to shift away from the idea of a single career path, and towards teaching students to be flexible and to be creative in their approach to the job market and equipped them with the broad range of skills they will need for this.

Work experience should be compulsory for all secondary school children; even doing just a week of good work experience can be really beneficial. But schools should be taking this a step further by encouraging and facilitating students to do volunteering, or run clubs, or just get part time jobs. Working in retail in Saturdays will teach you a tonne of skills that will be useful when you need to get a full time job. University is a great chance for those who go to do things like volunteer, get involved in societies or work part time but, especially for those who don’t go to university, schools should be ensuring their pupils have the same kind of experiences and opportunities.

And this should be part of a shift in focus from choosing your career path to taking the opportunities available to you, making good decisions in the present for your development, building skills and exploring the big old mess that is the world of work. We should be ncouraging students to make decisions in the present that will be valuable experiences, rather than focusing on charting a course for the future; instead of asking “what do you want to do when you grow up”, we should be asking what students want to do, want to experience and what they want to get involved with now.

Additionally, careers education can still be far too focused on “this is what a job will involve if you get it”. Schools should be better at equipping pupils with tools to get into those jobs in the first place, from CV writing to approaching employers to creating a good online presence (and actually how to create a visible and strong presence; not just “keep your facebook as private as possible and make yourself entirely invisible because sometimes you’re noticeably drunk”).

Careers education should be a central part of secondary school, especially post-14, not just something on the side. It should be comprehensive and it should be about what students can do to grow and develop right now, not just what they might want to do one day. Not only is this view increasingly out of sync with people’s career paths, it puts an unnecessary amount of pressure on young people to make the “right” choices now; because if it’s leading you down a path that will end at a job for life…that’s terrifying! Easing that pressure by focusing on doing a lot of things and building a broad skills base, and emphasising that jobs need not be for life would not just improve careers education but would ease this pressure on students, making the transition from education to work that little bit easier and maybe even make the whole thing a bit more fun!

Speaking up about mental health.

This is quite a different blog post from what I normally write, and I did think about putting it on my personal blog, but it is a political issue, just as much as issues related to my gender or sexuality are political issues. I’m talking about my mental health. Well, more, why I don’t feel comfortable talking about issues related to mental health anymore. I used to. But since coming to university I’ve become increasingly unwilling to be just…be open about the whole thing.

I’ll preface this by saying I have depression and I have anxiety. I first remember being properly depressed when I was nine…the worst it has ever been was when I was fourteen, which was in large parts because I just didn’t know how to deal with it or, more importantly, have any real desire to. I’ve had plenty of depressive periods since then, but none that bad. I’ve self-harmed, although I don’t think I’d describe myself as a self-harmer…more a depressive who…dabbled. I have really rare panic attacks, and I have bouts of social anxiety when being around people just…freaks me out; and this can be strangers or my best friends. This isn’t most of the time, by any means, and depression especially I am for the most part really pretty decent and coping with. But it’s still something I suffer from and that’s probably not going away, well, ever.

Before I came to university I was fairly fine with being like “yeah, I have this thing…” if the issue arose; and I suppose one of the key reasons I'm not anymore is just that when you meet new people, you're hesitant to bring it up too early on...but then they become your friends and you still haven’t brought it up and then so much time as passed and it just feels weird to suddenly insert it into conversation.

But there are a lot of other reasons why I think I feel very uncomfortable talking about this stuff. And I know that that’s bad and that I should be open about it because mental health is still something with this huge stigma attached and people speaking out is helpful…so I wanted to write a post about why I don't feel comfortable speaking out about it anymore.

I worry about people not believing me because I seem fine. And, for the most part, I am fine and I can see why the idea I’d be depressed, let alone the idea I have episodes of social anxiety, would be surprising to a lot of people. And so I do feel like people just won’t…take the idea that these are actually problems I suffer from seriously.

Then, there’s this feeling that I can’t say I have mental health issues because they’re not nearly as bad as other peoples. And they’re really not; there are so many people who suffer from mental health problems a million times worse than mine. But on the other hand I’m more than happy to speak out about issues related to being bisexual, but I’ve never experienced  hate crime, I have a supportive family etc…my experience of this hasn’t been anywhere near as hard as a lot of other people’s.

And it’s good to speak up about milder mental illnesses…because that helps challenge the idea of a binary mentally ill or mentally well state of being....right?

I guess the other big thing is that wonderful world of jobs and careers that university makes you really, really aware of…which is a good thing, but when you’re conscious of presenting yourself in an employable way you, or at least I, tend to not want to mention the bit where you’re so sad you just don’t want to get out of bed. Which is silly on two levels; for me, personally, depression etc has never stopped me doing anything I had to do. It’s made it a whole lot less fun and it’s stopped me doing things I’d like to do, but with school and work I’ve kept going, albeit unenthusiastically.

But more importantly if someone wasn’t prepared to hire me because of these issues, that would be really wrong of them. I shouldn’t hide this because some people might be horrible about it.

We do need to, as a society, be more open about mental health and mental illness, and I know that. But it can be tough, you know?

Leeds Mind Matters society is running an excellent campaign called the elephant in the room, which inspired this post...it is important that we all find the strength and are given the freedom and the safety to speak up about mental health problems; because a whole lot of people have them, and the sooner we can start accepting them as normal, the better.

The elephant in the room facebook page; http://www.facebook.com/LUUElephant