Organising opportunities to meet up with other Friends, to catch up and reminisce and to hear from NUS about its current activities is a core part of the work of Friends of NUS.

We commit to two events each year: a reception in London and a further reception at National Conference in March/April, which moves to a new city every two years. We also encourage Friends to organise their own reunions and meet-ups – if you do let us know and we can advertise it on this site.

Due to the restrictions arising from Coronavirus, there are no current events planned for Friends of NUS. We will keep Friends updated as and when events can resume.

The most recent London reception took place Tuesday 11 February 2020. Around fifty Friends gathered at the UCL Institute of Education, with attendees including NUS staff and officers from the 1960s to the present day – and with some current students also in the bar with us, potentially even some future colleagues. We’re thrilled the event was received so positively, not least due to the calibre of the contributions.

The keynote speaker this year was Bill Rammell, whose varied career has included being President of Cardiff SU, a NUS Regional Officer, general manager of KCL SU and then ULU, MP for Harlow, a higher education minister in the Blair government and most recently Vice Chancellor at the University of Bedfordshire. In a wide-ranging speech he discussed his adventures in the student movement and how it shaped his later work in national politics and higher education.

Friends heard also from the serving National President, Zamzam Ibrahim, on NUS’s present work on education, and from Kat Stark, NUS’s Director of Student Voice and Democracy, on our recent reforms and initial plans around our 100^th year. All this was compered by Sarah Adams, VP Welfare 1998-90, who could tell us a few stories about Bill’s time in the movement too. NUS and the FONUS Committee would like to thank all the speakers for their contributions.

FONUS Reception at National Conference

While sadly the Friends of NUS reception could not go ahead in 2020 as National Conference was moved online due to the pandemic, we hope we can return in 2021.