What do you think about the proposed fees? If you could write this article, what would you write?  Use the comment feature on this article to share your views about your University’s future and see what other students think.

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By: Sam Hargreaves

The Union’s Response:

I am quite appalled at the level of journalism contributed to this article. There was no need to dig around on facebook, we are very open and proud of our training of sabbatical officers. We are proud of it because compared to our comparable unions it is a programme that is very cost effective at producing officers who within two weeks are capable to offer leadership of a multi-million pound charity when they have had little or no experience of the sector and management of budgets, staff and volunteers. It is even more impressive as a programme now we have got rid of an expensive staff house dinner with university management (the money for that is now part of the elections budget to give candidates running for full time positions £30 worth of credit with marketing so they can run effectively for election with minimal cost to themselves) and because we have also got rid of a day where all managers of the union go away together in mid August to save further money for our student facing services. This information is not in the article because you failed to get comment from myself or anyone from Hull University Union, which is either down to rushed journalism or due to the angle of trying to make this an expose style article.
 I take greater offence to you saying that “This is a team who’s dynamic has not changed since last year. [referring to Ash Lord and Suzie Morris as the only leavers] The new members of the team were involved within the union prior to their election so they are not entering an alien environment”. I take offence because this is incredibly insulting to the two incumbents who are leaving and the two Vice Presidents elect. The two elects have their own personalities and plans for their year in office and by not giving them adequate training we are limiting their ability to achieve their goals and serve students. Also they are not Suzie or Ash, they are very different personalities who I look forward to getting to know and to say the team dynamic “has not” (which should read will not) change is insulting. You are right to say that the more fractured a sabbatical team is the less effective they are, we owe it to our students, our members to do the best we can in our time in office and I will do that the only way I know how and that is as a team. To do this everybody needs to be away from their comfortable environment in order to create a new team that is effective rather than forcing new officers to conform to be like who was there before. We are and want to continue to be an outstanding student union, this means that in everything we do we do it right and taking students and turning them into effective officers in the space of weeks is a tall order and I would rather do it well than allow them to make mistakes later that will cost us the ability to provide some of the services you imply we are ignoring.

 Ps there is no “average” student.

 Aidan Mersh

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Aidan is the first president in the history of HUU to win a second term, since new rules came into play this year allowing a current sabbatical officer to re-run. His first year was a big challenge for the HUU team, redoing their strategy and the raising of higher education tuition fees are just some of the obstacles they have encountered. This next academic year will be the first under the new strategy giving way for new opportunities and establishing a new direction for the Union. The recent referendum helped Aidan to get a better picture of the aims for next year’s team, with teaching quality coming out as the main priority for students. Aidan says, ‘there are new opportunities next year, just as the library was this year, the teaching quality will be our aim, to try and raise the already high standard of teaching even higher.’

During the campaign much of Mersh’s manifesto was centred around one main issue that ultimately affects almost every student here at the University: student accommodation. With the Scheme becoming detached from the wants and needs of students, Aidan wants to remove the Scheme altogether and replace it with a so called ‘name and shame’ website, that will hold landlords more accountable. The union is currently in talks with the website hosting company BAM to create a platform for students to uploads pictures and have their say on accommodation, while also allowing landlords to get involved. The referendum on the Scheme showed that students overwhelmingly wanted to pull out, but, unfortunately, the threshold was not met.

As this academic year draws to a close we are saying goodbye to Ash Lord, current VP Sport and Susie Morris, current VP Welfare, and making way for the new 2011/2012 team. The team will include three incumbents and two new faces, Phil Pocknee and Ash Armitage. Aidan asserts that, ‘with an all-male team, changes need to be made, such as the current Democracy and Representation Coordinator to become Democracy and Equality Coordinator.’ Although sad to see two great sabbatical officers go, Aidan is confident that with the right training the new team would do well. Living up to ‘the best team we have had in years’ will most likely be a hard task though.

Aidan has achieved and dealt effectively with a lot this last year and it is obvious to see he is very keen to start next year with the same enthusiasm, a fresh team and a new four year direction for the union. For now students will have to wait and see if Aidan and his team will deliver on their promises and continue to work on a bigger and better union for all.

Tori Bishop-Rowe
Photo by: Anthony Walker

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The next few years are going to be fantastic. Governance is the single biggest enabler for student bodies of the past few years. Council has been stagnant for so long that it’s hard to get anything done, and the Open Policy Forum attracted, give or take some for exceptional circumstances such as the Jay Webster controversy, exactly the same students that went to Council. Why should politics be so hard to understand, and so hard to get into? The Governance Review gives us a breath of fresh air; no longer will every person who is student-political need to know every event and every finicky detail about the constitution, the elected representatives and their goals. By splitting everything into zones, a person who wants to change our stance on sport can go to the Sport Zone, which will take those changes to the Council and turn it into policy. If someone wants to change welfare they can go to the Welfare Zone, and so on. The days of sitting through long, largely irrelevant meetings just to change the smallest thing are over – and this was a large problem that the common student was forced to overcome to get involved. At last we can break the political apathy in this country from the place where politicians take flight: university. Finally we have a way for any student to approach a sympathetic political ear, and have a real chance to vocally affect the body that silently affects them.

Will Langdale

— AGAINST: Turville Young highlights the problems of change

It’s not that the new constitution is inherently flawed – it’s more that it isn’t sturdy enough to withstand the brief and flighty opinions of students. One might ask why the constitution’s ability to be modified easily is a bad thing – surely it becomes a more representative document. The problem? Students want  to change everything. Students – especially political students – want to be rebellious and indulge ridiculous fringe ideas that might work on paper, but that the wider student body has no interest in. Under the new constitution the UEC, a body made up of four elected sabbatical students, the President, and four external trustees, can change any bye-law without referendum. This body can radically change from year to year, and the Union needs to present a united face whatever the beliefs of its leaders – the purpose of a constitution. The four external trustees are appointed by the sabbaticals and in a year where these students are politically extreme we could see some very unrepresentative amendments.
Of course, this is an unlikely sequence of events, especially considering the scrutiny body that oversees the changes to bye-laws is Council; another group that is elected by students and is made up of eight people who are unlikely to put their politics before student welfare. Sabbatical officers don’t tend to agree with each other’s politics as they’re elected on their individual issues rather than their political bents. Beyond
that, all changes to bye-laws must be posted on hullstudent.com and if 25 people object they must go to referendum. Only in a year with massively biased representatives and a horribly apathetic student body could this happen.

Turville Young

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WL: What is governance?

HG: Governance is your system of democratic structures; how you run your institution, in this case it’s a Union. Our Governance review relates to a new constitution to be put to the general membership for them to vote on.

How does our review compare with the wider NUS one?

They’re not a million miles apart, the NUS one removes certain Officers and replaces them with others, it reconfigures its conference, Board and like ours it brings in zones and many more ways to be involved, so there are some similarities.

Why is it in week 4?

The Sabbatical roles change if the governance review gets passed, we need plenty of time to change standing orders and prepare for new roles. Also as an important year for the Union when we’re trying to do a lot of things, it’s vital that we have strong structures to back us up and plenty of time to adjust to new roles before the Union becomes a registered charity, plus if I spend lots of my time on governance, that’s a lot of time I can’t spend then on Subvention, Housing and the NUS Higher Education Campaign.

You need a 10% referendum turnout to pass this and clearly you believe you’ll get it – but by how much do you think you’ll exceed it?

We need 10% of the Full time equivalent students, so about 1700 people. I certainly hope we’ll exceed it – we’ll be doing lecture shouts, door knocking, dinner shouts in the Halls, notices in ‘Impact’ and on Hullstudent.com and there’ll be banners and posters galore. In order to reach those students who don’t enter the Union building we’ll be outside the library and postering down Newland Avenue. In Scarborough we’ll be going to Caley Hall, the houses and postering around the Students Union.
Talking of students who may not be in the Union, what’s the budget and method you’re using to get as many students as possible involved?

We’re really keen to use this as a way for the Union to reconnect with the students. I’ve talked to AU Presidents and Council, Union Council and Societies Council tonight. I’ve talked to RAG and the Liberation campaigns and have addressed the Mature Students induction, Part time Students, Post graduates and the International Students to inform them of the role the Union plays in their University experience.

Do you dislike having so many things as By-Laws? Does it hurt the document as a constitution – is it not strong enough to control political infighting on key issues in years to come?

On the contrary, having lots of things in the by-laws is a good things because they’re easier to change and it gives us scope to alter our practices when they become outdated and irrelevant. The ‘constitution’ is really just the bare bones of the review – it states for example ‘we are a charity, we are called HUU, we have a Board of Trustees’ – all very dry stuff that won’t tie us down when we need to change structures of zones or when to hold elections for example.

Do you think most students approve that selection of trustees comes from above rather than below?

The Trustees when selected are searched for by UEC and then get approved by Union Council which under the new constitution will be much bigger and more representative. Most students want a Union that can fight for them, they expect to be able to leave bureaucracy to the Sabbaticas and Union staff. They’ll have a bigger and better say however as we’re expanding Union Council, creating zones and bringing back proper forums for Union policy to be debated.

What is the single biggest benefit the Union will get from this change?

It’s difficult to point to just one thing. We’ll be a registered charity with the charity commission, so we’ll have all the support to our Union that this brings. We’ll have Sabbaticals whose roles directly correlate with the objects, creating tangible policy in their zones, and a healthier Union Council with more teeth and a chance for all students, not just traditional undergrads to be represented.

VOTE FROM THE 20^TH – 24^TH OCTOBER ON HULLSTUDENT.COM!

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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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