How Democracy will happen at NUS England Assembly 2027
We are making some changes to how we do decision-making and democracy in February.
Before the event
Networking and relationship building
The best and most effective campaigning work is based on strong relationships. Our ambition is that everyone who comes to NUS England has had the opportunity to meet and get to know one of the NUS England officers, and will know someone from another Union before we meet. We'll be holding calls in advance of the event, leading activities the night before and, of course, making sure that our officers are visiting as many people as possible.
Submitting your ideas
We want to hear your answer to the question “What one thing do your students think the student movement should achieve in the next 18 months?” in advance of meeting. This will be the “priority submission” which we have used previously. We will then theme these into ten areas for discussion by the Member Assembly when we are all together. We're looking for themes that are reflected by multiple unions, and will be issues that we can lead campaign work on.
At the event
Once we have a shortlist of areas that students would like us to achieve something on in the next 18 months, we will meet together in February to discuss these as a movement through a series of workshops which develop each proposal. These will be structured as campaign-planning workshops, which will be a mix of narrowing down exactly what we are asking for and ideas generation of what we can do to get there.
We will then publish the outcomes of each workshop, and allow people to make amendments to them and draft these overnight and in the opening session of the next morning. We will then bring all delegates together to speak to the room about their plans, hear any amendments and then vote to commit the movement to these proposals as they then stand.
After the event
After the event, the proposals will be shared back to NUS Reps, who will then vote on which five should become the formal priorities of the national movement.
