It came to my attention that whilst NUCA has been fiercely active so far this term, we haven’t been too hot in writing up what we’ve done, so to make up lost ground I thought I’d write a quick round up of some of the events we’ve had so far this year.
Getting off to a good start before the term even began; NUCA was privileged to arrange for Philip Hammond MP to speak at the Nottingham Bluecoat School to a group of year 10, 11 and 12 students. It’s not every day school pupils get the chance to ask questions to the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and they certainly made the most of the opportunity to ask some interesting, and awkward(!), questions.
A week later came freshers’ fayre where for three days NUCA ran a stall, welcoming students to the university and signing up new members. We also had a visit from Dr Rowena Holland (Nottingham South Parliamentary Candidate), a member of the Conservatives East Midlands Europe team, and James Poland (Broxtowe’s campaign manager). We had a really good response to our stall and our efforts even made the Nottingham Evening Post! (http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/politics/Tories-sign-students-election-battle/article-1457994-detail/article.html)
The week after freshers’ fayre we had a freshers’ only social – a new event for this year and one which I feel really helped the 1st years to get to know each other and really feel a part of the society. The following night we held our ‘Welcome and EGM’ event, where we welcomed all our members to the society, had speeches by both of our local parliamentary candidates (Rowena Holland and Anna Soubry), and elected four new people to the committee.
Conservative Party Conference was the following week, and what with our newly launched YouTube channel and armed with a camera and a microphone, we found this a unique opportunity to do a bit of MP stalking, and in the process managed to notch up a number of interviews with some rather high profile people (www.youtube.com/nottinghamcf).
This academic year will of course be a particularly important one of NUCA and the party as it will coincide with the next general election, so this year campaigning is very much forming the core of our activities. We decided therefore to put on a Canvassing Training afternoon, where a group of us were formally taught the etiquettes of canvassing, followed by a few hours putting these newly acquired skills into practice.
NUCA’s campaigning resources are primarily focused on the two local constituencies of Nottingham South and Broxtowe, and for this year Vice President James Spencer is in overall charge of campaigning, with special responsibilities for Nottingham South, and Matthew Snape is serving as Deputy Campaigns Officer and is in charge of Broxtowe.
In the run up to the general election campaigning will be put into overdrive, however the society is already very active, campaigning on weekends and to a lesser extent during the week. I’ve also taken the opportunity this year to get qualified to drive the Students’ Union minibuses, so come the election we’re particularly well prepared to mobilise our members!
In between campaigning NUCA members also attended the YBF6 Activist Training Conference in Wellington College, Berkshire, where we heard from some 30 speakers from across the conservative movement. After having attended YBF5 last year, I was really keen to get a large delegation from Nottingham to attend, so almost 10% of the delegates there were from the university!
YBF also came and visited us at the university and held a TV Interview Techniques training workshop where we got the chance to be on camera, practice being interviewed and get some invaluable feedback on what we were doing well and things we were doing wrong.
For me, being on camera isn’t something which comes naturally and it is only by having attended previous YBF training days that I can do the YouTube channel videos in the way I do (not to say that I don’t have lots to improve on!).
Other events this term have included a newly launched ‘Pizza, Port and Policy’ night, attending the OTC Remembrance Sunday Service at the University, the CF Student Life Tours Q&A evening, helping out at a Cameron Direct and a dinner on campus with both William Hague and Ken Clarke.
Looking ahead to the rest of the term we are looking forward to welcoming Greg Hands MP and David Burrowes MP, as well as a variety of social events and other special events currently in the pipeline.
So that’s a brief roundup of the story so far – we’ll be keeping this up to date more regularly from now on so make sure to check back, see what we’ve been up to and also do remember to get involved with NUCA! It is a real pleasure to be leading such a fine bunch of people in this society and I really hope this year we can fully play our part in seeing the election of the next Conservative government.
Nick Allsopp
NUCA President
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