Alex Harries's diary

... and the end of the HE tunnel is approaching - tomorrow morning, on stage in front of a Guildhall packed with people, I'm going to trip arse-over-tit graduate from Portsmouth University.

And about time, too ;o)

Good luck to everyone graduating this week, have fun if you're going to the Grad Ball, and have a really good summer no matter what you end up doing, plus a special good luck to everyone who - like me - is having to take resits to get their "Hons".

Right, that's everyone covered - I'm off to the pub. Who's joining me?

Twitter is a way of posting mini-updates onto the interweb about what you're doing, and works in much the same way as Facebook's status, except you can do more with it. It's perfect for the narcissistic and bored; two areas in which I excel ;o)

I mentioned playing about with Twitter a little while ago, but never really got into it because I couldn't figure out how to pull the updates onto web pages, so I couldn't see how it would add value to a website.

A couple of weeks ago I spotted BBC reporter Ben Hammersley was touring Turkey to cover the country's election, and was using social networking sites Twitter and del.icio.us (to name a couple) to syndicate content back onto his BBC homepage which had been set up specially to cover the - experimental - feature.

Since I'm supposed to be working my socks off on my Final Year Project, I decided to do something else entirely and, having read all there is to learn about video standards (don't ask - been trying some DIY with an expensive piece of a/v equipment), I turned my attention back to Twitter.

I've now signed myself up for an account (despite the worrying - but not unique - feeling I might already be too old for this. Then again, maybe not ;o), found out I can easily post updates from my mobile by SMS, and found how to add a list of my latest updates from Twitter in my sidebar.

Ok, now I've kinda done it, I want to figure out an easy way for everyone on UPSU.net to add their Twitter information to UPSU.net, so I've put a new to-do in the to-do list: add a box for "my Twitter ID" to peoples' public profile edit screen, then automagically display their latest x updates in their diary sidebar and their profile page. Maybe we could even display their latest update with their forum posts...?

And... Well, that's the rub; since the point of all this - if there is a point - would probably be to attract more students to use UPSU.net, what would Pompey's students want out of this? How would we make it easy and intuitive to add and use? How could we make it obvious what it does? And, of course, how much peripheral marketing will we have to do to let people know why they should bother with all this Twitter nonsense? Maybe a little market research might be in order...

The finer details aside, the SMS updates aspect definitely makes this worth looking into a bit more; maybe not this month, but before the start of the new academic year, when I'm hoping to have had time to revamp the blogs homepage to make it a lot more understandable, I'd like to see it all up and running.

I'd also really like us to come up with some ways we can use Twitter, perhaps for a feature during the Freshers' period where freshers are encouraged to Twitter their first experiences of Uni life in Portsmouth for a live-updated feature piece on UPSU.net?

If we found the right people - i.e. bods who aren't coy with their updates - this could possibly pave the way for some really frank, insightful dialogue, and it's definitely something with potential to apply to every area of what the Union does - welfare, entertainment, academic support... Everything, in fact, apart from the kitchen sink.

p.s. BBC Radio 1 are on Twitter...

If you're wondering where the official Grad Ball announcement is... Well, it's kinda my fault that it's late.

The reason it's late is because we don't simply want to give you a list of names and then you have to go off and find out about the acts, so we've been working hard on one of our biggest mini-sites on UPSU.net to date; almost 30 pages of information about the Grad Ball, including videos and photos of all the acts we can find information on, as well as information on tickets, the reserve list, a huge FAQ, more photos, and before we could do any of that we had to build a website to put it all in!

Here's some rumours answered in the meantime...

• No, So Solid Kru aren't playing (no trainers allowed, you see...),
• No, The Feeling aren't playing.

... and some facts:

• (more than) 50: musicians performing at the ball,
• 11: acts those 50 people make up,
• 8: hours of music, drinks, food and other entertainment,
• (at least) 5: bars,
• 4: venues, including the outside,
• 2: places to get fresh food on the night,
• 1: free drink on arrival,
• (also) 1: Graduation Ball each year, so we're working hard to make it the best ever.

I'm going to get some sleep in a bit, then I'll be carrying on working on the ball site while the rest of you are no doubt catching up on sleep tomorrow morning. I'm accepting donations - Greggs' iced ring doughnuts would be preferred... ;o)

I do hope that, after all this work, people are happy with the line-up and take the time to look around the site and get to know the kind of music each act plays. I'll be just a bit gutted if, after all the work to put a lot of information online, everyone seems to hate it! 

Have a great weekend! /al

This entry was written around the time the Union first issued the Grad Ball statement. To make sure I wasn't about to get myself sacked, I withheld publishing this entry until it had been checked to make sure it didn't contain anything it shouldn't, and to make sure - as far as possible - that the facts in the article are as accurate as possible.

That all said, these - like everything in this blog - are my personal ramblings, based on my opinion. Like everything else I think I know, you should probably take everything said here with a fairly generous pinch of salt. A lorry-load should just about do it...

I'm glad to see the UPSU Management have taken the unprecedented step of issuing a statement to explain how the ticket sales for the Graduation Ball - which have divided opinion as they do each year - have been conducted.

It's never easy to find a balance between investing a lot of the Union's - and therefore your membership, clubs' and societies' - money into a ball, and ensuring there are as many tickets available as there are people that want to go.

In fact, it's pretty much an impossible situation: the potential to damage the Union's future strength by gambling a huge amount of money on an expensive ball just to make sure there are enough tickets for everyone who can go, in the hope that it will sell enough tickets to break even, is a risk the Union's management and directors - your Sabbatical officers - face each year.

It's also one I honestly think they've got just right for the last few years, too, with the last two balls held at the Union breaking even, showcasing some great acts and a beautiful venue (yes, I'm still talking about the Union!), and receiving positive feedback from almost everyone who attended.

Since 2005 - the last year the Union held a ball at a green field site with a high capacity - the Union has been through bankruptcy and, as a result, been split into two companies; UPSU - the independent Union charity - and UPEL, a subsidiary company of the University. You can find out more about the differences between the two companies here, but what's important for you to be aware of here is that UPSU - the charity that runs clubs and societies, takes your membership money, and re-invests every penny into student services - organises the Graduation Ball, while UPEL organises and runs the regular entertainments, such as Purple Wednesdays and Orange Fridays.

Your Sabbs are the directors and trustees of UPSU, and it's ultimately down to them to make sure that your Union, and its accounts, don't suffer financially from the worst-case scenario - a Graduation Ball that blows a lot of cash. We even have a point of reference: the 2005 Graduation Ball, which lost a significant amount of money despite being well attended (and well organised). This was due to the unavoidable cost overheads associated with holding a ball at a green field site - the money wasn't "lost" due to bad management, and a green field site is realistically the only way to hold an event with a higher capacity than the Union can provide.

In Portsmouth, no other venue comes close to having the capacity of the Union. Even the Guildhall and the new Liquid and Envy actually have lower capacities than the Union, because licensed capacity is governed more by the number and size of fire exits than actual floor space.

For now, the 2007 Grad Ball is looking to be an unrivalled success. Surprisingly, despite the

(More off-topic pixellated goodness...)

So everything's pretty much returned to normal after the Grad Ball, apart from a couple of small piles of wood which once made up the beach bar thingy, and a mysterious roll of bamboo, in the sabbs' office...

The night itself was great fun, as always - I was in from about 3pm helping (a bit) with the set-up; I was given the responsibility of running the sound in CO2 for the Scratch Perverts, so it fell to me to figure out how to plumb in three mixers, four decks and two CD players. In the end we got through (just) by hastily scribbling a sheaf of notes, diagrams, and heiroglyphics on random bits of paper. In fact, I think we only had one hiccup, where I managed to turn off the wrong set of decks when I got on the decks after the Scratch Perverts. Note to self: don't try and DJ while trying to be a sound engineer...

The Scratch Perverts (pics) themselves seemed like a genuinely nice trio of chaps (although only two played on the night, with one waiting in the wings - maybe in case one of the other two keeled over...?). They were only too happy to help out with the equipment set-up, and didn't seem fazed when I stormed into their dressing room two minutes before they were due on stage to sort out a minor technical issue (namely, that I'd forgotten to flick a couple of switches on their mixer... I am a fool - it's official). Their set, of course, was some of the finest musical mastery I've ever heard in my life - how it's possible to drop classic hip-hop, drum 'n bass, and then some Nirvana, beats the hell out of me, but I reckon our little venue rocked far more than Lux's Goldie Lookin' Chain ever could... ;o)

I couldn't help wondering how many of the faces I was looking out on from the DJ booth were moving on from Portsmouth to a great job, travelling, or just lazing about for a while. Next year, it's my turn (I hope!), and I expect it'll be one of the scariest and exciting times I'll ever go through. For all of you graduating or about to graduate this year, good luck!

(And, in a Public Service Announcement-stylee, don't forget the Union doesn't just do cheap drinks - there's a whole load of bods here who can help you with coursework issues, housing problems, health concerns, and plenty more bods whose jobs it is to get you involved in a new sport or society; don't be afraid to drop in and say "hey"!).

From summer next year, the Government are introducing a whole raft of legislation about smoking in public places. For the Union, I expect this means the majority of the venue will be a no-smoking place all the time; whether they will provide a well-ventilated smoking area upstairs, or simply allow people to pop outside the Waterhole (as you can do during warmer weather) for a smoke I don't know, and no-one on the trading side of the business (which runs the bars, catering and entertainments) has said much, although I'm sure there's a lot of thought going into how it's going to be handled when the time finally comes round.

As a smoker myself, this could be an interesting time - I'd like to give up smoking, but only if I don't have to suffer too much with the cold turkey side of the withdrawal process. Yes, I am a big wuss... I wonder how many other people will finally quit for good when they find they can't have a cigarette with their drink and dancing...?