Students come to Alvescot Lodge with different levels of experience and from different parts of the country. We are all from various companies within the CWU. Some of us have been here before and, for some, it was their first time. Students attending this course have varying resources; some have more than others.

We all travelled here with our own ideas and levels of experience, but we soon came to realise we all have the same aims. We worked in groups, that changed daily by tasks and activities in which we all had something to contribute.

It is good to meet people who, although are participating on the same course, have different levels of previous course experience. Some, in fact, have none. The social side of the course is very important. Indeed, nightly entertainment provided lively evenings in the bar. This provides opportunities for networking and support.

Alvescot Lodge is a comfortable place for students to learn with plenty of room and facilities to aid in you progression. The tutors are helpful and give every individual so much time.

This course is aimed at all CWU ULRs. During the five-day programme, we received a thorough grounding in our role as a CWU union learning representative, the skills we'd need as a ULR and the role of trade unions in learning.

Communication skills are vital and we learned about these as well as barriers to learning analysing and mapping learning needs, interview skill and planning a learning campaign.

With completion of this course, we should now have a better understand of our role as ULR, which we can take back to our branches and start building our learning centre profile. Then, by the time we do get to undertake part 2 of the course, our confidence and experience will be more advanced.

I spoke to fellow students who participated on the ULR 1 Course, including Mandy Baker and Yvonne Sirmond, and got some very positive comments. Mandy said:

"I arrived feeling out of my depth and worried what the week would bring. I was so wrong now I can go away with knowledge, understanding and the feeling I can grow in the future, looking forward to ULR part 2."

Yvonne added:

"This course has given me a 'job description' for my role. I now have lots of ideas to take back with me, leads for online courses, tools to do my role and a network of supportive colleagues."

Even though I've been lead ULR for 12 months, this course has really helped me gain more knowledge. This was coupled with meeting some great fellow ULRs and was a really useful experience that I'd recommend to people thinking of supporting members at work.

This course really made me understand the role of a ULR, which has helped me a great deal recently. Since attending I've managed to set up a number of courses, from Functional Skills Maths and English to ICT Fundamentals in our learning centre.

The networking between ULRs from other branches was very interesting. Some had experience with setting up courses and others had no experience at all. In fact, some didn't even have a learning room. These people now have the tools to take back to branches and be more pro-active.

I'm looking forward to ULR part 2 in November, to see how other ULRs have progressed.