"As I sat on the train to Blackpool for the NUS conference a thought occurred to me; apart from the free cheeseburger from McDonald’s that I was eating, what do NUS give me?

The next three days taught me a lot; NUS do a bloody lot, campaign against fees, against unfair tenants and representing us at the highest levels of the government.

Yes our new NUS President is a Labour Student, but he slags off the Labour Party more than I do. I noticed quite a lot of things at the conference; the first being that NUS conference in its current format just doesn’t work.

The amount of procedural motions and attempted changes to motions meant that we didn’t even have time to debate all the motions. Sometimes in my opinion democracy goes too far, but then in the case of the Governance Review debate, democracy was there to save the day.

I have never felt so involved and caught up in a situation than this debate.

There was so much emotion being shown by both sides that it made me proud to be their representing our students and witnessing the single most exciting debate that took place.

One thing we can take away from the conference is that change is needed and fast, and in the words of the outgoing President, “We will be back, and we will drag this Union into the 21st Century”.

This I don’t doubt but please don’t take away our annual conference as it really is fun and I want to be back next year standing on that podium representing each and every one of our 20,000 students.

One thing would be nice however and that would be the Labour, Socialist and Respect Students making friends, as their constant bickering really is holding back our Union. If they don’t I will lock them in a room until they do.

All that leaves me to say is; NUS Conference – LOVE IT."

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