HF: So what kind of Union will we be seeing under your presidency?
HG: What I’m trying to achieve is a Union for its members. Every student at Scarborough and Hull is a member of this Union and they should have much more say over it and they should have ownership of every process. My whole drive is widening participating; getting out to nursing students, science students, post-grad, part-time, mature, student parents, students with caring responsibilities. These are students that our Union’s never even catered for before and it’s an absolute disgrace, to be honest with you. All we’ve ever aimed at is the white, middle-class 18-21 undergraduate.
You mentioned in your election campaign that you want Hull to have an activist Union. What campaigns do you have planned?
We’re doing loads. In semester one we’ve got Black History Month for all of October. We’ve got Housing Week, Cultural Diversity Week – in semester two it’s going to be absolutely mental. We’ve got LGBT History Month, Fair Trade Fortnight, RAG week, SHAG week, Women’s Week, International Women’s Day. We’re not tokenistically having it – we’re running speakers. A campaign is fundamentally and tangibly changing something so the outcome is much better for students.
How is this possible on the deficit the Union’s currently running at? Ed Marsh [Helen’s predecessor] was very vocal about the state of our finances.
We don’t make enough money to run all these things. Look at Leeds University Union, the most successful Union in the country. They do academic stuff and they do welfare stuff. That’s it. And they do it brilliantly. And they’ve got a huge subvention [sponsorship from the University], and they’ve got a Union development person – they’ve got a member of staff just to run their liberation campaigns. A Union is here to campaign for a better society.
What are you doing about raising money?
We’re lobbying for a complete restructuring of the subvention grant. Ours is abysmal – really, really shockingly low. The University is developing a Student Commons [the development area near West Campus] which will be an informal learning space which we’re really in favour of. However, our priority is making sure the Union is fully functioning so if they’ve got millions to pour on a building way over there that’s going to detract students from coming in here then we’re saying hang on, it’s been eight years since they’ve said they’re going to redevelop this floor. Reece Andrew, the Director of Facilities, said that over 25 years they’re looking to spend 88 million on redeveloping the University and yet they don’t have a million pounds a year for the Union to run and campaign properly. It’s an absolute disgrace.
Last year ended with Ed Marsh’s consultation period for the Governance Review. What’s happening this year?
We’ve got a referendum in week 5. We’re registering as a charity at the end of the year and it needs to be acceptable to the Charity Commission and our solicitors, so all the controversial stuff is going into standing orders and by-laws so they can be changed a lot easier, because obviously to change the constitution you need a 10% turnout.
Is it still remaining a green paper?
No, it’s a white paper. You can’t really have something that fundamentally dictates how the Union runs that’s still being pushed around.
Do you support Jam getting played in Sanctuary?
Yeah! I would love them to be played in the Union building. The difficulty is that when I started at Hull it was pretty terrible.
It’s all built by students in there!
Well the people in the shop had to listen to it all day and people in the Reznikov [old bar on the second floor] had to listen to it all day, and it was really hit and miss. You’d have some sets that were good and others where you’d be listening to 80’s music one minute and Slipknot the next. No, I am all for student empowerment and you can’t say you’re for empowering students and go “oo, we can’t trust them to run their own radio station.” It’s a question of getting the infrastructure in place at a time when we don’t have a lot of money – it’s a bit difficult. I’ve got to prioritise and right now education, welfare and the subvention are our biggest bet. But yes, I’m behind it.
Have you had much trouble with being so behind liberation campaigns?
The only thing I hold no truck with are people who say “why do you have liberation campaigns?” – because certain groups need liberating! And if you tell me that men need liberating one more time… Unions should be about solidarity and collectivism. It’s in our interests to help lobby for internationalist things. What we want is people saying, “yeah, there is injustice in Zimbabwe, it’s wrong, let’s lobby, let’s organise a march to the Zimbabwean embassy”. We’ve got 22,000 people we can reach every day, why aren’t we doing more to get all these people to learn about social injustice and to really, really fight it? They do that at Leeds and they do that at Manchester.
Last year council was attended by about forty regulars. How do you intend to raise this figure – and why were there so few politically active students compared to, say, a decade ago?
Apathy crept in. You have to appreciate that the way students think and the demographic does kind’ve shift every three years, so when I started at HUU it’s very different to what it is now. Students are a lot more consumerist now, they’re a lot more “I want something, I want it right now and I want it to be an excellent standard.” They don’t want to rack up to a meeting and be sat there for three hours unless they’re the hackiest of hacks, tearing each other apart on a motion that they probably see as having little relevant to them. What we’re talking about is making policy that is relevant and exciting to students but is also meaningful and enhances their student experience, but in a different way. That’s why we’re bringing back the general meeting. And we want every single student to attend.
How’s the work heating up for you at the moment?
It’s all been quite mad, actually. We only had our first UEC meeting about two, three weeks ago and it was seven hours long. The previous sabs have said to do anything you want to get done over summer because once the students get back you don’t have time to do other than what they throw at you each day. It’s been laying down the priority campaigns and making sure we’re all sorted in our offices. It’s annoying because the building shuts at 5.30pm and I want to work late and sort out some of these files. They all need chucking out!
[reading one] Union President 2001-2002?
I really want to get to grips with things but all I can do is the day-to-day. But we’ve really put our stamp on things. The first three weeks when everyone gets back will probably be crazy because if you don’t get everyone into a society, volunteering, sport or the politics of the Union then they’re probably not going to get involved. It’s really exciting, I’m really up for this year, it’s going to be amazing. I’ll probably die from a nervous breakdown at the end of it. I’m up for it!
Thanks for your time, good luck with the rest of the year.
It was great to meet you!
Turville Young
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