Many people have commented on the NUS referendum so far, covering everything from discounts to representation. This time round I want to cover the things most people care about - clubs & societies. I know that this extra money that we are saving from ULU could do a lot of good for clubs. Last year I was ACC Chair, responsible for ensuring that all of Imperial's sports clubs were running smoothly. I also organised the odd ACC Barnight, which seem to have gained a certain notoriety. This is why I feel so strongly about why Imperial students should vote No! to joining the NUS. Far too many people dismiss us as "apathetic." Quite the opposite is true in fact.
Imperial College has one of the highest club participation rates in the country. They are all run by dedicated volunteers and members turn out regularly. This is evidence of a student body who relishes getting involved, not one that lets the world drift past them. Just because you don’t give a toss for union politics (lets face it, who does?) it dosen’t make you apathetic.
The NUS will tell you that they can make your clubs better (in fact, they did on Live! last week at http://live.cgcu.net/editions/nus/1318). For sports clubs, they might tell you that the NUS is the only student organisation involved with the 2012 Olympics, so we'd better affiliate to get involved. Lets not forget that British University Sports Association, which we affiliate to, have been involved from the start.
Finally, they’ll say how much better our student media could be with the support they can provide - they’ve even launched their own student media awards. All this for only £52,000! But this is an argument for the NO campaign, so there must be a catch. According to the Association of Managers in Students' Unions: per head, Imperial College Union is one of the best funded unions in the country. We have more clubs and societies than any other union, and our sports clubs are active and successful. But there is always room fo rimprovement, £52,000 could give our clubs that extra bit of funding that could make all the difference.
Sport Imperial are also involved with the 2012 Olympics and have been so from the beginning. This year the College and the Union have set up a Sports Federation, bringing in a new staff member dedicated to sport and using College's resources to strengthen our sports clubs. We have the resources of a juggernaut with half a billion pounds of turnover per year at our disposal for sport. The NUS has a turnover of less than £4m - less, in fact, than ICU itself.
The NUS student media awards are all very well, but Imperial's student media is doing quite well by itself. Over the summer Stoic TV, our student TV station, won best broadcaster at the National Student Television Awards. Felix was been short-listed in five categories at the Guardian Student Media Awards (and won two top awards, including Newspaper of the Year), and IC Radio was in the running in two categories at the Student Radio Awards. There are plenty of awards open to all students, without the NUS having some of their own.
Now for the money bit! Affiliation will cost £52,000 and we have 250 clubs. That’s an average of £208 per club. It's also roughly the budget for the whole RCC, the whole medics union or the following put together: Arts & Ents Board, Media Group, SCC, RSM, City & Guilds College Union and the Royal College of Science Union. Perhaps we could give Cheese Society some money for Cheese in the process.
Other options include employing additional staff to reduce the workload of our volunteers, so they can spend more time running activities and less time doing paperwork.
The NUS Extra card also comes with strings. I was recently at the University of Westminster which has 25000 students and after a month they have only sold 2000. Extra staff had to be hired and new laptops had to be purchased to administer the scheme and we will probably have to do the same. Imperial students can get discounts at a lot of places including HMV, Odeon, VUE, Cineworld, and McDonalds. NUS are campaigning to get these companies to give exclusive discounts to NUS extra card holders. Do you really want to spend £52,000 on a organisation that actively campaigns against the interest of ALL students?
Since I started talking about their campaigns, let's not forget about the lecturers strike. The strike affected thousands of students across the country, many have struggled to find jobs due to results or exams being late. Who was it that supported the strike? The NUS.
They would rather stick to their dogma than act on behalf of thousands of students who faced the prospect of not being awarded their degree, endangering many conditional job offers. Were they aware that students were suffering? One member of their executive was. An emergency motion was tabled at the start of their conference basically saying "this is important, lets talk about this first". The Conference voted against this, taking less than 30 minutes to reach their decision. Do we really want to join this bunch?
Leaving ULU is no reason to waste £52,000, vote NO! to have more money available for your clubs and societies this NO!vember.
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