Dear Chair and General Secretary,
University College London Union (UCLU) and its Postgraduate Association (PGA) would like to express our dissatisfaction with this year’s activities of the National Postgraduate Committee.
After promptly paying an affiliation fee of around £1,000, I expected significant input and contact with the NPC. We can not spare that figure of money lightly, as it accounts for a third of the PGA’s annual budget. We have become dismayed, therefore, to suffer a year where the NPC did not interact with UCLU to any significant degree, aside from chasing up a payment (which had been paid) and emailing confusing information about the Annual General Meeting that never was.
The shambles that has been the NPC-NUS ‘merger’ – which was hijacked by unnecessary interventions and a failure to allow the members to officially express their will, despite it being outstandingly clear – was a final straw.
UCLU would like to express our intention to disaffiliate from the NPC from the start of the next academic year. Our PGA Welcome General Meeting resolved to push for disaffiliation, and a motion to do so is awaiting a Union Council meeting. We feel that we can no longer justify the high fee or even our status as a NPC affiliate. We look forward to actively pursuing postgraduate provision on a national level within the NUS Postgraduate Conference.
Yours sincerely,
Billy Street
UCLU Medical and Postgraduate Students’ Officer
University College London Union (UCLU) and its Postgraduate Association (PGA) would like to express our dissatisfaction with this year’s activities of the National Postgraduate Committee.
After promptly paying an affiliation fee of around £1,000, I expected significant input and contact with the NPC. We can not spare that figure of money lightly, as it accounts for a third of the PGA’s annual budget. We have become dismayed, therefore, to suffer a year where the NPC did not interact with UCLU to any significant degree, aside from chasing up a payment (which had been paid) and emailing confusing information about the Annual General Meeting that never was.
The shambles that has been the NPC-NUS ‘merger’ – which was hijacked by unnecessary interventions and a failure to allow the members to officially express their will, despite it being outstandingly clear – was a final straw.
UCLU would like to express our intention to disaffiliate from the NPC from the start of the next academic year. Our PGA Welcome General Meeting resolved to push for disaffiliation, and a motion to do so is awaiting a Union Council meeting. We feel that we can no longer justify the high fee or even our status as a NPC affiliate. We look forward to actively pursuing postgraduate provision on a national level within the NUS Postgraduate Conference.
Yours sincerely,
Billy Street
UCLU Medical and Postgraduate Students’ Officer