Tuesday 06-09-2016 - 08:58

Hello ☺ I thought I would take this time to tell you about one my adventures as your Vice President. You’ve heard about #SU16 in my previous blog so I thought it only fitting to fill you in on my travels down to a place in the middle of nowhere called Aberystwyth, for the Welsh equivalent, Y Talwrn. How thrilling! 

8:45, 9^th August, conference day. As I rock up to the office half-asleep, I decided that I couldn’t possibly leave there without a cup of coffee and a cigarette to wake me up first. Coffee in hand I prop myself up against the wall outside the office (I’ll come back to this wall later) and tried to make myself more alive because let’s face It, who’s actually fully awake before 10am? Coffee finished and it’s time to jump in the car with Emily and our CEO Sarah (thankfully Sarah was driving) to start our long a** trip down to the middle of nowhere.

Roughly 10 miles left to Abber and the SatNav decides to interrupt Panic at the disco! To tell us to prepare ourselves for parking, come on SatNav, we have 10 miles left buck your ideas up will you! 

This was my first time in Abber and I was rather surprise to find out its basically just one MASSIVE hill with the university built all the way down it. Safe to say I wasn’t walking up it, taxi for one please! After finding the right part of the Uni to go and register we were handed our accommodation keys and told we could go and put our stuff away before the conference began. This was a blessing as I needed to change my jumper, remember that wall outside the students’ union building I propped myself up against before leaving? Turns out I had lent on something orange on the wall and I now had a lovely orange patch on my back I didn’t know about until after I had met everyone registering *face palm*, now we had to find our accommodation.

Back in the car the three of us go looking for the right sign to follow. Attempt one landed us in someone’s front garden but it wasn’t something a quick three-point turn couldn’t fix. Back on the main road we continued up the hill only to find our accommodation right at the very top, and guess what? We didn’t know where to park, short stay? Staff?  I guess the SatNav was right, we hadn’t prepared ourselves for parking and maybe we needed that 10 miles to figure out where we should. Thankfully we found a lovely parking bay not too far away so all was back on track.    

Back down the hill to the Uni (Yes I did feel like a yoyo! Up, down, up, down) to start our first day of conference. Being the cool people we are we decided to sit in the middle of the room, mainly because that’s the only place that was free *sigh* while Malia Bouattia NUS president and Fflur Elin NUS Wales president started with opening comments about the student movement … blah blah. I joke, it was interesting ☺ 

Now it was our turn, each union had to stand up and present a bit about their union and their priorities for the upcoming year. I thought our presentation was the bomb! It was colourful, fun, had gifs and memes and also included a picture of Creepy Baby! If you don’t know who he is pop into the union and find out!!! Each union presentation went in alphabetical order meaning we were last #NotWinning. As each union finished their presentation it slowly become clear that the other union’s had taken this very seriously and I feared that the humour in ours was going to be wasted ☹. My suspicions were correct as not one person cracked a smile in the room (I’m putting it down to the fact they all have resting bitch face and they were laughing on the inside) and what made it even worse was the fact I am absolutely terrified of public speaking. Safe to say I stuttered, lost my place and completely messed up my section but thankfully Emily saved it and brought it back.      

After lunch it was back into the same small stuffy room for a briefing on NUS priority work in the education sector, the HE Bill, and politics (Thrilling I know). The only thing that got me through that afternoon was the fact the building we were in was a pokestop. No one can sit there and listen attentively for two and a half hours about reviews and politics, can they? 

Moving on, time for dinner! My favourite part of the trip. We were in a lovely hotels restaurant on the sea front (yes you’re correct, right at the bottom of the big hill). The food was AMAZING and they did pink prosecco what more could I ask for! After food and a few more glasses of prosecco I decided not to be sensible and joined the other Welsh Sabbs in going on a short pub crawl for one or two drinks. ‘One or two’ drinks later and I’m still in the pub dragging along poor old sober Emily with me, then the clock struck 12 and boom! Just like Cinderella there was a mass exodus including Emily and my CEO, leaving me with the other drunk Sabbs *who thought this was a good idea* 

A few bottles of wine and a nightclub later it was time to head back to my room ready to get up for the second day of conference. I remember telling myself in the taxi ride back, that’s right I didn’t walk it ;) that I had no choice but to get up in the morning. Knock knock on my door and a friendly voice from last night calling me to wake up, I leap out of bed to find the welfare Sabb from USW standing in my room telling me that we have both missed check out by half an hour and we were the only ones who hadn’t made it to the second day. With a pounding head I packed up my things and met my fellow late Sabb in the hallway ready to find the accommodation office to hand in our keys, as we made our way down a voice echoed across the accommodation courtyard “TRAVVVIIISSSS.” Slowly turning around thinking I was in trouble I see Ellin our NUS Wales Women’s’ officer running up to us with her suitcase. She’d obviously overslept as well thank God! 

By the time I had carted all my things to the Uni I just couldn’t face walking into the conference room late so I decided to hide away in Starbucks, the beetroot smoothie drink was not a good choice! Finally, I braved it and tried to sneak into the building to meet Emily in the canteen. Little did I know my CEO had given a talk that morning and kindly asked that if anyone found me to please return me to her as she feared I might be lying in bed all day. This made walking up the corridor to the canteen even more shaming as everyone just cheered and shouted ‘He’s alive!!!!’ #Ashamed! I might not have made it to the second day of conference but I made a boat load of new friends in other students’ unions all across wales and let’s face it, that’s what conferences are all about, networking. I now have good connections with great people all across the country to help me with achieve the things I was elected on #Winning

If you want to know what the second day of conference was about then take a look at your president Emily’s blog (when she has time to write it, she’s super busy) or just come and have a chat to us ☺ 

P.S

I promise I do work when I’m away at conferences but you know what they say: Work hard, play hard.

 

Travis Davies 

WGSU Vice President 

SUVP@glyndwr.ac.uk