Alex Harries's diary

The office is empty and so quiet it feels like everything's fallen asleep - apart from me and my cup of tea - and once I've cleared my desk and finished playing this Paul Van Dyk mix at ASBO volume, I too am going to be packing up and clearing off home until the start of January.

I've been in office now for a smidge under five months, and it's been nothing short of a whirlwind ride - there have been late nights, lots of hard work, dangling from trees, "ideas theft" from other students' unions around the country, awards, tears, new ground broken, relationships made and un-made, shouting, hugging and even the occasional drink.

Scattered around my desk are piles of to-dos scrawled hurriedly on the back of yellow post-it notes. These probably total less than 10% of my overall pile of "things I must do two weeks ago or the world comes to an end", and even if I could clone myself over Christmas and not sleep, I wouldn't be able to complete everything I need to.

Still, this year has been, this far at least, an incredible learning experience. I've been more stressed and grumpy than I've ever been, and spent more money on bills and less on my social life - now a distance memory - than ever before, but I wouldn't change the majority of it for the world.

Last night over a beer, the conversation wandered onto the forthcoming Sabbatical elections, which pretty much kick off as soon as we come back in the New Year. We agreed that one of the hardest things any election candidate has to get their heads around is the fact that, as a Sabb, you're a trustee of the Union charity first - taking on all the responsibilities and duties that go with that role - and a president/sports officer/support officer/meeja whore/etc second.

What this boils down to is having to modify your thinking a little... Ok, a lot: when it comes to making important decisions about the future of the Union, as the Sabb team each year is tasked with doing to make sure the Union continues to provide a democratic and student-focused service, you have to have your "trustee hat" on.

For me, this year, this has already brought me a couple of sleepless nights where I've had to make decisions which call into question whether it's more important to put my trustee's responsibilities first, or my media responsibilities. Without going into detail (for I fear I may be taken outside and shot... Ok, maybe not shot...) I hope I made the right calls, but sometimes the only person who can be sure your decision was the right one is you, especially if the rest of the world happens to think you're the devil incarnate for making the choice you made, because they don't understand your reasoning.

I know the other sabbs this year have also faced some tough decisions they never expected to have to make, and possibly the second hardest part of being a Sabb is going from higher education - where you have lecturers and course mates to guide you to making The Right Decision - into a role where the future isn't planned, the decisions aren't clear, and the "right" answer is only right if you believe in it, commit to it, and do the hard work which your particular decision entails to make it happen.

This rambling monologue seems to be circling a potential problem - as a former maths teacher of mine put it, "always show your workings"; it's all too easy to fall into the trap of making decisions which affect students as a Sabb team without explaining to the student body why the decision was made on their behalf, and what factors were taken into account. In fact, it's all too easy to completely miss telling students that a decision has been made by the Sabb Exec which affects them!

This year, we've made some major inroads into further developing regular lines of communication between the Sabbs and students, making it easier and more beneficial for students...