Its nearing the end of January in the Students' Union and that means one thing, the opening of nominations for the UPSU elections! This year we are electing 6 Sabbatical Officers, 10 Student Officers and 2 Student Trustees, which means it is going to be huge election, and hopefully more candidates standing, more students voting and ultimatly the best election ever in the history of UPSU.

This is the first time in 5 years for me that I am not involved in the elections from a candidate point of view. In my 5 years I have been a proposer, scruitineer, campaigner and in the last 2 years a candidate! So its going to be nice this year to see the elections from a neutral perspective, and also interesting to be working as an election assistant.

After Student Council this week it became clear that students often don't know what sabbatical officers do so I am going to try my best to write a blog every week to let you know what i've been up to and add 'a day in the life of a sabb' type entries too! So here it goes!.....

This week I have been working on the stress management campaign that I will be running when students come back from the holidays. This has included meetings with University services and also compiling information on how best to cope with exam and coursework stress to put into leaflets to give to as many students as possible.

I thought I would post these vidoes to give you an idea of who else is in the delegation and just what makes us tick as individuals...

Namaste! As well as being your VP-Societies and being on the NUS society and citizenship committee, I have the privilege of being part of the UK Youth Delegation at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, otherwise referred to as the most important meeting in the history of the world ever!

Say what?! Well… The UN must involve young people in decisions that will affect their future as part of “intergenerational equity”. As a delegation we therefore have official constituency status, seats in the main Plenary Hall, and can speak to hundreds of world leaders and negotiators.

Many have billed this meeting, involving 192 nations, as the last chance for the world to save itself from runaway climate change, Scary! My primary role will be to look leaders in the eye, much like puss in boots from Shrek, and tell them that they are deciding my future.

My future? Look out for the date 2050; this is the year many of the negotiators believe we will have made a transition to a low carbon society. They’ll talk endlessly about targets they’ll reach for that year. Now I don’t mean to be rude, but this is a bit like leaders promising us that they’ll get us all Ferraris by 2050, without committing to paying any deposit now. These negotiators are pretty old, to be honest many of them will be 6 feet under by 2050, I’ll be 64, so it’s vital that they realise they are negotiating our future.

I want to be honest with you I’m no environmentalist, I don’t care to much for nature, I eat way too much meat and I’m always forgetting to switch my lights off, I’m going to Copenhagen to make sure our leaders make the right decisions for us NOW, so I avoid having to deal with the horrible nightmarish scenarios predicated by many in the future.

This is all beginning to sound quite apocalyptic, its important to remember that we’ve also got a spectacular opportunity to create an awesome society! One that is fairer, sustainable and most of all happier!


Students are vital to this movement; we have the energy and the moral compass in hand. I can’t wait to create a massive noise in Copenhagen knowing that young people here in the UK are making louder noises!

It’s really important that the negotiators in Copenhagen realise that the world is watching. Make sure you follow the talks daily and make sure you spread what is happening to every man woman and cat!


Follow this blog! I’ll be giving you the most important developments from the conference and letting you know how to take action to ensure these talks don’t end in deadlock. Together we can make sure that the necessary action is taken now!


Kash x