NUS National Executive Committee Meeting
Kings College SU, London: 19/04/07

Introduction & apologies

Minutes & matters arising from last meeting

Interim Management Update [this was in closed session]

NEC Elect Induction

Progressing with the Governance Review: no firm plans or ideas made but initial ideas about consultation and the need to keep reporting back to the membership was stressed, so look forward to updates on the Governance Review at Regional Conferences in 2007/8!

Motions:
Darfur: Called for UN intervention and the enforcement of the no-fly zone. Opposition to the deportations of Darfuri’s seeking asylum in Britain. Campaign for awareness around the abuse of women in Darfur, linking in with the NUS Women’s Campaign. NUS reaffirmed its commitment to working with Aegis Trust and to affiliate to the Protect Darfur campaign. Also that ‘Africa’ is the priority campaign for the Society and Citizenship Zone.
Amendment: to establish a joint committee between NUS NEC and members of Aegis Students was accepted into the motion.

Climate Change: It was resolved that the NUS NEC would make a submission to the draft Climate Change Bill welcoming it but asking for it to be strengthened. Supporting People & Planet’s Go Green campaign. NUS is banning expenses for flights within Britain except under exceptional circumstances, which would include disabled students. Also joined the Stop Climate Chaos umbrella organisation and plans to work with the Mayor of London to develop a guidebook for London SU’s on how to reduce carbon output.

Opposition to bans on religious dress: supported the right for people to wear what they wanted to wear and to make a submission to the consultation on guidelines for school uniforms opposing bans on the wearing of religious dress and to campaign against all attempts to ban religious or cultural dress on campus.

NEC Handovers Motion: there will be handovers including a written handover pack in future for NEC-elect.

Save Sadiq Abakar / Deportations to Sudan: resolved to support Sadiq’s campaign launched by Lambeth College SU and to donate £50, also to campaign for an end to deportations to Sudan.

Iran Solidarity: affirmed support for Iranian students, workers and women against the theocratic regime; total opposition to any military attack or economic sanctions against Iran; opposition to both US/UK imperialist domination of Middle East and Iran's regional-imperialist ambitions; opposition to all nuclear weapons. Welcomed the election of Mansour Ossanlou as NUS Honorary Vice-President.

Support Metronet Workers: resolved to support the Metronet workers in their dispute over subcontracting. Motion fell.

National Demo: resolved to hold a first-term national demonstration for free education in central London, not on a Sunday. Motion fell.

Meeting closed early at 4:00pm

If you want to see any of the motions in full or want clarification on anything in this report please contact me via email or phone (01524 592197).

Cat Smith
NEC Observer (North West Region)

NUS NEC Meeting – 18th December 2006, 11am – 5pm
University of London Union

Meeting began at 2:05pm – it was closed session before this.

Minutes and matters arising: a few minor amendments to the minutes and passed as a true and accurate record.

Management Team Update: £670,000 off expected on extra – plans are afoot on how to deal with that – announcement tomorrow (19th December) about resolution. Charities Act – provides clarity, all SU’s register with Charities Commission by 2008 and some SU’s being integrated into University structures although due to differences between different SU’s around the country may be different situations.

NUS Extra: 206,000 sales to date. The way forward; increase sales in FE (NUSSL taking on drive of sales in FE), exclusive discounts (ongoing but firmer feedback from suppliers, brand recognition), and key discounts (need to get bigger names on the card, need a range of suppliers for maximum value). It was brought up that HMV have launched their own free student discount card. The discussion dissolved into something about MySpace and Facebook and how important it is that the NUS is up-to-date with cultural phenomena – NUS needs to get ‘down with the kids’!

NEC Agreements and Procedures: [document attached from Marie Burton] legal status of elected officers ambiguous as is the law, basically full time officers can be seen as staff whereas part-time officers not. Discussion went over disciplinary procedures and bullying and harassment policies as well as CRB checks and working with students.
Questions were asked about the autonomy of the liberation and special region officers.

Safeguarding policy passed.

Motions
Anti-Semitism Inquiry
- both amendments fell (GW & RC)
- SW took parts on Resolves 3: voted into the affirmative.
- RC took parts on Resolves 4: voted into the affirmative.
- Motion passed

Supporting Medical Students
- amendment from RB accepted
- amendment from AK & CA accepted
- Motion passed unanimously

Faith on campus
- discussion
- Motion passed

The time ran out for discussing motions but due to time relevance DC’s motion will be voted on via email.

UUK Code of Standards for University Accommodation: presented by Veronica King who pre-warned the NEC she might be pissing UUK off…

Meeting ended at 5:00pm.

Any questions or requests for papers please email me; Cat Smith

The meeting on the 2nd was cancelled and moved to the 22nd November. I don't have any papers for it yet. I will see some of you at Regional Conference on Monday in Manchester Met Uni where I will say pretty much what's in the blog for the benefit of those who don't read this (I know it's difficult to believe that people haven't started bookmarking this site!!). Looking forward to it... any questions email me, contact details here. Cat xxx (NEC Observer)

The next NEC meeting will take place on Thursday, 2nd November.

I will let you know what's happening nearer the time.

Cat Smith
NEC Observer (North West)

Highlights from the NEC meeting on 03/08/06

Wes Streeting, NUS Vice President Education gave a report on the priority campaign on education funding and the cap on fees. It's looking good and I urge everyone to be in London on 29th October, you can see a bit of the city, maybe sight see a little before or after the main event which will be in Trafalgar Square.
Also, if you're an education officer you might like to know that there is an Education Conference planned for Novemeber. Wes has been busy!

Other things included discussion from the budgets and finding an NEC member to sit on the NUSSL Board, this was Stephen Brown, National Secretary. Related to this NUS Extra is to be rolled out nationally next year (as you are probably well aware) and sales are predicted to be 550,000 bringing in an estimated 2.25m into NUS. The web-launch is going to be on the 14th August, you'll be able to order your extra card online.

Motions passed easily on:
1. Guidance for FE colleges on tackling hate crime and intolerance.
2. Disability abuse
3. Work with the Aegis Trust
4. Green books - supporting a book on environmentalism for freshers
5. One water - a project to get more water pumps in Africa through bottled water in UK
6. Agenda for Africa
7. Keep our NHS Public - affiliates to Keep our NHS Public
8. Safeguarding the right to a fair trial - the NatWest Three
9. Building a greener NUS
10. Liberty Affiliation
11. Support for Student Nurses

I don't want to go into too much detail here but if you do want to know the details I'm more than happy to over email - see previous post for my contact details.

There was another motion on the Middle East, which needless to say caused the most discussion, it was very complicated but the final outcome was policy looking like this:

Escalation of Violence in the Middle East
NEC Notes
1. The escalating violence and military action across Lebanon, Israel and Palestine.
2. The Capture of the Israeli Soldier in Southern Israel who is currently being held in Gaza and the capture of two Israeli Soldiers in Northern Israel by Hezbollah currently believed to be in Lebanon.
3. The Capture of Lebanese and Palestinian government officials by Israel
4. Hundreds of innocent Lebanese, Israeli’s and Palestinian citizens have tragically lost their lives in the past weeks.
5. That more than half a million people have been forced to leave their homes
6. The escalating humanitarian disaster

NEC Believes

1. That on the 22nd of July, George Galloway attended a rally in London and said that “What I’m about to say is illegal in this country … Hezbollah has never been a terrorist organisation. I am here to glorify the Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah, and to glorify the resistance leader, Hassan Nasrallah …”, that Mr. Galloway went on to wish aloud that more Arab leaders were like Hassan Nasrallah and that at this same rally, placards were displayed that read, ‘We are all Hezbollah!’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg6qWVGqEJ4)
2. Hezbollah is implicated in the following selected instances:
• Bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killing 19 U.S Servicemen (1996)
• Bombing of Jewish Community Centre in Buenos Aires killing 96. The largest terrorist attack ever to take place on Argentinean soil, and the largest attack on Jewish non-combatants since World War II (1994)
• Bombing of Israeli Embassy, Buenos Aires killing 29, injuring 242 (1992)
• Abduction, torture and death of CIA Station chief in Lebanon (1985)
• The kidnapping of around 30 other Westerners between 1982 and 1992, including U.S. journalist Terry Anderson, British journalist John McCarthy, the Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy Terry Waite and Irish citizen Brian Keenan.
• Car bombing of U.S. embassy on Beirut killing 241 & car bombing of French military barracks in Beirut killing 58 (1983)
3. That Hassan Nasrallah in his speech on the 9th of April 2000 at the Shi'ite Moslem "Ashura" flagellation ceremony, called ‘Nazi atrocities’ a legend ‘invented by the Jews’ and called for the dissolution of the state of Israel on the grounds that "Anyone who reads the Koran and the holy writings of the monotheistic religions sees what they [the Jewish people] did to the prophets, and what acts of madness and slaughter the Jews carried out ...
Anyone who reads these texts cannot think of co-existence with them, of peace with them, or about accepting their presence, not only in Palestine of 1948 but even in a small village in Palestine, because they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment..."

NUS Further Believes

1. That the further escalation between Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas is detrimental to peace future stability of the region and will only lead more violence and to further loss of life.
2. That whilst the capture of Israeli soldiers is inexcusable, Israel has continued to exercise disproportionate military action on Lebanon.
3. The Lebanese army has been told not to respond to the Israeli attacks.
4. Hezbollah are continuing to launch hundreds of rockets at Isreal on a daily basis
5. That whilst the Lebanese President continues to support Hezbollah, the Prime Minster has urged for the release of the Israeli soldiers.
6. The majority of lives lost on both sides of the conflict have been that of innocent civilians.
7. Every life lost in this bitter conflict is a message for us to call for a just peace in the Middle East.
8. As a progressive union it is our duty to promote peace and understanding between peoples.
9. Slogans seen on the STWC demo of the 22/7 such as “We are all Hizbollah” conflate support for the Lebanese people with support for a reactionary political movement engaged in terrorist attacks on innocent Israelis.
10. Diplomatic efforts from the US and UK governments has failed to bring about a sustainable ceasefire.
11. George Galloway is clearly not ignorant of Hezbollah’s history of violence and the killing of innocents knowing his comments may breach the 2000 Terrorism Act
10. By expressing support for Hassan Nasrallah George Galloway is supporting a leader who is openly antisemitic and a holocaust denier.
11. The views expressed by Hassan Nasrallah as the leader of Hezbollah and applauded by George Galloway run contrary to the values of our union: solidarity, peace and respect.
12. Hezbollah carries out acts of terror and as such should be viewed as a terrorist organisation.

NUS Resolves

1. To Support calls for a UN Peacekeeping Force in Southern Lebanon.
2. To call on Israel to halt its disproportionate military action, condemn continuing attacks by terrorists on Israeli citizens and add our voice to calls for a sustainable ceasefire.
3. To Support Lebanese internationalists and the movement for progressive democratic reform in Lebanon.
4. To call for the opening of diplomatic ties between the Lebanese Government and Israeli Government.
5. To support the call for the release of Israeli soldiers
6. To call on the UK Government to pledge significant aid to the region
7. To reaffirm our commitment to a free and independent Palestinian State with the same rights as Israel in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza alongside a secure and independent Israel side by side in peace, with free communication and travel between the two states.
8. To condemn George Galloway for his comments and support for the racist, antisemitic, fascist leader of Hezbollah.
9. For the Co-convenors of the Anti-Racism campaign to write a letter to the Respect party condemning their current stance on the crisis in the Middle-East, and for this letter to be sent out as a press release.

Hello all,

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself, my name is Cat Smith and I am your NEC Observer from the North West region. Thank you to those of you who elected me at the last regional conference, I will endeavour to fulfil my promises to you, including updating this blog.

A little about me: I am currently the full time Women's Officer at Lancaster University Students' Union. This means that I am easily contactable; please visit here for my contact details, there's also a little bit more about who I am. I hope that you will feel able to ask me any questions, big or small, about the meetings.

The first meeting is 3rd August, next Thursday. I will blog as soon as I can after the meeting but I will be going to the National Postgraduate Committee Conference that weekend so it will have to be early the next week.

Cat