During the summer holidays the student life committee has been gearing up for the up-coming year. Elections and Schools Officer Cllr. Paul Wells reports on what he will be up to the in next few months :

The summer has been a busy few months. Tempting though it would have been to rest on my laurels after Chloe Smith’s triumph in Norwich North, a lot of work has been needed to order to lay the groundstones for a successful general election year.

This has not just involve problem solving and troubleshooting individual issues which are brought to my attention, but also pro-actively searching out opportunities to strengthen CF, and has certainly ensured that I have filled my diary!

Every University branch in the county is soon going to face their single biggest test; that of recruiting enough members to be a viable force. During the Freshers period, I will be helping out several branches across the country at their Society Fairs.

In my role as Schools Officer, I have arranged to visit several schools, (as of writing 5 have been confirmed) in Essex and Norfolk, to discuss with their Citizenship/Politics classes the importance of democracy and where it is appropriate to explain more about the Conservative Party.

Even more encouragingly I am currently helping several students to form new CF branches at their Schools.

Fundamentally an organisation like ourselves exists to win elections. This is especially true in this up-coming year with the impending General Election. All other elections are secondary to the vital objective of securing a Conservative majority at that election. This does not mean however that CF should not be actively involved in their campus politics contesting union elections and pushing for improvements in student’s lives and being seen to do so. Indeed those two aims are firmly interlinked! I am currently therefore helping several branches with coming up with ideas for campus/student based campaigns. It is intended that these will compliment the current national NO2ID Cards campaign.

I am a great believer in getting out and seeing what different CF branches are up to and then spreading best practice. So I will be visiting a large number of groups large and small over year. These include locations as remote as West Cornwall!

Throughout this time I have been working closely with Patrick Sullivan-the chair of Student Life- and the rest of the committee. We have a lot planned for this year, and it is safe to say that at times my masters degree may suffer.

(Paul Wells is the CF Student Life Elections and Schools Officer. He was recently the CF coordinator for the Norwich North by-election. A Masters student at UEA, he is one of the youngest County Councillors in the Country)

No related posts.