All you need to do is email the President and/or Vice President Teaching, Learning & Students ahead of their meeting on Tuesday 3rd April. You can use our template email (see www . umsu . manchester . ac . uk OR https://www.facebook.com/events/171138926340566/).  Alternatively, you can write your own

EMAILS:

Nancy Rothwell, President: president@manchester . ac . uk

Clive Agnew, Vice President Teaching, Learning & Students: Clive . Agnew@manchester . ac . uk

Check out my Audio Manifesto (it’s me as a cartoon!)

Thanks for watching, share, share, share!

Hey! Like my campaign facebook page!

and campaign event: https://www.facebook.com/events/376013022416651/

We face an unprecedented attack on women’s rights under this Government. Women are being disproportionately affected by Governmental cuts – budgets are being slashed for domestic violence services, rape crisis centres, to legal aid, tax credits and education. Initially, you might wonder what this has to do with a Students’ Union? The work that we can undertake as a student movement in targetting this disgusting attack on women’s welfare, as well as educating our own students on the effects of the cuts, on the realities for women under this system, is great. We can work out in the wider community, support local, national and even international campaigning, and we can empower our own student body to demand services, for themselves and for others. Within the Union, we can campaign for women’s representation, ensure that the needs of our vast and diverse student body is understood – not just the needs of the majority, but protecting minority interests, enshrining liberation in every single thing that we do and providing excellent support services for our amazing, inspiring student campaigners.

None of this can happen without a strong Union executive who place liberation at the heart of everything they do. As the much needed changes come into force in our Students’ Union, we have to win the arguments about minority representation, we have to ensure that those who stand to lose the most with both Union changes and those within the University – mature students, women, black students, LGBTQ, working class and disabled students – are voiced and empowered to run their own campaigns, have their needs met and remain the vital driving force of our Union. I am so proud to be part of a Students’ Union that is admired across the country for its liberation campaigning. Whenever you go outside of Manchester and talk about gender neutral toilets, or LGBTQ campaigning, or chalking feminist slogans around campus on a Friday as a regular occurrance, people know straight away that you go to Manchester. I am running for Women’s Officer to protect this, to support this, and to help our liberation campaigners continue to make UMSU admired and respected for liberation campaigning for years to come.

A Woman’s Work is Never Done

Check out my prezi on Women and Labour here: [Link : http://prezi.com/ggre1itq54_h/a-womans-work-is-never-done/]

[...]

A Comment on the Wavering Support of Student Union’s

In December 2010, the Student Movement was booming. Sparked into life by Millbank, and culminating with the actions of the December 9th march on Parliament, the anger and energies displayed within were the result of students united behind a singular aim; stopping the coalition Tory-led government from tripling undergraduate tuition fees. Ultimately we lost the vote, and with it the unified focus of the campaign. One year on, we find ourselves asking, where next for the student movement?
[...]

Published in Manchester Mule
Original Link

Manchester city centre has certainly not been a stranger to marches, rallies and demonstrations over the past few months with student, trade union and council led protests against governmental policies taking place regularly around the city.

On Friday 8 April, a group of Manchester-based feminists took to the streets to protest against a different, albeit similarly imperative, issue — street harassment and sexual violence on our streets. Reclaim the Night marches started in Britain in 1977 after taking inspiration from ‘Take Back the Night’ women-only marches in West Germany. Over the years, they have been focused on the reality of rape, sexual assaults and harassment, giving women the opportunity to reclaim the streets, and feel safe and secure while doing so. This year, the Manchester march was open to all, bringing together different groups who have experienced street violence and harassment. [...]

Published in the Mancunion in response to an article making out that occupation is pointless, and occupiers ‘don’t have lives’.

This week is perhaps the most monumentally important in the cuts movement thus far: Tuesday and Thursday brought strike action from the University and College Union (UCU); Wednesday was budget day where the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, presented his austerity plans; Wednesday also saw our own president and Vice Chancellor—Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell —‘reluctantly’ announced that the University of Manchester would be charging £9,000 in tuition fees come 2012; the Trade Union Congress (TUC’s) national demonstration, where an estimated half a million people will march in London to oppose these government measures, will take place this Saturday (26th ). There is increasing dissent nationally as the cuts start to affect everyday people with redundancies being made left right and centre whilst for the most disadvantaged and underprivileged in our society, the harsh realities of the government’s austerity measures are becoming all too real. Thus, to waste time writing a self-indulgent article that criticises those students who are sacrificing their social lives and hindering their degrees in order to effect change is morally irresponsible and quite shameful. [...]

Published in The Riveter
Available Online Here

In an audacious attempt to stop George Osborne delivering the budget yesterday, Wednesday 23rd March, 20 women—which included Manchester based activists—blocked all four main exits of Downing Street. The group of protesters arrived at Downing Street at 11.15am carrying red placards in the shape of briefcases reading ‘Block the banker’s budget’. Some of the women then strategically lay in front of the four vehicle exits of Downing Street and locked themselves together with metal arm tubs and carabineers.
[...]

This years’ brief for the TUC video competition was the impact of the spending cuts.

Winner:Bringing the Cuts Home – Steve Price

Read on for the Runner Up video [...]