Reasons to Join MLS: #5 – Making a Difference!

Ok so Freshers’ Fair is over now. If you joined us – welcome! If you didn’t make it to our stall, don’t worry. If you send us an email: freshers@manchesterlabourstudents.org we’re more than happy to sign you up!

Now there are many more than just 5 reasons to join Manchester Labour Students but we ran out of Freshers’ Fair days to run these blog posts on!

Our final reason is making a difference. By getting involved with Manchester Labour Students you can shape the policy process through our events and make a really big difference on the ground by campaigning.

With the threat of a Conservative government and the threat of more Fib Dem MPs there is so much to fight for. With our Labour values on the line, by getting out there and doing something you really can make a difference. I hope you'll be part of it.

See you soon!

Reasons to Join MLS: #4 – Rewarding Campaigns!

It is the last day of Freshers Fair!!! Now is the time to come down to see us!

Manchester Labour Students campaign within our students' unions, NUS and of course with the Labour Party in Manchester and across the North West.

In UMSU we have Council Members who work very hard to influence the union to be as relevant to students possible. Up the road at mmunion their President is our very own Rob Boardman. Manchester Labour Students has candidates at the sabbatical elections as well as NUS Delegate elections.

We do a lot of campaigning in the parliamentary seat of Manchester Withington for Lucy Powell, the Labour Parliamentary candidate who is a great friend of Manchester Labour Students. Withington is currently held by a Lib Dem MP who only just won last time and Labour are in a really good position to take the seat back at the next election which will fall in this academic year. We also do campaigning in various places throughout the North West and beyond.

We always have some members who prefer our events side and some who prefer our campaigns side. But for those who haven't done campaigning before and would like to try it, there are plenty of chances to get involved and we will run a campaign training session at some point for those who want to come along!

So don’t forget to come and see us today to join Manchester Labour Students!

Reasons to Join MLS: #3 – National Involvement!

We are into day number 2 of the University of Manchester Freshers’ Fair and, drum-roll please; we are now at MMU Freshers’ Fair as well! So all you MMU students out there: come and see us!

Into our third reason to join MLS now, today's is our national involvement. We are affiliated to Labour Students, which is the national umbrella organisation for Labour Clubs which choose to affiliate. It, in turn, is affiliated to the Labour Party.

This means that we attend the three national events each year. The first national event is Labour Students Political Weekend, which is a weekend away with many Labour Students from up and down the country. It is a bit like an über-social with speakers and a few other things thrown in. Last year's was held at a brilliant hotel just outside of Sheffield, it's one not to be missed. (Details of how to sign up to this are in your welcome magazine which you get when you join).

We send delegates to the other national events, National Council and National Conference. This is where Labour Students policy is made, elections held and of course there is a social thrown in as well.

As a member of Manchester Labour Students you'll be able to attend these events and be part of shaping what happens with Labour Students nationally.

So don't forget to come and see us to join Manchester Labour Students!

Reasons to Join MLS: #2 – Fun Socials!

Freshers’ Fair begins in Academy 1! Come and see us either in Academy 1 or outside on Oxford Road (if it isn’t raining). If you’re an MMU student we will be at the MMU Freshers’ Fair tomorrow or come and see us today down the road. If you’re at RNCM, Manchester College or Salford University unfortunately we don’t have stalls on your doorstep but you’re welcome to come see us on Oxford Road to join.

Today's reason for joining Manchester Labour Students is our socials. Now many societies will have socials have involve trips to Curry Mile in Rusholme and China Town in the City Centre, and of course we are no different! There are plenty of opportunities for our members to get to know each other

The kind of social events we have include film screenings, meals out, theatre and cinema trips and a good-old-fashioned trips to the pub. Granted many societies will offer this as well but going out with MLS means you'll be in great company.

So don’t forget to come and see us to join Manchester Labour Students!

Reasons to Join MLS: #1 – Great Political Events!

So it is that time of year again. One day away from the start of Freshers’ Fair at the University of Manchester, two away from the start of MMU Freshers’ Fair. Are you thinking to yourself; I’d like to get involved in some societies this year?

If you’re reading this blog post let’s assume that Manchester Labour Students is on your radar. There are plenty of reasons to come down to Freshers’ Fair in the next few days and sign up, but in this post we’re focusing on just one – our political events.

To give you a flavour, last year we had events with Lucy Powell, Tony Lloyd, Bev Hughes, John Mann, James Reed, Ed Miliband, Andy Burnham, James Purnell, John Denham, John Prescott, Neil Kinnock and Eddie Izzard.

We hold a wide range of events, sometimes large scale events when students of every or no political persuasion are welcome, other times its smaller scale events with MLS members and a guest. Types of events include speeches, Q and As, visits, meals and many more. It isn’t just events with a high-profile speaker though, we will often hold policy focused meetings where we get to debate some of the major issues of the day within the club.

Being part of Manchester Labour Students gives you many opportunities to meet those really key people in the Labour movement and this year promises to have some great political events.

So don’t forget to come and see us tomorrow to join Manchester Labour Students!

Freshers' Week!

Freshers' Week is upon us, thousands of students are arriving in Manchester for the first time. Oxford Road has come to life again after those quiet summer months.

Freshers' Fair is going on Tuesday-Thursday at the University of Manchester and Wednesday-Thursday at Manchester Metropolitan University. Manchester Labour Students will be at both of those sigining people up!

From tomorrow onwards we'll be posting on the blog a reason to join Manchester Labour Students every day for the week, so hopefully by Thursday you'll come and see us! Joining costs just £1 for that you can also having free membership of the Labour Party if you want it and don't already have it. If you join you'll also get also take as much free stuff off our stall as you can get your hands on!

During Freshers' Week you can also take a look at our Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/manclabstudents and follow us as we post about the goings on.

So don't forget to come and see Richard, Lauren, John, Jonty, Mel, Andrew, Hannah and Matt, our Freshers' Week Stall Team!

Welcome to Manchester from Cllr Mike Amesbury

Mike Amesbury is one of three Labour Councillors for the City's Fallowfield ward which covers the University of Manchester's Fallowfield Campus. He is also the responsible for Culture and Leisure in Manchester. He sends his welcome to students arriving in Manchester this week:

"Welcome to Manchester, the city that gave the world it's first industrial revolution, Passenger Railway, the computer, the splitting of the atom, Tony Wilson, United and City.

Over the last 15 years Manchester has gone through a major transformation investing over £400 million pounds in major cultural projects such as the City Art Gallery, Bridgewater Hall, Royal Exchange Theatre, Sports City, Manchester Central and Urbis to name but a few.

Manchester of course is not only renowned for its world class cultural buildings, we are the 24 hour party people (in a responsible manner of course!) We have a year round programme of free festivals and events and a music scene that is second to none! I'm confident you will enjoy your student adventure over the next few years so study hard and play within reason."

Cllr Mike Amesbury

Councillor for Fallowfield

Manchester City Council Executive Member for Culture and Leisure

Speaking of cons Mr Clegg...

Well well well, I see the Lib Dem leader, Nick "who?" Clegg, has been going around today talking about the "Conservative con".

Now I know that Lib Dems have trouble coming up with policies, I know they have serious problems coming up with good leaders, I didn't know however that they had issues coming up with their own catchphrases.

Last year one of Manchester Labour Students' own messages in Freshers Week 2008 was "David Cameron - Putting the Con Back into Conservative". We gave out badges and of course the infamous hedgehog-friendly t-shirts. Clegg in fact came to Manchester last year, just after Freshers' Week (notable for when he told a gay student to "lighten up" on homophobia), so I can only assume that he clocked the idea to pinch it then.

Imagine our surprise then when one year later it turns up as the Lib Dem's pre-conference look-at-us-we-matter-no-really-we-do gimmick.

Now don't get me wrong, I agree with Clegg that David Cameron's Conservatives are presenting a con. My point is that in addition to borrowing inspiration from Manchester Labour Students, the Lib Dems as a whole are constantly presenting a con to voters. From leaflets with completely out of scale bar chart graphs to populist messages that are designed to worry or even scare voters that often are at-best misleading and at-worst complete untruths.

The Fib Dems get away with so much when they campaign, I guess that the reason they get away with it is either people don't bother to read their rubbish leaflets, or they just know that at the end of day they are just pretty irrelevant.

I look forward to receiving Clegg's apology letter shortly.

Crap on Cameron

I've been busy organising things for Freshers' Week as you might expect when I went to check on our "David Cameron - Putting the Con back into Conservative" t-shirts of which we have had many. If you were thinking you might get a free t-shirt from MLS at Freshers' Fair, the hedgehogs had other ideas.

They have been in our garage for a month or so and in that time a family of hedgehogs had made it their home! In the bag that they had bitten into there was a mother hedgehog and 4 baby hedgehogs as well as 50-100 t-shirts.

I put in a call to the Withington Hedgehog Care Trust and soon after someone came round to our house to collect the hedgehogs and give them a good home and check they're alright before releasing them. We were informed that the mother had done a good job of raising the litten'ens.

So the hedgehogs are now safe and sound, they leave behind a bag full of t-shirts and a not insignificant amount of hedgehog excrement most of which is focused on David Cameron's face, so I can only assume that if these hedgehog's could vote, they would be voting Labour.

Now, who do I talk to about giving hedgehogs the vote?

Best Lib Dem Graph Yet

Sorry couldn't resist...

(Thanks to Ben Furber for this by the way)