Welcome to the second edition of the Melbourne Uni ALP Club's weekly rundown of events on campus.

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St Patrick's Day BBQ!
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The ALP Club will be hosting a St. Patrick's Day BBQ this Wednesday, from 1pm onwards in the Old Geology Courtyard. The Courtyard can be found in the Map of Uni at ref 18G.

Food, Soft Drink and Beer will be supplied by the club with vegetarians catered for. To cover our costs, we ask that club members attending please make a gold coin donation.

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Election Preparations
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As many club members will be aware, the University will be running an election next month for a new body to be briefed with the task of setting up a constitution for a new Student Union at Melbourne Uni. The ALP Club intends on contesting this election, and are helping organise a forum for later this week to begin preparations amongst various left-wing and left-leaning groups on campus.

All members of the club are invited to come along and help start preparing for what will be one of most important elections on campus in a long time.

With 20 positions to be elected to the working group, there will be the opportunity for several members of the ALP Club to take up a position. I encourage anyone and everyone who is interested to come along on Thursday or stay in touch with the Club to keep track of what's going on. The ALP Club will conduct preselections in the coming weeks as we put our ticket together, and this presents a great opportunity to get some of the clubs newer members involved.

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Education Campaign
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Just a reminder that the National Union of Students has called a National Day of Action against the Howard Government's continuing attacks on students. A rally is likely to be called for Wednesday March 31st, focusing on the fight against the implementation of last years changes to Higher Ed on a campus-by-campus level. As you may be aware, the Melbourne University Council will be meeting next month to consider proposals to raise HECS by 25% and implement more Full Fee paying places at Melbourne Uni, making this a vital issue for the ALP Club heading into an Election environment. The only way to stop these fee increases from being introduced is to see the election of Latham Government by the end of 2004, but this will only occur if we keep up the fight against Howard and Nelson on campus and on the streets throughout this year.

The details of March 31st will be sorted out by NUS in the coming weeks, and the ALP Club will as always be an active participant in the promotion of the rally and the events on the day itself. Stay tuned for an update on how you can get involved!

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Other Upcoming events
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The ALP Club is currently organising more events for this semester:

- Catherine Davis, the women's officer of the Federal Branch of the Australian Education Union, will be coming out to talk to the club about the issues facing women on campus and in the workplace, as well as how the public education campaign can help get rid of the Howard Government in 2004.

- Lindsay Tanner, the Federal Member for Melbourne and the Shadow Minister for Communications and Community Relationships, will be the club's guest later this semester speaking about the challenges facing the ALP in this election year.

- The ALP Club is also organising a fully catered Tour of Parliament House hosted by state Labor MPs for late April.

- The Federal President of the ALP, Carmen Lawrence, will be the club's guest in the first week of May when the Melbourne Uni ALP Club presents the return of the Annual Chifley Memorial Lecture Series.

Stay tuned for the full details of each event!