Last call for NUS facts!

The past week has been full of flyers being shoved into your hands by keen campaigners outside the library, a panda roaming around the Union asking students to vote no, […]


The past week has been full of flyers being shoved into your hands by keen campaigners outside the library, a panda roaming around the Union asking students to vote no, and a just as adorable dog begging students to vote yes. The NUS storm that has shaken St Andrews for the past week is about to come to a close (voting closes tonight at 6!), but in case you haven’t made up your mind yet, the UDS Debate last night and the Union-hosted “NUS Question Time” on Tuesday have some last-minute points to make.

The Question Time on Thursday was formatted as a mediated question and answer session, headed by Association President Freddie fforde. The discussion featured several topics, a particularly prominent one involving where the NUS affiliation fee would come from. A question from the floor brought up a rumour going around that the fee would come directly from the student’s societies budget, the resounding answer being a hesitant “we don’t know.” The Yes campaign noted that the affiliation money was not taken out of the societies’ budget in any other university affiliated with them, while the No campaign discussed university procedure, saying “The £19,000 [paid per year starting in 2014] will come out of Student Spend, which is comprised of society’s budgets, subcommittee’s budgets, Grad Ball, and Fresher’s Week.” They made it clear that the SSC had not yet decided which part of the Student Spend to take the money out of, and Freddie fforde told the audience that the Board of Trustees would have the final say.

Much of the discussion centered around strict finances, as the No campaign seeked to convince the audience that an expense of the NUS’s calibre is not worth it. The Yes campaign fired back, saying “once [the university] is at £19,000, it’s a small amount of money” considering the span of the university budget. They also made clear that “when a student union can’t pay its fees, they don’t pay the fees,” noting that no university has ever gone bankrupt to pay its fines. When an NUS spokesperson brought up the revenue potential of “NUS Extra Cards,” the discount cards we’re all in a flutter about, she asserted that if 25% of students bought a card, the university would gain back its investment. Freddie fforde intervened again here to encourage students to check all financial information for themselves. The No campaign argued that very few universities affiliated have sold enough cards to gain back their affiliation fee, most selling cards to less than a third of the student body.

The last of the NUS related events was the UDS Debate last night: This House Would Join the NUS. The proposition began their speech by clarifying a few issues; namely that they are not a trade union and are not a bunch of ‘mad, megaphone-yielding Trotskyists’. Instead they argued ‘we are our members’; they are a third party organisation which gives a voice to students. They claimed that the £20,000 cost of joining NUS would be value for money due to their satisfaction rates which are generally ‘between 40% and 80%, but are often over 80%’. They argued that the university could continue to campaign on local issues, whilst earning a voice in both Westminster and Holyrood. Requesting our support, they said that the NUS grows stronger with each additional institute of higher education, and we can be a part of that growth.

The motion to join the NUS fell, with 34 opposed and 13 for.*

The NUS and the various campaigners have had their say, but now it’s time to have yours.  Whether or not you feel passionately about the decision, it is an important decision to be made, so cast your vote by 6pm on Friday.  

 

*The article has been amended from ’13 against’ to ’13 for’.