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.

Thursday, March 08, 2007 | |

 

3 comments:

Tom Giddings said...

It's really quite sad, in retrospect, perhaps campaigning for either side shouldn't have been allowed, but rather the encouragement some form of open debate.

I'm quite sad that the NUS have to resort to such statements to keep their stranglehold on the student community, really.

We'll see how it all pans out I guess!

3/09/2007 12:48 p.m.  
Anonymous said...

From living in Southampton, knowing people at the University and attending Union events (ok...and the radio station!) they do very well without being affiliated to the NUS.

I remember mentioning this in passing to either someone on last years exec, or the year before, and they got quite patriotic about what the NUS did for UWB.

I'll be very intrigued to see how the vote goes when i'm up there this week.

3/11/2007 7:49 p.m.  
Matt said...

I'm an ex-Officer of Southampton University Students' Union and was present at our council meeting where it was agreed that we should (in principal) offer support wherever possible to Students' Unions wishing to disaffiliate. Ben's a great chap, and he had an open mind on the NUS when he came to office. After attending his first NUS conference however, he felt passionately that Southampton are making the right decision.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with your plight... it's ever so easy to stick with the familiar, but it takes strength and passion to take a step into the unknown.

3/12/2007 1:41 a.m.  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)