Today, Monday 25th January, saw the opening of nominations for the RUSU Elections 2010; already a multitude of candidates had opened for various positions and an explosion of election groups had appeared all over Facebook, but this formal opening of the election season passed with only a couple more candidates emerging from the woodwork.

Our campaign, and I say our campaign because we are all in this together working for the same goals and on the same principles that you elected me with last year, is continuing to go from strength to strength. My re-election Facebook group has got well over 800 members after only a week live which, although no real clear indication of anything, can only be taken as a positive sign. We’re in this and in it to win, and we will win. The manifesto I am writing at the moment is sensible, practical and relevant to all students; no fancy gimmicks, no false promises, just true and honest words.

You’ll obviously understand that now is not yet the time to go live as nominations are very much underway, and points do go wandering from manifesto to manifesto – but trust in that it will be just as important as last year.

If you haven’t done already, sign up and give your support here…!

Tommy

“Treachery with a smile on its face”

- Thatcher, on being forced to resign

I announced on Monday that I am going to let my name go forward to stand for re-election as RUSU’s Vice President Education.

I’m not just starting a campaign, though, I’m beginning a conversation – with you, with the students. Because we all need to be part of the discussion if we’re all going to be part of the solution. And all of us have to be part of the solution.

Let’s talk about how to ensure that your degree works for you, and that it’s not always the other way around. How to give students a louder voice in the meetings that matter. How to fight the hidden course costs that make getting a degree even more expensive than it already is. And let’s definitely talk about how every student can have access to an improved personal tutor system.

So let’s talk. Let’s chat. Let’s start a dialogue about your ideas and mine.

Because the conversation in the higher education sector has been just just a little one-sided lately, don’t you think? And we can all see how well that works.

And while I can’t visit everyone’s halls and living rooms, I can try. And with a little help from modern technology, I’ll be recording video chats in the run-up to the start of the election campaign proper.

So let the conversation begin. I have a feeling it’s going to be very interesting.

To have your voice heard, give your support by joining the Facebook group. Just join yourself, invite your friends, and let’s get back to work.

Tommy

“Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights,even if you don’t know what your rights are, or who the person is you’re talking to. Then on the way out, slam the door.”

Before I big up the Annual General Meeting, I wanted to feedback on the comments I’ve received about the email from Rob Robson.

54% of students were either confused, worried, or annoyed by the email sent by our Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Teaching & Learning about academic attendance whilst enrolled on a degree course. 69% of students have mandated me to talk to Rob about the inappropriateness of the email… have you had your say yet? Let me know what you think.

Anyway – it’s the Annual General Meeting today… whoop whoop!

This is your opportunity to:

• take control of your Union
• hear from the Student Officers about RUSU’s achievements and plans
• make sure your money is being spent the way you think it should be
• hold RUSU officers to account
• ensure the Union is heading in the right direction

After all – we work for you!

More importantly than that… free lunch, free Saturday Union ticket, and chance to win a pair of Summer Ball tickets if you attend! Why on earth would you not be all over that like a bear to honey? It’s a well great shout – you get fed and all you have to do is sit in 3sixty for an hour! Awesome

Anyway kids – I’ve got to dash but I hope to see you all there! If you don’t come you can’t complain

Tommy

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win.

You will all have received the email from Rob Robson – Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Teaching & Learning – about academic commitments. If you haven’t read the response I’ve written (which will be in spark* next issue), then have a look at it now.

I want you to tell me what you thought of Rob’s email when you received it; did it make things clearer or muddy the waters, were you confused or satisfied by his points about jurisdiction, etc.

Please take a moment to fill out the short poll below:

Feel free to leave a comment on this – I’m meeting with Rob before the end of term and will be able to raise your concerns with him then.

 

Tommy

When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we’d all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It wasn’t until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear.

The article below will be going into Spark* in the next issue as a direct response from RUSU to the comments made by Rob Robson – Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Teaching & Learning – on academic commitments and responsibilities during term-time. Hopefully it’ll put some of what he said into context; the University shouldn’t be scare-mongering. It’s not their job – that’s what I’m here to do

Have a read through – let me know what you think… it’s me fighting to defend and extend the rights and opportunities of the membership!

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Like many of you this last week, I received the email from Rob Robson outlining the University’s stance on attendance during term-time. I can imagine just how confused you might have been… what is this ‘Calendar’ to which he refers and why is it suddenly ruling over my life?

You’re right to be puzzled… the Calendar is certainly nothing I had ever come across as a student and for good reason; it isn’t made available to the student body. It is primarily a tool for University staff to know who sits on what committee and what the Statutes, Regulations, and Ordinances of the University state – this is how I came to love and hate the 2-inch thick book. So if this is the first that you’ve heard of University “jurisdiction” and academic obligations then fear not – you’re not alone; the University is completely out-of-line in quoting them to you.

But what does Rob’s message mean to you? He’s clearly got a point that he wants to put out to the student body, and there are a couple of important details hidden in the midst of rules you’ve never heard of and quite likely still don’t understand. I’m going to hopefully clarify it for you and give a RUSU perspective on what has been said.

Basically, if you have an academic commitment (lecture, seminar, tutorial, field-trip…you know the stuff) then you must be in attendance for it; this is a contractual agreement between you as a student and the University as an institution, and there is an onus on you to fulfil that agreement. Whether you like it or not, it was something that you agreed to when you took your place at the University of Reading.

The confusion arises as to when you need to be on campus and when you don’t. Rob’s quotation of ‘jurisdiction’ is misleading as many of the University staff themselves don’t know what this means, and there is no clear definition aside from the literal that you must, as a student, remain within the physical boundaries of campus during term-time. Clearly that isn’t the case. Wherever you are during term-time whether it is on campus, at your parent’s house, visiting friends, playing sport away, visiting the theatre, or on Summer Break you are still within the jurisdiction of the University.

The problems arise if you are not fulfilling your academic obligations by not being on campus during term-time, and this is where RUSU agrees with the University. Don’t miss lectures or seminars if you can help it, and make sure that you let your lecturers know in advance if you can.

However, there’s no need to panic! You’ll find at points during your time at Reading that you have less academic obligations one week compared to the next and it’s up to you what you do with that time. Sometimes I found it really useful to have extra time to spend in the Library researching my dissertation, but equally I sometimes found it a better use of my time to be down Mojos with a snakeyb or five. The point is that as long as you are fulfilling all of your academic obligations – not just lectures but appropriate time for studying – then the term-time is yours to spend as you want. Feel free to go chill out with friends in the park, go to the RUSU Summer Ball, get the train to London for a day’s shopping, go on Summer Break and have fun if you want. If you’ve done everything that is required of you academically, then it’s not your fault that there’s nothing else to do and the University has to realise this.

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I’ve had mates come up to me asking if this email was just to them or have other people received it; others wondering what the jurisdiction of the University encompasses; some wondering if they can miss a lecture for a funeral without being penalised; and yet others thinking the whole email by Rob is one big laugh and deciding to pay no attention to it.

Rest assured – that email was sent round to myself and various others a month ago and I, along with other senior University staff, weighed in with feedback about how the message could be more effectively targeted and how to convey the points better. Unfortunately, it appears that none of this was taken onboard by Rob Robson and the email went out in more or less the same format as originally written. That’s why I’m holding him to account through Spark* and giving students the real truth about what you can and can’t do.

Feel free to get back to me with any questions by either leaving a comment or coming in to see me in RUSU.

Tommy

“Hogwarts is a school, not an outpost of Cornelius Fudge’s office”

Today is a day of controversy what with my comments on why Copenhagen will fail and it being a Monday and all. I started off the day with a controversial fashion statement – thought I’d share that with you whilst I take a lunch break

Who do you see?

Hope you’re all having a great day!

Tommy

Don’t think of her as a politician. Think of her as a one-woman revolution – a hurricane in human form

“This is about saving the future of our species.”

These words were uttered by Barack Obama only a few months ago at a press conference on the upcoming climate conference in Copenhagen, and the whole world over breathed a collective intake of expectation on hearing them. If America is onside, they thought, then everyone else will fall into line; China, India, Australasia.

But things are not, it would seem, quite as rosy as some would have us believe.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, is reported to have lowered his expectations for the conference. The organisers of Copenhagen have admitted last weekend that they no longer have any hope that the summit will be able to formulate a final legally binding agreement; the hope now, being spearheaded by Rasmussen as conference host, is that global leaders will be able to reach a “political deal” now which can be followed by a legal one at a later stage. The only questions remaining are just how “political” this deal will be and how soon the legal one will follow.

The date in everyone’s mind is 1 January 2013, the day the Kyoto protocol expires. From than point onwards, there will be no legally binding limits placed on countries globally on greenhouse gas emissions; all carbon trading deals currently in operation will be null and void, and any incentives to cut emissions will quickly dry up.

That date is just a little over three years away. Given that the Kyoto protocol took over seven years after signing to become a legally binding international agreement, anything signed by governments next year may not be ratified in time by the requisite number of states.

The Danish Prime Minister, remarking at a meeting in Singapore of Asian leaders, said that the pragmatic approach was to focus on “specific commitments and begin to bind countries to meet certain targets by certain dates”. He went on to say that the figures were needed, as was the action; his climate minister, Connie Hedegaard, agreed. Cynics are pointing to the politics of Mr Rasmussen’s right-of-centre party, Venstre, and their lacklustre attempts to tackle their own carbon emissions thus far.

For me, pragmatism is not enough. Nor is that other fashionable word “consensus.”

To me consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects — the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner “I stand for consensus”?

It is on the issue of consensus to which we return to President Barack Obama. Thought to be reluctant to have to renegade on promises that Congress will not let him keep – as Al Gore had to on Kyoto in 1997 as Vice President, he wants all climate change bills currently before Congress to pass before he makes any firm pledges either way. There is no possible chance that this will happen before Copenhagen.

Asiatic leaders, including the influential President Hu Jintao of China, have insisted that neither they nor their countries will commit to reductions in carbon emissions until the US is fully committed to cutting theirs. This was reported in newspapers the world over with a variety of different headlines, but one of the most cutting was in Le Monde and simply read “le lion se réveille”. If Obama can get a bill through Congress, then the international deal that now looks thoroughly stalled will remain strikingly doable next year. For the pessimists, it seems as if climate talks just ran out of time.

Tommy

Humans do have an amazing capacity for believing what they choose and excluding that which is painful

You know, we live in an amazing place – these lumps of earth we call the British Isles. If you travel north, south, east or west you discover it’s a land of extremes. We’ve got this ancient and checkered history, we’ve got an extraordinary diversity of landscapes and wildlife and it’s chock-full of surprises. Sights to take your breath away…

Yorkshire really is God’s Own Country. As soon as you cross the border from Derbyshire into South Yorkshire, the air becomes fresher and the sky becomes clearer. There must be something in the water, or at least in the beer, because you know that everyone who lives within the borders of the great Shire of York is a friendly soul. Well, that caveat is only applicable if you were born yourself within the boundaries of this great county

Anyway – here I am, back in Harrogate, for the weekend. Sat watching #xfactor and giving scores out of 10 with Mum and Dad for each contestant… fun times Hoping Jedward die horribly if they don’t get kicked out this week… please, someone fulfil my wishes and destroy them. I’ll give you a Freddo if you do…

Went to Betty’s today for a cup of tea and cake with MummyG – it was yummy I’d definitely recommend looking at the menu if you’ve got an obscene amount of money to spend on a pot of Earl Grey, it’s worth it for sure! The majority of the waitresses were fit as anything, with the potential exception of the ugly brunette one… no deal.

Right - back to xfactor, loving it but missing everyone at Reading Don’t have too much fun at the Union without me!

Tommy

Burn Jedward.

How awesome was last night? For those of you who attended (and there were well over a hundred of you), I’m sure you’d agree that it was absolutely epic in the intensity of the debate and the quality of not just the panelists but also of the audience.

With NUS Vice President for Higher Education, Aaron Porter, presiding in the Chair over Rob Wilson MP (Con, Reading East), Anneliese Dodds (Lab, Reading East), Gareth Epps (Lib, Reading East), Rob White (Grn, Reading East) and Wes Streeting (NUS President), there were conflicting opinions on Higher Education funding across the panel. It was obvious that this wasn’t going to be without its controversy…

The debate opened with a presentation by Wes entitled “Reading – a tale of two cities”. Immediately, all around the room, faces lit up with expectation as Sabbs and NUS members recognised Graeme Wise’s style of powerpoint from a similar presentation on Bristol that we’d seen earlier in the summer (I’ve seen it three times and STILL love it). Looking at Reading, this narrative tale considers the differences between the constituencies of Reading East and Reading West in terms of participation rates in higher education, final qualification attainment of the population, and social mobility – and how all these factors tied in. It was pretty obvious that Reading’s residents would be some of the harder hit by a rise in tuition fees and the prospect of having to pay £x,000 a year extra. Priced out of the sector indeed.

Each panelist was then given five minutes to introduce themselves before we launched into questions from the audience. I’m not going to give a blow-by-blow running order of what happened but I will pick out key moments that made me laugh or made me cringe, and provide my opinion on who I thought came out well. If you know me and my political values, you may be surprised

Rob White – the Green PPC – was clearly the worst person on the panel; sorry if you’re reading this Rob, but you were. I know the Green’s are never going to get elected and nobody takes them seriously as a party… but it’s no excuse not to have done your homework. If student fees rise from £3,200 per annum to £7,000 then the average debt is not going to rise to just £25,000 from £22,000. That doesn’t even make sense Rob… try £35,000 to £40,000 as a figure for average debt if tuition fees double. And it was irritating to watch you (and others) use our Higher Education funding panel as a platform to launch a party political broadcast about Trident and foreign wars, and cut-over other members of the panel when it’s not your turn to speak. I did feel a bit sorry for him though… he looked more like a lost child than anything else. Perhaps if the Greens were to actually have power they’d realise they need to be more focused – they’re like the Liberals of the 1970s.

Anneliese Dodds came across very well, which is to be expected given her background as a lecturer at another University. Professional, collected, and cool – she knew her funding facts. She’s a lovely and wonderful person (I know, I can’t believe I’m saying this about a Labour candidate!) but I need to see her in a general debate on all issues before I make up my mind. I know Labour are on the way out and need a good kicking at the next election, but she’d make a fabulous MP. Saying that, so would the Labour candidate for Henley Richard McKenzie. Anneliese did let herself down on two occasions though… firstly when she was talking about the 2004 vote for top-up fees; this is always a dangerous topic for a Labourite to bring up as the voters then start to remember that Labour were elected in ‘97 on a pledge not to introduce top-up fees - #fail. The second time was when she was making the point that the Tories had left the economy severely weakened in 1997… I think you’ll find that the Tories left the economy in a pretty stable state that allowed Labour to spend excessively (and run up unprecedented debts) in the Blair years. Let’s not forget the Winter of Discontent in ‘78-9 under Sunny Jim Callaghan (a Labour PM). But she was absolutely sound otherwise.

Then we had Gareth Epps for the Liberals. In my opinion, he came across as the best person on the panel; informed, witty, and targeted with his criticisms of the state, the Government, and the opposition. Again though, it is easy to criticise when you’re not the one making the decisions – unless the Liberals make an alliance to form a Government with the Tories or Labour then they’re not going to be in power in the next thirty years. I say that very guardedly for the following reason. When Labour came to power in 1974, they did so on their smallest post-War vote to date. And who put them in? The Liberals and the Nationalists in Scotland. And do you remember what happened in 1976 when the Labour Government was tottering? Who came to the rescue? It was those self-same Liberals with the notorious Lib-Lab Pact who propped up the most illiberal Government of modern times. To be fair, that is history and Gareth did very well. The only point that continues to fail the Liberal Democrats on the issue of higher education funding is that their leader Nick Clegg is clearly off-message; it’s all very well and good for your manifesto committee to say something like free education, but maybe it’s time to Cut the Clegg if he’s saying something completely different? My rambling aside, Gareth was great!

Then we come to our sitting MP, Rob Wilson. I have a lot of time for Rob – he’s a thoroughly nice chap and does a helluva lot to further the student cause when he can. Being a party whip has limited his actions somewhat (being unable to sign EDMs that go against party policy, for instance), but he remains very much on our side. I thought he came across very well – he was in a hostile audience of mostly liberal students trying to defend actions of his party in the Thatcher era. He made a couple of mistakes (quite big ones) where he came across as slightly grand-standing and posturing – when he dumped student funding in the same sentence as two other issues that Tories really care about; fox-hunting and animal cruelty – and blustered on a couple of questions. Overall though, I was very impressed and thought that he could have done a lot worse given the nature of the audience. A very respectable showing for Rob, made harder by having to toe the party line whereas other panelists could be a lot freer with what they said. He wasn’t, I’m afraid, at his best though.

Wes was simply fantastic, as he always is on these things. I’m not going to comment much on what Wes said because it’s the same old NUS party-line that we all know and love… and RUSU have signed up to support the NUS on their messages so that’s by-the-by. He was eloquent, charged, and cutting – all that our National President should be An historic three-terms perhaps Wesley?

Who topped who then? Well here’s the running order from most effective to least effective as it is in my opinion: Gareth Epps, Anneliese Dodds, Rob Wilson, Rob White. There wasn’t much separating Annelise and Rob Wilson, as they were both very strong, but she just came across as slightly more intuitive on the issues given her background.

That’s all I’m going to write now, but have a great weekend! I’m going home to see the parentals and will be back on Sunday

Tommy

Yorkshire is a lifestyle choice, not just a county.

Reports have been coming in thick and fast about the movements of a large and strangely friendly rabbit. Seen in Palmer wearing a red t-shirt and handing out fliers on something called The Big Debate, this cheeky chappy has been bounding in and out of lectures in that building all afternoon… hopping, nibbling, bouncing around all over the place.

Bringing smiles wherever he went, or so the reports say, Reggie the Rabbit has been running up to absolute random students and giving them hugs, high-fiving where necessary, or just blowing kisses to passers-by. It’s unclear if his love is for the students or for the issue of affordable and fair higher education funding. He was later seen in the Library, in HumSS, and in the Lego Building doing much the same thing and trying to engage the student body by enticing them with his beloved carrots.

If found – please return to RUSU as he needs to go to bed for the night before the revellers arrive for a night of mayhem in 3sixty.

Tommy

Rabbits are one of those marvellous inventions that let you know the time whenever you want and have a charming digital display… oh wait, that’s a wrist-watch.