China has just issued a study-abroad warning citing UK hostility over Taiwan. You are the UCU branch chair at the University of Ashworth — 700 members, recently re-elected on a platform of defending jobs and academic mission. Management is scrambling. Your members are looking to you. Six turns to navigate what comes next.
The University of Ashworth is a mid-sized post-92, predominantly teaching-focused, with 40% of international fee income from Chinese students. It has a strong widening participation record, a recent history of industrial disputes over workload and casualisation, and a branch that came out of the 2022–23 national action with growing membership but an executive divided on strategy. There is no single right way to do this work. Organising and servicing, militant and pragmatic, branch-led and member-led — each have legitimate strategic logics. Your scoring measures effectiveness for members across multiple dimensions, not adherence to one model.