The Project

Student Unions represent their members’ interests. Student Unions aren’t supposed to be about corporate profit or ordering their members about.

That’s the theory, but not the fact. Take ‘normal students’ churn them through NUS training and stick them in an office for a year, and they become our gaolers, not our representatives.

Why the anger? You have probably already read about the UUEAS trying to ban The Project from the UEA campus. To be fair, this is not the work of the entire executive – or indeed a problem beyond UEA – instead it is the full-time sabbatical officers, who rule by writ, with no democratic accountability, until term starts again.

Opposing our project – opposing students organising something off their own back for the good of their community – is, manifestly, a betrayal of the founding values of Student Unions. It is, in fact, a denial of the very authority that they claim to draw on.

They say that we are commercial competition with their publication, Concrete. The Finance Officer, Martin Jopp, even says that if the students voted against their decision in their Council, or by referendum, they would overrule the decision by exercising their powers as charity trustees.

The Project is run for no one’s profit. The Project is funded by students’ personal liabilities. We do this to bring new, exciting journalism to our readers across Norwich, we wish UUEAS would realise that the small potential loss they face from both publications carrying advertising on campus (which we only do to cover our costs) is a tiny price to pay for free press. We are currently relying on the University, not the Union, to ensure students can organise themselves freely. Mad!

I thank those who have helped us, and wait for the final decision by the Registrar of UEA (still waiting at deadline). Thank you and, if you’re at UEA, I hope you read this in the Hive.

This is a betrayal, of their students and of their members. It’s a betrayal of everything that students’ organisations, such as UUEAS and The Project, are supposed to stand for.

This is a personal view and not that of The Project, The Project Newspapers Ltd or any associates.

RICHARD RENYOLDS
EDITOR-AT-LARGE