ICU and the NUS

A lot of you may remember me from the referendum. I was strongly opposed to ICU joining the NUS and campaigned vigorously for a No vote. I did not do so because I object to the existence of a national student body but because I believe that in its current form it is ineffective, unrepresentative of your average student and hence a poor use of our resources. Despite the best efforts of A-NUS, ICU has voted narrowly affiliate to the NUS and it is now our duty to ensure that they deliver on their promises. At this point I would like to give credit to some members of the Yes campaign. Since the referendum I have been working closely with them and they agree with a lot of the criticisms we made of the NUS and we are in the process of passing Union policy to ensure that ICU’s delegation will vote as one in our interests and not be sidetracked by their own political views. You have voted to give the NUS a chance to prove themselves. There is currently a movement within NUS pushing for far reaching reforms that would leave it far less open to the ridicule that my colleagues and I heaped upon it back in November. ICU should support these reforms over the coming few years and if after that period it is clear that they are not working then we should take another look at our membership but not before.
If the NUS is to be effective I believe that the following reforms are necessary. The NUS should change the way it operates as (rightly or wrongly) it currently has a massive image problem, one which I went to great lengths to point out to you all in November. It’s current image is one of angry, young students railing against all authority outside parliament but it needs to realise that this is not an effective way to deliver results. Instead of this negative image it has brought upon itself by dedicating a lot of time and resources to organising street protests that only appeal to a handful of activists it should instead spend the money on an effective media campaign to re-brand students as the bright, young, articulate people that make up the majority of its members. They already do a lot of this "intelligent" lobbying already but all this good behind the scenes work is ruined the minute they let extreme activists take to the streets under their banner. The government gets away with walking all over students because we have lost all public sympathy as a group due to the caricature of your typical "the world owes us a living" student that the media love to portray us as time and time again. Lets stop giving them this opportunity and win some respect back. If we consider ourselves as adults then we need to campaign and lobby on adult terms. By all means, have a protest if it suits our aims but having one just for the sake of it does us no favours whatsoever.
The NUS promised a lot to us during the referendum and an idea of theirs that I would support would be the establishment of a Science and Engineering network. Provided that it was not just another talking shop then this could provide an opportunity for Imperial to lead by default. The majority of people involved with the NUS are politics hacks and we scientists, engineers and medics are under-represented. If we can change this then so much the better.

Elect me as President and I will:-

1.) Work with other Union’s who want the NUS to change.
2.) Work with my fellow sabbaticals and the NUS to make sure that ICU gets the maximum benefit from the NUS.
3.) Ensure the NUS delivers on their promise of a Science & Engineering network.
4.) Investigate the possibility of NUS elections being opened to all its members via online voting and not just a handful of delegates