So having lulled you into slumber, will i actually make a point, well yes, hopefully, here it is.
I have come to find meaning and significance to NUS extra. It shocked me as i sat daydreaming on the train home to suddenly find a more inspiring raison d’etre for the much maligned NUS Extra card.
My epiphany was simple. the NUS Extra card was a way of strengthening the bongs between the NUS and it’s constituent student unions, and between the NUS and it’s disparate apathetic students. I suddenly realised that innumerate fools who have driven the NUS to the brink of collapse may have been the mere finger of fate, allowing the NUS Extra card it’s fiery birth.The card turns metaphysical whispers of a common success into a tactile experience.
Put simply it shows starkly how the success of the NUS, and the success of student unions are bonded together. It sells the idea of shared future, of a shared success, or of the potential for shared failure. It rekindles a sense of togetherness by acknowledging the failure past, and forges the identity of a shared future.
That the student unions share in the finical benefits of the card gives them a stake in its, and through that the NUS’s, success. The end user, the student, can quantify to themselves the benefits of the NUS, can see how that only a functioning NUS can continue to deliver benefits, and only an NUS of decent individuals can extend the discounts further.
A part of me will always hate NUS Extra cards, seeing them as mortgaging the crown jewels of the NUS to satisfy creditors at the gates. But a larger part of me hopes that since history is written by the victor, we can retcon the story of NUS extra to contain chapter and verse about finding the idea that inspires every member to see that everyone has a stake in a shared future. Hopefully a future of success.