Trick or Treat!

When dealing with consultants calling at the door on Hallowe'en we in OUSA Belgium recommend an open approach.

Evensong

OUSA Istanbul Branch has a unique way of opening meetings - it might not be constitutional but it gets the crowd's attention.

Structure

This new training video demonstrates OUSA's post-Futures structure in a nutshell.

Me - how?

On being told by a cynic that the aim of OUSA Futures was to abolish all dissident units, especially European ones, this distant cousin of OUSA Belgium's most important member said that she found that really hard to believe.

Modes of address

Visitors to Conference 2011 found this type of signposting helpful when being assigned to working groups on key policy issues.

Conference fun

Delegates to Conference 2011 were pleased to be met at the station by a special bus, but were not sure whether the idea of Conference being fun instead of business-like needed closer inspection.

Feline hungry

It was very strange in Apold to see a distant cousin of OUSA Belgium's most important member giving afternoon tea to two copy-cats of the late, great Treacle.

If it fits....

The OUSA delegation to Romania were impressed by this helpful warning.

Room for the bite

When scouting possible future Conference venues, OUSA reps were duly impressed by the accommodation on offer this bid from Romania, although they were not sure about the vampire lurking between the windows.

Chin chiller

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe in taking it on the chin, even if makes you go a funny sepia shade.

This is actually with a new camera that does more, but I think has slightly grainier pictures than the old one.

Apologies for not updating this blog more often - I'm feeling a bit lazy and summery. It's all I can do to revise stuff like this - if you think this is bad, you should have read the first version.

TANGO

A hundredweight of bread

moves down a frosty hill

to Karl the baker

cheeping an old song

from exotic toothed birds.

Behind him, a clapped out bus

(not green, not red, but something between,

like the surface of eyes in a Javanese film)

wheezes like a dying cult

as schoolkids pick out loam

from finger-nails not yet grown.

The bread is nearer now.

In the crystal sight

of a winter's day

(not hot, not cold but fashionably indirect

coolly half-finished

like a carte de visite for a future dream)

ghost Greek Gods laugh silently

their chests as devastated as stars

glued to a red-grey sky.

The bus roars off

its petrochemical jerk makes trees dance along:

their arms scratching their swift-growing girths.

Colin sits on the saddened ground

as a wall of bread

(not high, not low, just large enough to slay)

stops his song.

Love the stinger but hate the sting

Over in OUSA, we've been talking about whether there is a distinction between sexual orientation (not sinful) and sexual acts (some of which are sinful).

As ever, only England knows the answer to this. This is a National Trust Garden last week. Here they show that they recognise apian orientation, but feel the need to warn against apian activity.

The end of a Forum

Today - roughly - is the last day the Forum Requests Forum will appear on our First Class desktops, where it has been dwelling since 1996. Here's some flowers to put on its beseeching grave, from the yellow bit of the garden.

Non-OU people won't know what I'm talking about. Basically, First Class is the conferencing system OUSA and the OU use and it's going to be replaced by Moodle. A few Forums might be temporarily pruned, such as Non-Cuddly Toys.

Most of the real action in First Class takes place on private mail. Most messages get given a kind of address label according to the following scheme.

NORMAL - it's quite rare to get this.

PERSONAL - this is usually a love letter of some kind.

URGENT - this is always a love letter of some kind.

PRIORITY HATE MAIL - this is common when you've dumped someone.

BULK - this is common if you have put someone in the family way, even if only virtually.

PRIVATE - this is some kind of Danish magazine sent to all OUSA activists.

Bear the pain!

On being told that he might have to co-Mod OUSA Cuddly Toys after all, and that it would definitely involve loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of work with the E C and just about everyone else coming out as a secret cuddly toy fiend, OUSA Belgium's least convincing member held his rapidly emptying head with a mixture of remorse and mousse.

European Identities on ice

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe in wooing possible converts to our cause at every opportunity. Here though a delegate from the Netherlands remains unimpressed by one of our traditional tactics known as 'Operation Sorbet' (pear on the left, strawberry on the right).

At the arms of Brussels

It's a good place - you can eat really well for 40 euros or so - in my case chicory soup, North Seafood gratin, fattened chicken, chocolate mousse, five hundred litres of house wine - and our waiter Patrick (who is not the guy on the left) was brilliant. I lost weight again - not sure why.

As this is a serious academic and political blog I should point out that the image on the left clearly highlights the enlightened tripartite identity of militarism, Catholicism and gastronomy that is hegemonic pursuant to the recent European elections. If only OUSA were as diverse, I can hear you sadly mutter.

Celebration

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe that success should be rewarded. Here we have baked a cake to present to the fifth student in the UK who has agreed with one of our motions over the last twenty years.

That shadow in the background is not a spooky lifeform from another planet about to take over Belgium but a manky old ficus - that's not an old German insult, but some kind of fig tree about which we care a lot.

Rejection

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe in democracy as much as the next unit. Here, our most important member shows us what she thinks of a meaty proposal to introduce dog representation at all levels within the organisation. And it's all done online!

A degree comes in handy....

......when you fall on hard times.

Grad Ted Rules OK!

Here in OUSA Belgium we wholeheartedly believe in the principle of all students benefiting from free access to UK-based graduation ceremonies only, and are more than willing to sell all our honey to help promote our beloved OU. We also firmly believe that it's only a matter of time before OUSA does its best and sets up Mark Sharing and Cuddly Toys Forums in order to be in step with its 'Everyone's A Winner' big brother.

We do recognise though that some students in Belgium may find the ceremony a rather startling introduction to the more manic aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture, rather akin to being publicly executed, and so we've provided a training video that shows how as long as you cover yourself with a plastic bag and ground yourself in the high points of European culture, you're unlikely to get attacked by Mr Gradgrind and/or Sissy Jupe. Just don't get too Jaded.

Mat politics

Here in OUSA Belgium we recently had a brainstorming session on how to get justice on fees, the NERF budget, Eastern Europe, representation in Region 9, and probably a few other things I've forgotten. OUSA Belgium's most important member came up with this 'If all else fails, roll over and beg' idea.