Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

What a fun week! I really rather enjoyed NUS National Conference. All these people making really impassioned speeches about absolutely everything. It was quite weird, though, having 1200 really confident, outgoing people in one room. Sam's given me permission to use his Superman analogy: it's like Superman on Krypton; doesn't feel so special when everyone has superpowers.

But more than that, it was weird (and rather nice) having 1200 people in a room who were all really interested in what was happening, who were truly engaging in the processes and the debate.

I'm very pleased with the newly-elected NEC and with the general attitude in the room. There was a real feeling that NUS needs to focus on its core remit and to stop spending so much time on foreign policy. In fact, I think only one motion in the Society and Citizenship Zone (the worst one, the one with all these motions about saving the world) got debated, although I must admit that I'm not sure because I went to play in the arcade instead.

All in all I'm feeling happy about the whole thing. I'm hoping to be co-opted onto NUS Wales Steering Committee too, so I'm even making an effort to get involved. But I'm very very tired and my productivity has been rather low today as a result. Oh well.

Yesterday was a momentous day. I have finally been allowed to have a contract phone.

I don't think I realised just how hurt I'd been by the previous rejection until I was waiting for the credit check in the O2 shop yesterday. I was on tenterhooks, and the nice shop man was too. But I've been accepted, been welcomed into the contract phone family with open arms, and this is my shiny new phone:

The referendum results were announced yesterday. Our students voted to stay with NUS by 846 votes to 357 (and 17 abstentions).

At the end of the day I don't think it much matters what the result is. I'm just really pleased we had the discussion, however angry it got at times. We asked our students what their priority is financially and they gave us a clear answer. It's brilliant that 1200 students looked into the issues enough to form an opinion and vote.

So there we are. We're just going to have to achieve reform from the inside out.

As everyone probably knows by now, we got re-elected. I think we were all pretty surprised by the margin of victory, and by the nasty booing when our results were announced. Rather unsportsmanly I felt.

I'm really glad the elections are over. The whole thing seemed to be filled with candidates lodging complaints about each other which was a little disappointing, but we got through it all. I'm quite exhausted now but that's no surprise.

Congratulations, though, to all the candidates, particularly those who were gracious in victory and defeat.

So much has happened, so let's have a series of nice short posts.

We've got NUS campaigners wandering around the campus telling our students "facts".

Like that the discounts we get from NUSSL outweigh our affiliation fee (we pay £37,000 and get £8,000 in NUSSL discounts). And that beer prices will rise if we stop sourcing our products from NUSSL (nope: the cost of keg beer will rise and the cost of spirits will fall if we go with the consortium we're thinking of so Trading shouldn't have to alter the drinks prices at all).

Or that discounts you get in shops ARE NUS discounts, not student discounts (no they're not, that's why they brought in the NUS Extra card -- most of our students (apart from the 1% who bought NUS Extra cards) have been getting student discounts all year with their library cards.

Or that our block grant from the University will decrease if we stop paying our NUS affiliation fee. Now there's an argument I can't follow in the slightest. Our block grant is calculated on a random formula and has nothing whatsoever to do with our costs (something we'll be campaigning on anyway).

We've even had Carl Harris, an NUS-head from Trinity Carmarthen, say:

Hopefully students of Bangor will realise soon that NUS really is the way forward and that certain members of their executive committee haven't got a clue what they're talking about!

I'm quite looking forward to his arrival so I can tell him just how much I appreciate him, a sabbatical officer based in a Union 140 miles away, claiming he knows what our students want and need better than we do. How arrogant.

But I've just been on the phone to President Ben from Southampton who has offered to let us come to Southampton for sabbatical training each year, to guide us through the steps we need to take after disaffiliation very carefully to ensure we're fulfilling all our legal responsibilities and covering every possible angle, and to be there to support us every step of the way. What a nice guy.

I love that Stephen NUS National Secretary Brown's Facebook status is currently "Stephen is needing support for the Bangor ref!"

Our campaign seems to be going quite well. Our disaffiliation facebook group has more members (387) than the NUS national facebook group which is pretty damn good. That's also well on the way to half our normal voting turnout.

Oh I love campaigning.