Good morning,
Sorry for the lack of activity lately, I've had coursework due in, and lots of stuff to catch up on since I was away most of last week at NUS conference. I've written something for Hullfire on it, so I'm being lazy and just going to post that on here instead. If you already know about conference, then the bit at the end is just comment from me, rather than news. Other than that, all is well. I'm in the International Students Association, Culture night on Saturday. We've written a 10 minute play and I'm a morris dancer. says it all really. should be good anyhow. Jamae and Cathy, who I met in China are hopefully coming over for that. Happy birthday to Lewis, sorry I couldn't make it to Loughborough. Big Jam meeting today, titled: "how can we do better". looking forward to it. john




Hulls students attend NUS conference
7 Hull students and sabbaticals attended the National Union of Students’ conference in Blackpool in week 8. The four-day event is also the Annual General Meeting of the union and sees motions debated and elections held for most positions. Nearly all Higher Education (Universities) and Further Education (Colleges) are represented at the conference, with a total of 1100 delegates attending.

Hull students who attended were Ross Old (education & representation elect), Mark Rich, Mike Duowona (Hull President) Sam Cunnington (Vice-president of Services), Emily Georgio (Vice-president education & welfare), Emma Hewitt and John Cumbers. The president of the union is automatically entitled to a place at conference, the other students were elected as conference delegates in the cross-campus elections in week 5, in which any student could stand.

Evening entertainment was provided, a disco the first night, casino and games the second and a party at Flares in Blackpool to finish the conference on Wednesday night. Late night drinking continued in Hotel bars along the sea-front.

Each delegate is put up in a hotel with meals included. The cost of the conference is taken from Hull Student Unions’ affiliation fees to the NUS, which is currently about £20 000. The total cost of the conference to the NUS is £300 000.

Mandy Telford, previously President of the Scottish NUS, won the election for President of the NUS and takes over from Owain James. Also worth noting are that Verity Coil President of Lincoln University (previously Humberside) won the election for the position of Student Welfare Officer. Two ex-Hull students were president at the conference, Craig Beamont, ex-Union Secretary Treasurer now on NUS Finance Committee, and Jenny Willmott, Ex-President now working on the NUS training team.

What was debated?
Different Universities can submit different motions to debate beforehand, and any amendments that they wish to see from those motions can also be debated. This is given to each delegate in a booklet, along with financial statements and reports at the start of conference. The Motions are then debated throughout the four days, in between reports, elections and formalities. Debates get extremely heated with much heckling and jeering from the conference floor. Much time wasting occurs in an attempt to stifle debate, with procedural motions for re-counts, and no-confidencing of the chair, which rotates between current executive committee members.

A full-time Black Students Officer was ratified this year. This had been passed the previous year, but as it involved a new paid position it needed to be ratified by two conferences in a row before it became policy. Under NUS constitution, any student can define themselves as black, so the role supports all minority groups.

A total of six motions were debated. Two big motions chosen for debate this year were Education Funding and Reform of the NUS. Due to time wasting, three other motions were not debated. Conference agreed the governments handling of student funding was not working, and that a graduate tax was not a fair way to tax students for education, and that the government should be lobbied not to implement this idea. An amendment to launch “a bold and militant campaign of mass action” against the tax was however rejected.

The reform debate progressed slowly, the National Treasurer Gerraint Owen, called the national Conference a dinosaur. He said it cost too much and proposed to cut costs by reducing numbers of delegates. It was voted on to cut the number of delegates by one third. Many other reforms did not get passed due to factional in-fighting.

Emergency debates were requested for current topics, such as bombing Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Some student’s present believed that the NUS should oppose both of the above and that it should be campaigning on those issues. Others believe that they do not affect students and that the NUS should not be involved with them. There was, however, no time for these to be debated, some argued that time had deliberately been wasted to prevent the issues being discusses. In protest , towards the end of conference, a group of about 25 students, wearing Palestinian head scarves and chanting slogans, occupied the stage, before being asked to sit down again, which they eventually did.

Hull delegates said they enjoyed the experience but the political factions within the NUS and the blatant time wasting during debates were frustrating. Hull Union is not particularly a political one, and there are very few active political parties. Other University unions have much stronger links with political parties.

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What is the NUS and how does it work?
The National Union of Students provides training and support to all student unions through-out the country. Some student unions are more involved than others. It has a regional representative and office for the north-east who give the sabbaticals, the students who run our union at Hull, help and advice. The NUS also campaigns on issues which affect students, these issues are chosen and debated at the national conference.

The NUS is a democratic body, with a written constitution, elections for most positions and formal procedures for debate. The current climate however, is highly political and many factions exist amongst the students which attend conference, such as Labour students, Conservative Future, Socialist workers, Broad Left, to name a few. Political parties encourage student members to take an active interest in the NUS and many fund their election campaigns. Mandy Telford, the new president is part of the Labour Student’s movement.

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A waste of time and money? by John Cumbers, Hull conference delegate 2002.

If you’ve ever been to Hull’s Union Council, and thought it was bureaucratic and boring, then times it by 20, throw in some heckling and a bit of jeering, a few more votes of no confidence and a couple of student activists and you have the NUS Annual Conference. Oh, did I forget to say it costs £300 000 more than Union Council as well?
The first time I heard of conference was in my first year, when I came to vote and saw the position up for grabs on the ballot paper. I didn’t know much about it then, and I still new nothing about it when I stood for the position in this years elections, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to find out.

So we arrive in Blackpool, Hull t-shirts donned and I’m still getting over the fact that none of us in the minibus have had any arguments yet - being the political types who have chosen to go and talk shop for four days. In fact the whole weekend seemed to act as a bonding session, despite the fact that half the delegates were sabbaticals leaving next year but everyone got on really well. So, Blackpool, half tacky, half great, not been before but pleasantly surprised, as long as I steered clear of the donkey rides, giant Parrots, “Louix Tousaud’s” wax works (I wonder which is the rip-off), and sewage on the beach. A genuinely nice place to unwind, and I ended the week feeling really refreshed, despite the lack of actually debating anything constructive.

The hotel was wicked, great food, great staff, great sea view from my window, swimming pool, pool table (now with a Pepsi stain on it -Georghio!) and a bar that stayed open till there’s no one left drinking. A bit far from the conference, but hey, the tram outside would get you there for a pound, or a 25 minute walk along the seafront.

So a holiday then? A four day-long piss-up at everyone else’s expense? Well, sort of, but not totally. It certainly wasn’t the average delegates fault if they ended up wasting their time. All of our delegation spent nearly all of their time on the conference floor during the debates, many perhaps conscious of the fact that I’d shame them in Hullfire if they didn’t. But after one day of conference, the novelty value of another re-count or vote of no confidence really does wear off, as people clamour to the front and scribbling notes to the chair to slow the procedures down. The dinosaur of debate plods on through the bureaucratic motions, and slowly but surely the seats on the conference floor thin out. On Wednesday morning it took an hour just to get quorate (the number of people needed to vote). By the last day, perhaps 50% pf people had jacked it in to go to the pleasure beach, or ride a donkey perhaps. Or maybe I’m too cynical and they were just off preparing speeches?

If I’ve learnt anything from the conference, it’s that reform of any large organisation takes time. I still hold the opinion that I held before conference that the majority of students do not understand the meaning of the word Union, or know what students’ unions are for. Most have a basic lack of knowledge of how democracy works and when they show some interest, they are bombarded with rules, regulations and political factions, enough to turn anyone off. Communication is needed if we want to change this, we need to bring people on-board through openness, something which the NUS, and our Union both lack. If you want to get students going, then tell them what’s going on, give them the opportunity to get involved and don’t wrap everything you do in red tape.

Before conference I thought we had politics in our union. Yes we have debate and democracy, but thankfully we don’t have polarisation of views or political factions. Lets try and keep it that way. This is our chance for us to work together and actually achieve really great things, without the politics getting into it. The next step is to stop talking about it and get on with it, so I’ll shut up now.

It's been a busy week, and I'm knackered. we now have a cd writer at Jam, thanks to Jon gibbins. I've done some flyers for the station, with the schedule on the back. It should be up on the web soon, www.justaboutmusic.net. I'm away at NUS conference in Blackpool mon-thurs. then either to loughborough or leeds at the weekend. Done half my database coursework, plus got some good marks back for 2 essays before easter. got to make a game of space invaders for week 10. not started yet. not been able to get OPenGl software on my pc, GL4java. tried too many times. too tired. night.

Went to York yesterday for NUS conference training, loads of fun, should be good next week. So, today has been interesting. We had our bi-annual Jam radio elections, and I stood for station manager, and won the election, but it was a close tie. See hullstudent.com media-> jam for more info. It's interesting because some people do not like the fact that I am now station manager and are already lobbying people for a vote of no-confidence, which would be amusing as it would be the second one against me in the Student Union, to I have "power hungry" written on my forehead? does the want to change things and the perseverance to do it make you the target for unwanted attention, in my case it always seems to. Apparently "John C has too many fingers in too many pies. That he comes into societies telling them how to run themselves and once involved operates a divide and rule policy." taken from Ents subcommittee minutes, 13/03/02. I used to be chair of ents, before a successfull vote of no-confidence, that is an extremely long story involving somebody saying that somebody elses girlfriend couldn't be on the guestlist for an event, it got back to that somebody that I had said this, which I hadn't, but that didn't matter... I think I've been "misunderstood" eversince. I remember e-mailing the whole story to someone last year, so I'll try and find it.

What's interesting is that I am going on NUS conference in Blackpool next mon-thurs, missing two jam meetings, my job is ripe for the picking and the hawks are circling.

Listening to Manu Chao, a free CD from the SRA conference, I laughed at Mandy for saying it was wicked when she saw it, how could some spannish guy with a guitar be good? How wrong could I be. Its awesome. I'm wanting to go to MedSoc, (mediterainian society) tomorrow night, but I've a feeling I might have too much on, which is a shame, as it's £2 and free sangria all night long... Also... Had a lump at the back of my throat for the past 3 days, Phil thinks its tonsillitis, so I've been sucking on an aspirin, or two. Thought of a wicked new invention, for digital photography linked to postcodes and mobile phones... more later. Bye for now.

I thought I'd blogged before this one to say about my 2nd hitching experience, but obviously not. Got back to Hull in 7 hours, after a lift from Dad to Bedford services, got a lift in a poundland truck (everything for a pound shop) to watford gap, then a truck carrying a load of fresh chickens to Asda, dropped me onto the M62, he was going to Newcastle. Then waited 45 mins, and it started to get cold, waiting for a lift along M62 to Hull. A lovely couple picked me up who'd been on a day trip somewhere. the guy saw me waiting there when they went into the service station, and felt sorry for me on the way out. he was a lorry driver, both from Hessle, which is where they dropped me. and the biggest wait of the whole journey? you guessed it, for a bus from hessle to town centre, 50 mins! I hope to write an article for Hullfire on hitchhiking, so I will detail the intereting things I've learnt about Saudi Arabia and Iraq, container transportation to China and shipping channels, being a squadie in the army, fishing in Hull, flyposting, temporary fencing at festivals, everything you'd want to know about preparing fresh chickens and anything else I've leant in the last fornight thanks to hitchiking...

I've Just got back from student radio conference in Leciester, www.studentradio.co.uk. was good, a bit long at 3 days, thu - sat, but a nice break for easter. it cost £30 plus £40 for 2 nights accomodation and £25 on the train. Went with Mandy, who does production at Jam. first day, heard Jon Holmes speak, who's just been fired from virgin radio for playing "swearing hangman for the under 12's" live on radio. Friday was workshops, with a speaker from BBC leceister and leicester sound commercial radio. also learnt a bit about digital radio, which still seems a long way off, but should start to emerge in mobile phones hopefully. Today, saturday saw the AGM (annual general meeting) of the SRA student radio conference, which descended into a bun fight of usual student politics, a taste of whats to come at the NUS conference in 2 week I suspect. Then free lunch from dominoes pizza, which was cool, plus a box of 100 free CD's for our student radio, unfortunately, we were getting the train and couldn't carry them! They had all been donated by what used to be Atlantic252, but is now a talk station, so they gave away all their music. tonnes of it....

The finalle was an acoustic set by the band Minuteman, who were good, but then followed some songs and chat by the king of lefty red political music, Billy Bragg, who I've loved since I saw him at a free festival with my mate Ted when we were 15, unfortunately our train was at half 3, so we missed the end questions and answer session with him, but he's offered to do a phone interview for his anti monarchy mischieve for the queens jubilee. he's written a song he hope to get into the charts the week of the jubilee. Usual stuff against monarchy, nationalism and union-jack waving pissed idiots... it's all good. He said he wanted a young punk band to come up with something, but nobody did.

cont. Met some cool people at the conference, Jim and Puffin from C4 radio at Christ church Canterbury, who know Ted who DJ's on his student radio, plus Jenny, Anna and Mandy from Fresh Air in Edinburgh and some other guys from Subcity in Glasgow. I was impressed with Leicester, a nice town, seemed to be a bit of a smog covering all the time, (but really nice sunshine all 3 days) I dunno if it has a pollution problem? Friendly people though, nice to see a multicultural society working in the UK. Back to whinging about public transport though, we leave billy brag early to get our train, only to be waiting 2 hours in Doncaster due to strikes by Arriva staff! not too bad though, I gave Katherine a call who lives their but studies at Hull, and she was home, so came out for a drink with me and Mandy, after we'd walked around the town, which again is really nice, similar to hull according to Katherine, but getting lots of regeneration money. not so multicultural I guess, we found a great queen mother shrine, which will definately be going up on this site. Union jacks and bunting, just what billy brag was on about... Got back to Hull at Half 9, after leaving leceister at 3.30! Hullfire laying up tomorrow I think, then back to uni on monday. and mint monday night. It'll be good to see everyone again.