NUS Referendum

[ally.h]

Originally Posted by djtoast

Since I graduated a few years ago it's really none of my business I suppose but I'm still deeply worried by—well, anything to do with the NUS really.

So I intend to mutter totally fabricated and unsubstantiated things like "it would mean that we could no longer have Irn Bru on campus—and I don't just mean sell it, you wouldn't even be allowed to bring your own and drink it anywhere within 1.1 miles of the tower" and "The SRC would be required to have at least 70% of its elected members drawn from a pool of English, Welsh and Northern Irelandish candidates, which is tantamount to racism" in front of anyone who'll listen.

you mean i couldn't drink irn bru IN MY OWN HOME?!

outrageous.

STaG are discussing this at the next board meeting. the NUS, not the irn bru.

al.

[dil_em_ma]

The lgbt should hopefully be discussing it at their meeting tomorrow night....

[Withnail]

Having had to put up with a lot of former NUS activists in my post uni-career, I'd also argue against it.

[Vonnie]

The membership fee will also take a healthy percentage of your block grant/funding every year as well. If memory serves, is it not just kicking the arse of £1million?

[the curiousity]

i'm looking forward to it, i'm against the NUS, but it couldn't hurt to have a bit of a campaign for it, or to see another debate with the same amount of interest as the Coca cola banning issue earlier this year...

[spoonie]

nice to see there's been a date set at last. i sincerely hope that the students vote against the NUS but i know the kind of army that they're capable of bringing and from speaking to those in power at NUS last year, i know exactly how much kudos would go to anyone hwo manages to get glasgow on board.

the things that bother me the most about the NUS are the value you get for the money it costs and the quality of representation that the body provides.

eventual affiliation cost will likely be around the fifty thousand pound mark, starting off lower for the first year and then rising up. it's almost certain that this would come out of the block grant which pays for the unions, GUSA and the SRC and this was cut only a year or so back. for this money, you get access to NUS services and materials for campaigns etc. but it's often the case that a) these can be created as well/better on campus or b) that these can be accessed without being a member of NUS, from external bodies. look at the SRC bank charges campaign from last year. The work was done by the SRC and Govan Law Centre, the campaign was succesful and then the NUS, who had done nothing at all and had nothing on their website about the topic appear in the papers saying "we've been campaiging on this issue for ages" which was a blatant lie. they're all about bandwagon jumping and self-publication.

it's far more important for the students to have representatives on the SRC/QMU/GUU/GUSA who are engaged with the students themselves and who are on the lookout for big forthcoming issues and support the students in tackling these, than to have policy dictated to them from the top without consultation as the NUS so often do.the best recent example was the AUT/UCEA strike where the NUS told all their unions that they were in support of AUT and barely discussed it for any length of time at their national conference, despite it being one of the biggest potential issues to hit students in years, preferring to talk about issues such as the coke ban and israel/palestine.

during my sabbatical last year, i met loads of NUS institutions and with the exception of edinburgh who had just joined, none had anything positive to say. the president at cally was disgusted, the exec at strathclyde were fed up of the fact that they never listened and a number of english unis had headlines in their papers about the NUS being unrepresentative, with talk of withholding their affiliation fees.

look at their financial situation too. they had to sell a lot of their buildings because they ran into so much trouble and one of their financial directors walked out last year because it's such a mess.

i'm all for the idea of a national union of students who are representative and effective in their campaigining work, but as far as I'm concerned, the NUS are a disgrace to their name it'd be a disaster if GU got dragged in.

/x

[Pink punk]

I didn't realise Strathclyde had joined, as far as I was aware they weren't affiliated when I was there. If they were, then it goes to show how bloody useless the NUS are. I campaigned in elections, joined clubs and even worked for the uni, and I didn't know. Fat lot of representation that is.

[Vonnie]

Strathclyde have been affiliated for a long long time, but to be honest I wouldn't put the lack of NUS information available down to the NUS. The exec have hardly been renowned for their ability to run a well organised business and student development area.

[Pink punk]

Miaow. Piss up - brewery?

[Vonnie]

Very much so.

[spoonie]

it's certainly the case of the NUS being as useful and as noticable on campus as you make it (from an exec point of view) but when they're running campaigns that aren't relevant to your students, not listening to what is being said on the ground and providing you with services which add no value to your students lives, there's only so much the exec can do.

last years exec at strathclyde were pretty competent but they do have an unusually strong link with the university management which i find a bit strange. they also have a handover event where they stand up and talk about how good they are, but they do put on one hell of a buffet!

/x

[jeeves]

A couple of wee points.

For this election to have any worth, 15% of students at Glasgow have to vote, and hopefully at least half that number have to vote correctly (i.e. no)

In SRC elections which are over twice as long, turn out is about half this. So the most important thing is tell your friends. If you're in a club, tell them, if you're in a class, tell them, if you're in the pub, tell them.

Yeah, to whoever said that the money (40-50 grand btw) will probably be out the block grant in some way or another so it's either going to take away from valuable sevices offered by the SRC or take money away from our allready cash poor unions.

The NUS normally state that the fee is offset through saving from NUUSEL. As you may well know the SRC's comercial wing concists of four vending machines and a couple of photocopiers.

For anyone looking for info, I'd suggest, Glasgow University Guardian, GUUi, Qmunicate, glasgowstudent.net (which may include some impartial info) the booklet being produced by the unions in the next couple of weeks and the official yes and no booklet.

One last thing, the official yes and no groups are just that, official groups so that if a quote is needed or a speaker or info for a website, the src will know where to go. If you're really keen just make your own poster with a photo of you, and the words "I say no to NUS!" and info as to when and were to vote, or get a club or soc involved, or ask at a union.


Joe says no to NUS!

[Octavion]

I say no and so does my gerbil Bill.

There is nothing I hate more than monolithic organizations and NUS is the architype.

I need to go and get a cup of tea before my spleen explodes all over this thread.

[mr.dunc]

This is from Our Lord Wikipedia,

"The NUS now has over 700 constituent members through which it represents approximately 5 million UK students, which equates to approximately 98% of all students and hence potential members. However, a small number of high profile educational institutions are not members. These include the University of Glasgow, University of St Andrews, University of Dundee, University of Southampton, Open University, and Imperial College London."

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by djtoast

Since I graduated a few years ago it's really none of my business I suppose but I'm still deeply worried by—well, anything to do with the NUS really.

Actually thinking about it if the Unions were to hold a referendum to join/not join the NUS shouldn't life members be able to vote in such a thing?

After all we are allowed to vote in QM elections (and presumably GU elections aswell) so if the unions had to have a referendum vote would it be worth getting in touch with life members to gauge their opinion. Afterall its their Union too...