Rep's rant

At the beginning of this school year I was made D&AD rep for my year, which is kind of cool. I wasn't voted in by my course mates or anything, just picked by staff, but still, it's been really nice to get the emails and the student annual from last year. I've also made use of the cheap subscriptions (to Eye and Campaign, since you ask) as well as the President's Lectures earlier this term.

So basically, it's been really good for me. The problem is, the term 'rep' tends to mean that you make it good for the people you're representing as well, and that's been a bit of a problem. Firstly, I was meant to get people to join D&AD, but none of the staff at UWIC really knew that was what I was doing. Fine, I signed a few people up and talked to a few others so at least they know about it for next year.

It was suggested by D&AD that we hold regular drop-in surgeries for students with D&AD questions and stuff in general. What do I know about either.

Reps were invited to the awards, but tickets were like £150 or something.

Fourthly, I've been invited to a few events, but the first one was prohibitively far from Cardiff. So I didn't go, and the next one is next week; a private view at New Blood, and then a feedback and evaluation session the next day with some of the judges. It's basically an awesome introduction to our third year, and it's something I'll actually be able to feed back on to the rest of my year. It looks like it could be the most worthwhile D&AD thing for the reps.

But I can't afford to go. I'm going to Interesting2008 on Saturday (which I'm really excited about) and the prospect of a 4-day stay in London at an as-yet-undetermined location is not making my bank balance happy.

I don't think it's unreasonable, as it's a rep thing, to ask my course to cover at least some of the costs. The response the other day was 'but you'll be there anyway' - I'll be there 2 days beforehand, with nowhere to stay and on a cheap day return... 

I'm pretty much seeing it as a massive missed opportunity right now.

It seems pointless to have reps, for anything, if you're not going to actually support them or at least facilitate their proper functioning. Especially if you're quoted at the top of the University Network page on D&AD. 

This applies to the course reps too, and ultimately, the Students' Union. Everyone seems to see the Union as a bit of a joke, which it is, but without constructive engagement and proper funding it's unlikely to get anywhere, is it?

I'd love to know what other people think about this. Sorry about slight rant.