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University life, whether you live this at Winchester or another institute, is one of the best life experiences you’ll have and as a grad I can assure you the laughter far outweighs any fears or tears you may have. As your new Vice President, Communication and Campaigns officer I can’t wait to meet you all for a cheeky drink in Fresher’s week and a good old gossip about all things studenty.

The past few weeks have been pretty back-to-back here with meetings, training programmes and the odd social night out filling my diary up nicely. Our conference last week at Warwick was my first NUS away conference, I hope it’s not my last either as it was so much fun and not only do I feel more competent in my role here but I’ve learnt some new tactics for drinking games and, oddly, hiding a receding hairline (never know when this will come in handy ..) so bring on September 20th I say!

From an academic perspective, I feel a bit more confident in what I’m doing – being a new officer, this coming year is new for me as well as the first years so it was good to meet other Sabbs from all over the country who had some great advice to offer. As Seb also highlighted in his blog, the National Demo which Winchester hopes to join these other Unions in with is fast approaching on November 10th and now I’ve met others! Despite that sounding an age away, it’s only 123 days till Christmas so let’s put that into perspective and get excited about it now! For anyone that wants more information on what the stance actually is I am in the process of arranging a day for Dave Gilmore, our NUS Regional Organiser for the South and an NEC (Exec team for these guys) member to come to Winchester and chat to students about the importance of getting involved. Keep eyes peeled as term starts and updates start!

There are a few things that I’d like to stress to anyone interested in/intrigued by the point of this National Demo. It is NOT just a bunch of students throwing their toys out the pram and hoping the Government will stop nicking our pocket money if we strop enough. The idea behind the march through the London streets is to show that as students we DO care and while we understand there is a lot of financial pressures on the coalition Government right now, taking money from those that want to further their learning is not the fairest or most pragmatic way of sorting out the country’s debts. Secondly, if we look at previous campaigns regarding topics of a similar nature the outcome of this making a change IS a realistic belief (more info on this can be supplied but to put it simply, the voting on the last issue to do with student fees was closer than the parliamentary decision about Iraq!) So, if you want to help us continue to sustain and improve the experience for you as a student here then drop jump aboard this movement and feel the noise, more info to come….Squishes and kisses!