Rightio folks heres me conference report, yay its a long one! But non the less its of some importance.

NUS LGBT Summer Conference 2006 (Sheffield) – Report

This report is going to cover:
1. The nominations & elections for conference and recommendations.
2. Accessibility at conference and recommendations.
3. Conference workshops & motions and recommendations
4. Any other business arising from conference.

1. Nominations & Elections for conference

Following last year’s problems with the nominations and elections for summer conference in Edinburgh, which were organised by the society and included delegates being sent who couldn’t stay for the whole of conference, a person who had stood to go for conference and should have democratically been sent when an elected delegate dropped out, being overlooked in favour of the delegation leaders bias for someone who hadn’t stood for election and conference being advertised as a weekend holiday. The Assembly took over the nominations and elections for winter conference in Coventry, advertised it for its political importance and ran everything without a hitch. This saw a motion passed at the LGBT society AGM stating:

“Due to the political importance of NUS LGBT conference, the information gained there and the influence it has upon the Union & University politics with regards to LGBT Students, the LGBT Assembly is in charge of organising elections and delegations to attend the conferences with the help of the Society committee. All LGBT Society members will still have an equal opportunity to go.”

This was voted in to ensure that problems experienced with Edinburgh conference weren’t repeated and the assembly chairs could gain information they need to carry out their work effectively. Also because the people who are involved in the assembly have attended past conferences and know about NUS LGBT elections policy rulings and delegation rulings, as well as how to sort out the relevant paperwork. However personal bias displayed by an exec member, saw the forms being given to the society committee (non of which had attended conference before), who also displayed bias and withheld the forms from the assembly chair, didn’t communicate with the assembly chair, open or close nominations and were discussing just sending who they wanted. (NUS would have scrapped the delegation due to it not being democratic). Due to the forms being withheld, and a mess with communication, I only received the forms a week before the date they were due back to NUS, and started trying to organise nominations and elections via an online vote, which was the only solution to the problem as there were no more coffee hours for members to vote in.

This was then met by a backlash from the society, including false accusations to the exec about my conduct and organisation of nominations & elections. Furthermore the exec decided to exploit a loophole in union constitution to take the nominations, elections & organisation of a delegation for conference off me. Problems encountered from this were that the exec officers haven’t attended NUS LGBT conference and don’t know about the policy rulings and delegation rulings and the online voting became a farce as it was improperly set up preventing members from being able to vote for a day and a half of the 3 days it was open. Further problems were caused when a delegate dropped out 2days before conference, the exec weren’t told until then and I wasn’t informed of the change until 9 hours before conference (from the person who had been told they were going, not the exec who should have told me), this led to a last minute e-mail being sent to us and us having to print it out literally 25mins before boarding a train to go to conference. Further problems arose at conference registration due to the exec not informing NUS of the last minute change, the e-mail not being an official letter from our union (as stated in NUS policy) and steering committees reluctance to accept it. Eventually after pleading our case with the support of the NUS LGBT Women’s place officer, who knew about the problems encountered by the exec taking over, we were allowed the last minute change.

Recommendations
· The society constitution be upheld and the Assembly Chair retain full control of organisation of LGBT conference, with the help of the society committee.
· A motion being sent to Union Council to ensure that this is the case and future executive officers can’t display bias towards societies that they represent and exploit loopholes to take away the organisation of conference, for the main reasons that a) they don’t necessarily self-define as LGBT b) they haven’t attended conference before and don’t know the NUS LGBT policy c) they aren’t the elected representative/authority on LGBT issues and should therefore not have the right to affect our delegation and representation.
· A resolution should be sought, via a motion at the next Union AGM to close the constitutional loophole that was exploited by the exec, as it serves as a potential threat to the authority of Assembly Chairs and could see officers undermining minority groups if they don’t agree with them or their aims. How can equality be achieved if there is room within the constitution for it to be taken away?
· Any delegate who has to drop out of going to conference, should give sufficient notice of at least 4days to the Assembly Chair/delegation leader as to provide adequate time to sort out the paperwork, travel and accommodation arrangements and provide sufficient notice to inform NUS LGBT.

2. Accessibility

Unfortunately there were problems with the accessibility of conference for disabled and trans students. The accommodation was situated a long distance away from conference hall and the social area’s, transport for disabled delegates between destinations wasn’t provided and in the halls the rooms given to disabled students were up flights of stairs and at the other end of the halls to the dining area. This isn’t good enough, especially as we had specified accessibility needs for one of our delegates who is disabled, and this did cause problems. Accessibility for trans students, was an issue due to an expectation of them to define as male or female (some trans students choose not to identify as these) for voting cards and accommodation, in addition to expecting them to use shared shower facilities, this caused conflict as trans students may have issues with their own bodies, let alone anyone else seeing them (this was brought up at conference) and unfortunately some delegates from other institutions displayed transphobia towards trans delegates. Furthering the accessibility issues, there were accessibility problems for students who self-define as queer not trans as they felt excluded from the campaign.

Recommendations
· The accessibility problems at conference need to be addressed and resolved, by NUS ideally before next conference.
· Discrimination within LGBT (&Q) groups is unacceptable, we need to carry on with and uphold our example of good practice by continuing to include all LGBTQ students within our community at Leeds, as well as continuing to challenge discrimination within our LGBTQ community on campus and from others.
· We should also strive to include queer students and actively work to promote their equality, changing the Assembly from the LGBT Assembly to the LGBTQ Assembly would be a good step towards the inclusion of queer students. It is something worth considering.
· We should also ensure that everything we do is accessible to disabled students, by working with the disabled students assembly and society. A report and guidelines for how to be more accessible for our disabled students has been produced by a member of the LGBT Assembly and working to implement it not only in our societies and assemblies but the union, would be beneficial for disabled students. We should also do more to actively challenge the discrimination of disabled individuals within the LGBT community.

3. Workshops & Motions

For the first workshop session I attended the DIVA focus group, which involved talking to DIVA magazine about how to improve it and make it more relevant for young LBT women, the issues that affect us and information that would be useful for us to be able to access via the magazine. The second workshop session, I chose to attend the domestic violence workshop ran by Naomh McKee, which was very informative, challenged stereotypes and misconceptions, as well as providing idea’s about how to get the message across to others.

The motions were covered in 4 sections, these sections were: education, society & citizenship, strong & active unions and welfare. Some of the motions were contentious, with great debates being displayed for both sides of the arguments and a lot of resolutions coming out of them. The resolutions are as follows:

Education
To work with the NUS’ VP of Education to ensure LGBT equality and financial needs are an integral part of the NUS’ funding campaign demanding targeted grants, which are a reformed system of means testing with a higher basic grant, more money going to students from poor backgrounds and local grants appeals systems. Call for a national priority NUS campaign for ‘Education for All’ fronted by all the liberation officers, support Stonewalls ‘Education for All’ campaign. Work with Schools Out on the ‘stamp out homophobia’ campaign and LGBT history month, as well as building coalitions with teachers unions to pressure the government into including LGBT issues in the national curriculum. Support and build links with local Further Education (FE) colleges to build a stronger FE LGBT campaign.

Society & Citizenship
Following the shameful and unrepresentative UK equalities review committee report reject its findings and campaign for a representative equalities review committee. Push for all of the European Parliament to demonstrate a commitment to LGBT rights in all member states of the EU. Push for sexual orientation and gender identity to be included as international human rights and fight to ensure that protection from discrimination for trans people is implemented as part of the European Communities Bill 2007. Campaign against exemption from equality & LGBT legislation for religious groups and faith schools, campaign for LGBT friendly religious organisations and provisions in all religious organisations. Work with all other minority groups to liberate all (equality for all). Work with other LGBT organisations (both national and international) to fight for equality and challenge discrimination against LGBT people wherever it appears, in addition to working with other LGBT organisations internationally making the case of gay unions (marriages) and supporting pride festivals.

Strong & Active Unions
Continue with the blood service campaign and constructive engagement with NBS. Make every effort to conform to the social model of disability and encourage student officers to be proactive in campaigning for provisions for disabled LGBT students. Support local FE colleges LGBT groups and officers. Improve communications with local and national LGBT groups and officers.

Welfare
Work with campus careers advisors to ensure that they provide information for LGBT students about legislation surrounding LGBT equality at work. Work with student counselling services to set up referral systems and monitoring services for LGBT students taking up support. Continue to publicise and celebrate the scrapping of Section 28 as it is still falsely believed to be in place by many people. Highlight mental health issues faced by trans people and work on raising awareness of them, lobby for the provision of more Gender Identity Clinics and training of doctors about trans-sexuality. Run workshops addressing questions of identity, physical appearance and how to be more inclusive of and accepting of our diversity, including visual exhibitions of LGBT people in mixed media, within students unions to embrace our diversity and challenge stereotypes. Encourage students unions to actively include LGBT students in their issues and campaigns they run. Campaign to cut GUM clinic waiting times and call for GUM clinic operations on every university campus. Keep campaigning to get the safe-sex message through to LGBT students. Keep fighting fascism and participate in rallies. Encourage LGBT groups to work and campaign with other liberation groups & campaigns within their unions.

Recommendations
· Get more involved in national campaigns, ran by NUS and other students unions in the country.
· Work to build upon and improve links/working relationship between the LGBT Assembly & Society, in order to really strengthen the position of LGBT student’s equality, rights and our campaigns.
· Work towards achieving all of the resolutions passed in the ‘strong & active unions’ and ‘welfare’ sections within our union and university.
· Work with the union exec officers and various assemblies, to be involved in all liberation campaigns and push for LGBT inclusion within all and support equality for all.
· Build up contact with and work with other university union LGBT officers and groups to launch and support regional campaigns (North East Region). Also look towards branching out to build up and maintain links with local FE colleges, to support them in their aims, or to offer support to their LGBT students.

4. Any other business arising from conference

Networking and campaigns
At conference the North East Universities/Colleges – Sheffield Hallam, York, Hull, Bradford, Huddersfield Universities and Sunderland College all expressed an interest in working with us and together as a collective North East Region to run campaigns. Other LGBT groups outside of the North East Region who expressed an interest in working with us and having socials with us were Bournemouth FE College and the University of Essex. It would be well worth establishing contact and working relationships with these groups.

NUS LGBT Society of the Year 2006
The awards were split into the categories of FE and HE. The winners of the FE award were Loughborough. As for the HE award, I’m not only proud to say that the Assembly was put on the final shortlist of 12 Universities, I’m also extremely proud to announce that we WON! We were awarded it due to:

· Being proactive and approaching the university, union & their departments, seeking to work with them. It's something, which hasn't been done by others.
· Having our union as a hate crime reporting centre & empowering LGBT students to report hate crime.
· Progressive work/ideas for inclusion of disabled students within our LGBT community.
· Placing focus on women’s sexual health & getting dental dams in.
· The booklet, as it was sensitive and got the message over, which saw the changing of peoples hearts and minds in relation to LGBT people and issues.
· Commitment to inclusion of Trans students, pushing for Trans rights as a main focus & outreach work with Trans individuals.
· All the work and achievements, we’ve fought for and made over the last year.

Well Done folks! We’ve really made a difference this year and previous NUS LGBT conferences, information, support and ideas gained from them, have helped to set the direction for us to build on. It’s fantastic that we have done so much over the last year and being recognised for this. This report aims to provide the relevant information and recommendations to build upon in the coming year, to ensure that we can work together successfully to make further progress in the fight for the equality and rights of all LGBT students and retain our reputation of being one of the best (if not, the best) LGBT communities in NUS.


-- Edited by Rt hon NickyDyke85 at 12:19, 2006-06-22