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"Last month..."
Ellender 3:16
Thou shalt blog
roar | Welcome Week
New Kid on the Blog
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August 2007
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Monday, February 04, 2008
"Last month..."
"Last month, she said, oh baby don't feel so bad, you work so hard" Want proof?
Since term started I have: - Completed work on phase one and commenced work on phase two of my student media strategy. More information is on my blog - http://www.kclsu.org/officers_vpcommunications.php
- The aim is to take this to the April trustee board and offer much improved student media provision, in the line with the rest of KCLSU’s student activity provision for the start of September 08 and beyond.
- Attended student council and they approved the aspirations of the plan.
- Trained and started to mentor 8 sub-editors to assist with the production of roar.
- Produced one issue of roar and started on another. This last issue was the first one to feature a fully elected student editorial team and the benefits can be clearly seen in the biggest and best issue to date. Feedback on the new issue has been almost entirely positive. RESULT.
- Arranged an interview with the mayoral candidates for the next issue of roar, out February 20th. This has resulted in an email interview with Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone and a meeting with Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick tomorrow.
- Helped to co-ordinate a “roar does RAG” campaign to boost the visibility and accessibility of RAG on the strand campus.
- Held three roar “get involved” sessions to boost awareness and involvement in roar.
- Met with my heads of all the sites involved in this year’s 24/7 library run, which will start on 17th March and runs through to May 30th. We have been assured their will be better catering provision this year, and I will be starting work soon on a REVISEWISE campaign.
- Liaised with ISS over a February shut down of all business systems as they install a new generator. This means no email, web etc. Closure will be 15th Feb (evening) - 18th Feb (morning). After internal consultation we pushed for an April shutdown when New Hunt’s House is going to be closed, but PCT chose an earlier date. ISS’ publicity of the shut down has been abysmal and we are letting them know it.
- Attended an NUS Governance and Democracy day in Leicester. We didn’t learn much about governance (obviously!) but took away some useful advice which we can use to boost voter turn out and interest in the elections.
- Attended and assisted the Student Council Widening Participation and Communications scrutiny committees.
- Invited the Development Office to a gig at Tutu’s to show off the sound system the annual fund helped pay for over the summer. This will hopefully strengthen relationships between them and KCLSU.
- Attended ULU Trustee board and mandated them to set up a finance committee, a standards ethics committee and to hold a strategic review day before their next meeting at the end of February.
- Attended ULU senate and supported Adam in changing their sabb roles as KCLSU seeks to single-handedly save ULU from itself.
- Given a post offer open day talk to prospective students.
- Attended Healthy Living Week and the RAG opening ceremony at the Guy’s campus. Despite my dubious eating habits I am officially not a fatty. RESULT.
- Attended a resident’s forum at Brian Creamer and Rectory. Some interesting issues arose regarding Senior Students, Entertainments Users Committees (EUCs) and how such students are trained and supported.
- Liaised college to have a polling station in reception areas in the KCLSU election.
- Started to co-ordinate a University Challenge team.
- ...and finally...I have drunk over 100 litres of coke and successfully avoided Tom’s attempts to make me join the gym...
My name's Peter Ellender, you stay classy King's College London.
posted by VP Communications at 11:57 AM
kclsuvpcommunications@gmail.com
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Sunday, January 27, 2008
Ellender 3:16
Alright guys,
Again, apologies for the slack blogging. But with the exception of a few days off over Christmas I've been crazy busy. With what you ask? This. The manifesto. The gospel for future student media. Or simply Ellender 3:16.
"New media, better media, more media, your media"
I've been in my lab, with a pen and pad - just like Dr Dre - only I've not been cooking up some dope rhymes. Oh no, I've been working on something much, much better. I've been trying to re-invigorate roar, beyond that magazine you may or may not read in the waterfront while you're waiting for your mates. What I've been working on is definitive plan to ensure the long term growth and development of roar and student media at King's College London. And I'll be honest, I'm incredibly excited.
At the moment, these are the "whys" which are actually harder to come up with than the hows. Once I know which of those you feel is most important, then I can move this on.
• roar to be the premier form of communication on all sites.
• roar to also have a tangible and visible presence on these sites.
• Student media to employ the clubs and societies model of “independence” and “staff support”
• New media, better media, more media, your media – available to all to participate in (whether as a consumer or producer) everywhere.
• Students to see roar as the natural forum to make their voice heard and as the medium with which they find out “what’s going on”.
• roar to be seen as a valuable opportunity for student involvement.
• roar to be a leader in the national field of student media.
• Every student to participate in or connect with roar as a brand.
• Students to find getting involved in roar easy and obvious.
• roar to be seen as “student led” and the “student voice”.
• roar to be self-financing
• roar to carry a positive image with students, KCLSU and King’s College London.
Let me know what you think of these is the most important to you.
At the moment these are just aspirations. They'll be expanded upon with an exact plan, but I'll be honest I've had the plan in my head for over two years. I've just never known the why's apart from - we're the students of King's College London. We deserve this. Nay, we demand this.
We deserve a student media office / centre that is accessible to all students. We deserve to find our information in the way we want to - in print, online, video, audio. A monthly magazine is not good enough. We deserve a magazine / newspaper / website / radio station that is one of the best, if not the best in the country. We deserve an independent media free to speak its own mind. Those involved in student media deserve the very best training, support and facilities available.
This has never been done before. It's not immediate, so it probably seems like the easy way out, or like I just plain don't care about roar etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. I live, eat, sleep, breathe roar. I wish everyone cared about it just 1/10th as much as I do. But for too long I've watched people in or running for my job try to implement new things and because the support, finances and structures have been lacking their dreams have never become a reality. As I went further and further down that path, the more frustrated I got. We won't start to see the pay off until September at the earliest, but trust me - it'll be worth it.
Your thoughts and opinions will really help me out on this - so they're most appreciated.
I'm Peter Ellender, you stay classy King's College London.
posted by VP Communications at 8:23 PM
kclsuvpcommunications@gmail.com
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Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Thou shalt blog
Hello once again,
Despite telling myself I was going to be a regular blogger and be updating this constantly it seems that plan has somewhat fallen by the wayside. Since I last posted life has just been crazy busy. We've had the welcome weeks, sightseeing sundays, the elections, student council training, as officers we've been out and about promoting our plans ideas for the next year and hearing what you have to say about them, and there's also been the small matter of roar issue two - which has just this minute been sent to the printers. You'll see it in all good drop-bins at some point in the next week.
Now that's out of the way I can update you on a few priorities of mine I will be working on over the next few weeks:
- Training the next generation of roar volunteers and making sure I have less day to day involvement in student media.
- Putting in place structures that will ensure the long term growth and success of student media
- Making sure students have more control of student media, and finally ensuring that KCLSU offers comprehensive online and podcasting opportunities.
- Improving the ways in which KCLSU communicates with students. This means both the information we give you, but also making sure that we listen to your views and effectively feed those opinions back to the people who matter. This includes both online and face-to-face communications.
Those will be my main four aims, though there will be others that occupy my time as well. I'll update you on these issues as the year progresses.
I'm Peter Ellender. You stay classy, King's College London.
posted by VP Communications at 3:28 PM
kclsuvpcommunications@gmail.com
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Sunday, September 16, 2007
roar | Welcome Week
The last few weeks of my life have been spent planning, plotting and producing issue one of roar, your student magazine. Depending when it gets back from the printers, it'll launch during welcome week. Hopefully Thursday. I'm not one to blow my own trumpet, but it does look really, really fit. If you don't believe me, just have a butchers at the cover below:
See? FIT. The inside is just as hot. roar is jam-packed full of goodness so make sure to grab a copy when it hits the streets next week.
After the weeks and months of planning, fretting, sweating and a sleepless night (or seven), welcome week finally kicks off tomorrow. I've never really "done" freshers events and whatnot before so this will be just as much a new experience for me as it will be those of you starting your time at King's. Whatever you do, make sure you come down to the welcome fairs, Thursday 20th September at Guy's campus, and Friday 21st September at the Strand. All the various sports clubs, societies, student media, volunteering and campaigning groups will be there, so there'll be plenty of opporunities to broaden your horizon beyond your course and the bar! There'll also be information on how to get involved in the National Union of Students (NUS) and Student Council. If you can't make it down, then don't worry - it isn't the end of the world! You can sign up for any student activity group throughout the year, just pop into your nearest student centre or hunt around the website for more info. The freebies will be at the fairs only though...
And for those of you who are still scared or nervous, don't worry - it's entirely natural. It took me weeks to really get the confidence to speak to people, and it took months before I finally felt at home at King's. If you are finding things tough, then stick with it. It's early days and things will get better - trust me! If you have any problems there are plenty of welcoming faces at KCLSU, or at the welfare / health centre, or even talk to your personal tutor. Just remember you aren't alone. Your sabbatical trustees will be around wearing fetching red shirts with their names on the back. If you have any questions, or just fancy a chat, then stop us and say hello.
Look forward to meeting you all soon,
Pete
posted by VP Communications at 10:36 AM
kclsuvpcommunications@gmail.com
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Friday, August 24, 2007
New Kid on the Blog
VP’s blog, stardate: 24080.7
Over half of August has passed already, and I’ve not blogged yet, which is incredibly bad form and I do humbly apologise. But in all honesty I have been incredibly busy, and not just with trying to find lame jokes to put in this first blog. I’ve spent much of the last few weeks realising that “life long learning” is not just one of those cool buzzwords used by those in the education sector, but it is in fact very much true. Much of my short time in office has been spent learning about how our trustee board works, the responsibilities I have in terms of health and safety, how the college functions, and the role I play in trying to make all your wishes come true, amongst many other things. My tiny little brain has already overheated, and to be honest, I worry whether it’ll survive the year!
In the midst of this I’ve been working with KCLSU staff on two key areas - improving the ways we communicate with students, and using previous consultations with students and Student Council to examine the issues that really affect students and that KCLSU will lobby College on over the next three years. I expect you will hear a lot more about this in the future though.
As for communications? We’ve been beavering away on a KCLSU events page on facebook, improved signage, video blogs, using friendlier language, and of course, good old face to face chatting, which is often ignored in these geeky, technological times of ours. I’m also excited by the imminent re-launch of roar magazine (which will now be monthly), roar online, and also by podcasting. If you’re interested in getting involved in any of these projects, have any gripes, or simply want to find out more about KCLSU and what we do; send me an email, give me a call, or just say hi when you see me out and about. My door is always open.
Go well and go safely.
Pete
posted by VP Communications at 4:18 PM
kclsuvpcommunications@gmail.com
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