John McFarlane, Manchester Metropolitan Socialist Students
The freshers week last September resulted in an explosion of membership of Socialist Students at the two universities in Manchester.
We meet every week on Friday and have hosted film screenings and meetings on topics like the history of socialism in Manchester, fascism, and Bolivarian socialism in Venezuela.
We have also been running regular stalls on both campuses, campaigning for the scrapping of tuition fees and the writing-off of student debt.
We hosted the first North West Socialist Students conference in February, where links across the region were strengthened and plans made for building in the future.
Recently, we have hosted guest speakers including Becci Heagney for the Rape Is No Joke campaign and Katerina Kleitsa, a Greek socialist who spoke on the real effects of EU-imposed austerity, the role of the left and the growth of the far right in Greece.
We also took part in the Reclaim the Night march organised by various feminist and LGBT groups across Manchester – a really vibrant and energetic night that all but shut down the main road into the city for a couple of hours!
In the year ahead we plan to register the society at Manchester Metropolitan University and have a big push for membership as part of freshers week 2013.
