The NUS and UCU National Demonstration will begin at Horse Guards Avenue, Westminster at 11:30am.

For further details, please keep checking the demo website.

In the meantime, please continue to keep us updated on how you are supporting the demo.

• Upload your photos
• Upload your events
• Upload your logo
• Enter our demo video competition
• Email your news and views to: fundourfuture@nus.org.uk

I will be travelling to London in November for a national demonstration to defend ourselves against cuts and fees, and to protect our future.

I believe that the 25% cuts to education, imposed by the new coalition government, will have detrimental effect on current students, prospective students and communities as universities begin to withdraw services in order to balance their budgets. With the Browne Review recommending unlimited tuition fees, I am concerned that students will be expected to front more money for their university education and, in return, receive a poorer student experience.

We are already starting to see effects at such as:

• Course, module and campus closures
• Staff redundancies, both academic and support staff
• Less money available for student support
• Merged classes: therefore less tailored teaching and one-to-one support.
• Fewer resources: this could mean fewer books in the library, or fewer materials for students and the cost of buying materials could therefore fall to the individual student.
• Cuts to Basic Skills and ESOL provision

Countries around the world value their education systems and are working hard to attract oversees students. Cuts to higher education means that countries such as China and India will start to attract both international and domestic students taking much needed money from the system, therefore lowering the funding and standards of the UK higher education system.

Universities are also large employers in the community and contribute a huge amount of money to the local economy. Cuts to education will result in a rise in local unemployment and a reduction in the amount the institution contributes locally.

This November students, trade unions, parents and local communities will be joining forces to campaign for a fairer and more sustainable way to fund education. The National Union of Students (NUS) and University College Union (UCU) are organising a national demonstration to take place on Wednesday 10 November and we will march through central London in unity against the cuts to education funding.

I would like you support us in our campaign to secure a sustainable and accessible education system for our future generations by signing up to support, and/or attend, the national demo. More information can be found at www.demo2010.org.

I’d be very grateful if your office could arrange for a time for us to meet to discuss some of the issues I have raised. I would of course be very happy to fit around your busy schedule.

Yours Sincerely,

(Insert name and Institution)

Every day the media is swamped with stories of Higher Education Cuts, and an imminent increase in Tuition Fees. But what does it all mean, and what should we be doing about it?

On October 6th, NUS National President, Aaron Porter will be coming down to Portsmouth to give a talk to students and open our first General Meeting of the year.

Aaron will be not only explaining some of the problems we are facing, but also why we should be concerned and what we can do to campaign, fight and lobby the government on these issues.

Aaron joins us in the run up to the NUS and UCU National Demonstration in London on November 10th, where thousands of students will be taking to the streets, with the message – “Fund our Future: Stop Education Cuts”.

The National Demonstration is your chance to make history, stand up as a student movement, defend student rights and secure accessible education for future generations.

This will be your chance to not only grill Aaron on these issues, and why it’s a concern, but also to tell UPSU what you think. Do you think we should be joining the fight? Do you think we should encourage students to go to the National Demo?

After Aaron’s speech, we will open the General Meeting, where each and every student who attends will get the chance to vote on whether we join the campaign or not.

If you feel passionate either way about fees and funding, we would like to encourage you to come along on October 6th. It’s your chance to listen to and question the National President of NUS, and to tell UPSU what you think we should do.

The event will take place at 5pm on October 6th, in Third Space (upstairs in the Student Centre).

If you want to get involved with the campaign, contact sam.jones@upsu.net

The real women who inspired the film sat down to talk to NUS about equality, protesting and the national demo.

Have your video played to over 5000 people on the day of the national demonstration, making your mark on an event of national political interest!

We will also provide free travel to the demonstration, accommodation in London for the night and a free place on an NUJ-accredited ‘video blogging’ course the following day – worth over £250!!

The theme of the video is The Value of Education. It can be as creative as you like but the video must include the demo logo and website address. (they can be found here)

Videos should be no longer then 3 minutes.

Deadline for entries is 17:00 on Friday 29 October.
The winner will be announced on Wednesday 3rd November.

Upload your entry to YouTube (or any other video hosting website) and send the link, along with your name, email address and phone number to fundourfuture@nus.org.uk.

See the full Terms & Conditions.

Competition kindly supported by the National Union of Journalists. For information on the NUJ, and how you can benefit from becoming a student member, go to their website or go to their facebook page.

Both conferences serve a similar purpose to NUS Annual Conference, allowing organisations to debate issues of importance and vote on how those issues should be resolved.

An emergency motion titled Fund our Future, which calls for members of the British Youth Council to support the campaign against education cuts and the NUS-UCU National Demo, was passed with an astonishing majority. The BYC is a collective body of UK youth organisations. Members include organisations like the Scouts, UNISON, the Woodcraft Folk, St John Ambulance as well as several local authority youth councils.

From 13 September, members of the Trade Union Congress will be discussing a motion titled Defending Education and Jobs, which also includes a resolution to support the NUS-UCU National Demo. The TUC represents 58 unions including the National Union of Teachers, Professional Footballers Association, UCU, UNITE, Musicians Union and National Union of Journalists.

Aaron Porter will be attending the TUC Young Persons Meeting on Saturday 11 September to present the argument for supporting the motion.

This level of support demonstrates the united front to fight against the inevitable cuts to education. Members of these unions, even those indirectly associated with further and higher education, will be marching to defend the right of students, your rights. We hope to see you marching alongside them.

Plymouth DEMO-LITION on 16th October

UPSU, Marjons Student Union, UCU (The University and Colleges Union) the TUC and Student unions from Plymouth City College, Plymouth College of Arts and Cornwall College are uniting to fight back in response to cuts which could see up to 40% funding cuts to the higher education sector and upto 25% to the further education sector.

Our joint campaign will include lobbying of the local MP Mr Oliver Colville who did not sign the pledge against increasing student fees when he was voted into office earlier this year, lobbying of our own VC, petitions, stunts, and a local day of action awareness raising which is to be held on the 16^th October. 

This day will include a procession through the city centre, video petitions, engaging the public, promoting the national demonstration and finally an evening of debate and presentations.  Aaron Porter President of NUS has confirmed that he will speak at the evening event.

This local day of action will also serve as a warm up to a National Demonstration that NUS are planning, together with the lecturer’s trade union UCU, against cuts to the further and higher education sectors on Wednesday 10 November 2010, in central London.

The Student Radio Association, the representative body which supports and acts on behalf of the UK student radio community, has announced their support for the national demo fearing that student radio, and other career enhancing extra curricular activities, could bare the brut of the institutional cuts.

The national demo is taking place on the day before their widely acclaimed Annual Student Radio Awards which are due to take place at the O2 Arena.

Read the full story on their website.

TUC Congress backs November demonstration against education funding cuts

15 September 2010

Delegates at the Trade Union Congress in Manchester have today backed a motion calling for a national demonstration through central London.

UCU and NUS said the unanimous support for the demonstration reflected the anger among delegates in Manchester over the coalition government’s planned cuts. During the debate, delegates highlighted the 200,000 students who missed out on a place at university this summer and the thousands more who could not secure a place in further education colleges. 

You can read the full article, reported by Dan Ashley of UCU, along with Sally’s Hunts speech for the motion here.

South West FE Demo Afternoon

Friday 24^th September

12.30 until 5pm.

Somerset College have very kindly offered to host the South West FE Demo Planning and Networking Afternoon on Friday 24^th Sept from 12.30 until 5pm.

The event will allow SU officers, active students and staff members to get together and prepare to mobilise for NUS’ National Demo in November http://www.demo2010.org/ We will look at campaigning ideas, working with your local UCU reps, how to get students to the demo and working with your local universities.

We will also look briefly at Zone Committees and how they operate to give officers a basic understanding of the events before they happen at the end of October.

The event is completely free and Somerset College is based in Taunton, easily accessible for most of colleges in the region as the town is well situated on a national rail line.

If you would like to attend, please email Katie Shaw (katie.shaw@nus.org.uk) by next Friday (17^th) for directions and a full agenda.

About 30 people from all over Scotland and the UK took part in theHigh Road to the Demo event in Edinburgh on 7 September, which included student associations, NUS Scotland and UK staff, speakers from Liverpool Guild and Liverpool John Moore Students’ Association and UCU Scotland (University and Colleges Union) officers and Staff. Over the course of the day, the newly appointed regional organisers worked with association representatives on how to mobilise for the demo and raise funds for transport.

Below are notes from the day, and contact details for the regional organisers, who exist to help co-ordinate mobilising and fundraising efforts between associations in the same region of Scotland. If you are a sabb and  your union hasn’t been in touch with your regional organiser, or you are not a sabb but would like to get involved in the campaign, please get in touch with the assigned regional contact.

Here’s some of the discussion points raised around mobilizing students:

What is wanted by organisers:

• A video about the demo and about the last demo – like the one that we saw at the start of the day
• A briefing sheet for student activists who are trying to mobilise students – with different arguments for different students and to play to their vested interests.

What are we emphasising?

• The history of student unionism.  Students before us fought for our rights as students.  It is now our turn to fight for our education and the education of future generations.

How cuts will impact on you individually: your sports team, your course, your society.

• Murray suggested that we could play on institutional rivalry with a mock up of t-shirts with university crests, with your institution’s missing.  Tagline of “Where’s your voice?” or similar? 
• Appoint stewards or “institution organisers” and people below them creating a network and giving people buy in to the campaign.  These people could be relied upon to spread the word, and importantly ring around to ensure that people who signed up are still on board.  They can also check up on people a week or so before the demo to make sure they’re still getting on the buses.
• We have an STUC rally happening in Edinburgh on October 23.  This could be a great opportunity for a dry run plus a chance to sign people up.  More details to follow once we’ve liaised with them. http://www.thereisabetterway.org/
• Use days of action to sign people up.  Best practice from these should be shared so that we’ve got it down to a tee by the end.
• Talk to societies – they know who’s active and they are more inclined to get involved.  Could potentially incentivise by offering prizes in the form of Students’ Association vouchers?

Here’s some of the discussion points raised around fundraising:

Ÿ  UCU/other staff unions may donate/sponsor

They’ve got money that can help get our buses!  The branches should all know about the event, as they’ve been told about it by their HQ.  If you put your institution name in here, you should get your local UCU contact details http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3771.  Contact should be with both the President and the Secretary.  Different branches have different amounts of money, but you should arrange a meeting to see whether they’ve got any money they can help us out with. UCU/other staff unions may donate/sponsor: Once you’ve got that initial contact (and hopefully got some branch money!) you can ask whether an e-mail could be sent out to UCU members of the branch to ask for individual donations.  One of the ways of approaching this is the adopt a student idea – talking to members of UCU and asking them whether they would be willing to pay 10, 20 or 30 quid to get a student down to the demo as we’re expecting UCU members to find it harder to get down than students, but they should hopefully be helpful with money!  Make contact with Mike Heffron at NUS Scotland for case studies of student hardship to add a personal element to the contact.

Ÿ  Having UCU members sponsor a student (discussions on costs ranged)

Ÿ  Online sponsorship forms so that students can also ask friends and family to sponsor them

Ÿ  Door/entertainments money from commercial unions, perhaps of a special event, or if unions would prefer not to use this then adding an extra £1 on to entry prices and the £1 going towards the funds.

Ÿ  Car wash

Ÿ  Raising drink prices for 72 hours

Ÿ  Bar profits from a period of time

Ÿ  Targeting alumni associations to ask alumni members to sponsor a student/donate money

Ÿ  Local businesses

Ÿ  Sponsored sporting events (also a good way to get sports teams involved)

Ÿ  Asking RAG groups to help fundraise

Ÿ  Events in student halls (taking fundraising/mobilising outside of unions)

Ÿ  Benefit music events

Ÿ  Old fashioned sports days

Ÿ  Cake sales

Ÿ  A 10 pence premium on drinks served in Association bars over a weekend

Ÿ  Other groups – unions like Unite, Unison and GMB; the Fabians

Ÿ  Benefit gig with debate after a day of action

Ÿ  Doorstepping lecturers in their offices

Report on High Road to the Demo

About 30 people from all over Scotland and the UK took part in last week’s High Road to the Demo event in Edinburgh, which included student associations, NUS Scotland and UK staff, speakers from Liverpool Guild and Liverpool John Moore Students’ Association and UCU Scotland (Union of Colleges and Universities) officers and Staff. Over the course of the day, the newly appointed regional organisers worked with association representatives on how to mobilise for the demo and raise funds for transport.

Below are contact details for the regional organisers, who exist to help co-ordinate mobilising and fundraising efforts between associations in the same region of Scotland. If you are a sabb and  your union hasn’t been in touch with your regional organiser, or you are not a sabb but would like to get involved in the campaign, please get in touch with the assigned regional contact.

Mike Heffron
Campaigns and Communications Officer
NUS Scotland

Regional organiser assignments

NUS Scotland staff contact
Mike Heffron
Campaigns and Communications Officer
Mike.heffron@nus-scotland.org.uk
0131 556 6598

Mid-Scotland and Fife region
Regional Organiser:
Correen Dickson (Stirling University)
cod00005@students.stir.ac.uk

SEC contact:
Robin Parker (Aberdeen University)
robin.parker@nus-scotland.org.uk
01224 272965

Responsible for:
1. Adam Smith College
2. Carnegie College
3. Cumbernauld College
4. Forth Valley College
5. University of Abertay
6. Stirling University
7. Elmwood College

UHISA region
Regional organiser:
Chris Talbot (UHISA/ Argyll College UHI)
uhisa.vp@uhisa.org.uk
Office: 01631 559766

SEC contact:
Rebecca Entwistle (Inverness College)
rebecca.entwistle@nus-scotland.org.uk
Office: 01463 226588

Responsible for:
1. Lews Castle College
2. North Highland College
3. Orkney College
4. Sabhal Mor Ostaig Comann Nan Oileanach
5. Shetland College
6. UHI Millennium Institute
7. West Highland College
8. Inverness College
9. Moray College
10. Perth College

North East Scotland
Regional organiser:
Gordon Maloney
gordon.maloney.07@aberdeen.ac.uk

SEC contact:
Graeme Kirkpatrick (Aberdeen College)
graeme.kirkpatrick@nus-scotland.org.uk
Office: 01224 612273

Responsible for:
1. Aberdeen College
2. Aberdeen University
3. Angus College
4. Banff and Buchan College
5. Robert Gordon University
6. Scottish Agricultural College (Craibstone, Aberdeen)

South of Scotland
Regional organiser:
Susan Duncan (University of West of Scotland)
dpew@sauws.org.uk
Office: 0141 849 4171

SEC contact
Murray Hope (Heriot Watt)
murray.hope@nus-scotland.org.uk
Office: 0131 451 5333

Responsible for:
1. Glasgow Caledonian University
2. University of the West of Scotland Paisley
3. University of the West of Scotland Ayr
4. University of the West of Scotland Hamilton
5. Borders College
6. Ayr College
7. Dumfries and Galloway College
8. Scottish Agricultural College Ayr
9. Kilmarnock College
10. Motherwell College
11. James Watt College Kilwinning
12. James Watt College Greenock
13. South Lanarkshire College
14. Heriot-Watt University Borders
15. Reid Kerr College

Lothian region
Regional organiser:
Hugh Murdoch (Edinburgh Uni)
hwmurdoch@gmail.com

SEC contact
Claire Rackley (Edinburgh University)
claire.rackley@nus-scotland.org.uk

Responsible for:
1. Heriot-Watt University Borders
2. Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh
3. Jewel and Esk College
4. John Wheatley College
5. Edinburgh Napier University
6. Oatridge College
7. Queen Margaret University
8. Scottish Agricultural College (Edinburgh)
9. Stevenson College
10. Telford College Edinburgh
11. West Lothian College
12. Edinburgh University
13. Edinburgh College of Art

Glasgow region
Regional organiser:
Vacant (Susan Duncan helping at the moment)

SEC contact:
Phil Whyte (Strathclyde Uni)
philip.whyte@nus-scotland.org.uk
0141 567 5000

Responsible for:
1. Anniesland College
2. Cardonald College
3. Central College
4. Clydebank College
5. Coatbridge College
6. Strathclyde University
7. Glasgow College of Nautical Studies
8. Glasgow Metropolitan College
9. Langside College
10. North Glasgow College
11. Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama
12. Stow College

10 September 2010

North West sub region meeting between UCLan, Lancaster and Cumbria Students’ Unions.

Following up the successful 1st meeting with a discussion on funding, transport, local priorities and targetting structure as well as the logistics for demo day. (a nice lunch too)

Minutes are available on request.

For more information contact supresident@uclan.ac.uk

Submitted by Michael Palmer

27 August 2010

Sabbatical officers from UCLan, Lancaster and Cumbria Students’ Union met to meet and greet and to formalise our local and national plans for the campaign.

The minutes of the meeting are available.

For more information email supresident@uclan.ac.uk

Submitted by Michael Palmer

12th October – 27th October

University of Leicester Students’ Union are visiting most of the FE schools in the area to deliver an “educational” presentation on the state of HE funding and the effects the prospective cuts may have on education.

We thought that by portraying the presentation as an informative talk rather than a political recruitment activity, schools would be more willing to allow us to come in and speak to their students. We hope that this talk will entice FE students and help mobilise them in support of the national demo, whilst also keeping them up to date with the current HE funding situation.

Submitted by Jemma Healy

24th September

University of Leicester Students’ Union are meeting with Liz Kendall MP (Labour – Leicester West) to try and convince her to sign the pledge against raising tuition fees and to get her to support the “Fund Our Future: Stop the Cuts” campaign.

Submitted by the University of Leicester Students’ Union

Wednesday 6 October
5pm-8pm

Kent Union Debating Society and sabbatical team are hosting an open debate about higher education funding with local MP Julian Brazier and Usman Ali, NUS.

Open to anyone with free wine and nibbles!

Broadcasted by CSR 97.4FM

Event submitted by Lauren Crowley
For more information contact l.crowley@kent.ac.uk

Friday 22 October
12pm-4pm

Day of action on campus, doorknocking, placard waving and a balloon launch to coincide with our close of ballot for our by-elections.

Event submitted by Lauren Crowley.
For more information contact l.crowley@kent.ac.uk

On October 6th, NUS National President, Aaron Porter will be coming down to Portsmouth to give a talk to students and open our first General Meeting of the year.

Aaron will be not only explaining some of the problems we are facing, but also why we should be concerned and what we can do to campaign, fight and lobby the government on these issues. Aaron joins us in the run up to the NUS and UCU National Demonstration in London on November 10th, where thousands of students will be taking to the streets, with the message – “Fund our Future: Stop Education Cuts”.

The National Demonstration is your chance to make history, stand up as a student movement, defend student rights and secure accessible education for future generations.

This will be your chance to not only grill Aaron on these issues, and why it’s a concern, but also to tell UPSU what you think. Do you think we should be joining the fight? Do you think we should encourage students to go to the National Demo?

After Aaron’s speech, we will open the General Meeting, where each and every student who attends will get the chance to vote on whether we join the campaign or not.

If you feel passionate either way about fees and funding, we would like to encourage you to come along on October 6th. It’s your chance to listen to and question the National President of NUS, and to tell UPSU what you think we should do.

The event will take place at 5pm on October 6th, in Third Space (upstairs in the Student Centre).

If you want to get involved with the campaign, contact sam.jones@upsu.net

These are tough times and they require tough choices. Ministers and university leaders will not shirk from that task. We need to be there to make their decisions tougher, we need to prevent them from making the wrong choices, to defend and protect our priorities and those of our membership. We need to be out on the streets of London, we need to be in our local communities making this a key issue for constituencies and their MPs and we need to be inside the rooms where the deals will be made. To have an impact, we need to do all of these things and do them well.

We need to build for a year of action on a scale that we have not undertaken since the higher education bill six years ago. The first landmark in this year will be our joint demonstration with UCU. So I ask you now if you want to defend the right to good and properly funded education that you commit your time and that of other people to make this national demonstration a success. If you haven’t already, please make contact with your UCU branch and organise to make this the most successful demonstration of recent history.

A draft agenda for the day can be seen below (subject to change)

10:30 Teas and coffees

11:00 Introduction to the day

11:05 Presentation and questions about the demo including info on objectives, background, expectations, latest developments

11:30 Intercalative training workshop on campaigning, focussing especially on Activities and Involving members in the run-up to the demo

12:00 Devising a strategy for driving demo numbers up

12:40 Lunch

13:30 Developing your union’s final plan of action for the last ten days of building for the demo

14:20 Target setting: Final estimates on how many people each union can bring to the demo.

14:45 Working break – opportunity for unions to discuss sharing resources, booking coaches together etc

15:00 Practical session. An opportunity to choose between a banners/poster making session for the demo or discuss other logistical issues

16:30 Close

The South East region traditionally performs incredibly well when it comes to delivering national campaigns locally, as well as mobilising SU members to take national action.

Reading University Students’ Union
PO Box 230
Reading
RG6 6AZ

London planning day at Hertfordshire students’ union, University of Hertfordshire Students’ Union, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts. AL10 9AB. Student campaigners will be meeting to plan how to mobilise as many students as possible for the demo. For more information call: 01707 285000

Organisers in the Salford, Manchester and Bolton region will be meeting to plan how to mobilise as many students as possible for the demo. University of Salford Students’ Union, University House, The Crescent, Salford, M5 4WT. For more information call: 0161 351 5400.

Unions in Scotland meet to organise their plans for the demo. 07 September 2010, 11:00 am-5:00 pm get involved.

Read Liam Burn’s blog from the english event.

The demo is part of our strategy to influence the Coalition Government. NUS and UCU firmly believe that education changes the lives of individuals, families and communities. Education and skills will also be key to our economic recovery.

Staff and students in further and higher education are coming together to build an unprecedented coalition to fight against the cuts that have been imposed upon our communities, as well as to resist the prospect of higher fees and increasing privatisation in education.

Demo organisers heard talks from NCVO and student leaders about how to mobilise people to attend the demo and had lots of ideas that will shortly be seen on campuses across the country.

Regions started to pledge the number students that they will bring to the demo. To get involved and attend the demo contact your local students’ union now.