It's inevitable that any student volunteering organisation will suffer some turnover - churn - among its membership throughout the year. Unfortunately, half way into the year, the Union's contributor teams are going through the stage where the workload is piling on, exam revision is taking over most people's lives, and the thought of having another five to six months of this, and having the responsibility for a newspaper and/or magazine's success, is naturally going to result in some team members realising they're running the risk of damaging their degrees because of the amount of time they spend working on the publications at the Union.

I don't want anyone to fail or even damage their degree mark just so the Union can put out its media, but its not always the case that you can see the error of your ways until the damage is done - this was always my problem and one of the main reasons it took me a whole three attempts to pass my second year...! 

This evening I've sent out a short e-mail to the editorial teams to remind them that they are still massively appreciated, and I've copied and pasted it here, both because it's an open letter, and because I think the message applies not only to our editors, but also to our entire base of contributors, as well as pretty much anyone else who altruistically volunteers their time and skills to make the Union - and through it the Portsmouth student experience - even better.

We've suffered a few losses over the last few weeks, with members realising their coursework load is incompatible with the amount of time they're putting into the Union, and while I'm gutted some have left, I appreciate all the hard efforts and totally understand that no-one wants to risk negatively impacting their coursework.

If you're still in, but you're having second thoughts about staying in, please come and have a chat with me. I'm out of the office until Monday, but will be happy to speak to you any time - my contact details are on the bottom of this e-mail. Most importantly, I urge you not to do anything hasty, but by the same token, please ferpetesake don't let the Union be the reason you have to stay here another year!

I'm aware that Pugwash and Pugwash News involves an awful lot of stick and not a lot of carrot, and I'm trying to think of ways to redress the balance. There's talk of a social event - maybe a pub crawl or paintballing day? - and if you have a suggestion, now's the time to speak!

Finally, I'd just like to repeat my earlier thanks for all your work: I know you all put a lot in to the Union's publications, and I sincerely hope that you will bear with me and the rest of the Union team while we get on top of the workload we're all fighting our various paths through.

Don't let the next few weeks stress you out, and I look forward to seeing you all at the next editorial meeting.

Best regards: Alex Harries, Media & Publications Officer"

For the record, I know this may well come across as a load of old horse s*** - I can't really do anything about that. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my teams, and hate the thought that some of them might be feeling pressurised because of their involvement in the Union.

There aren't any easy answers to the age-old balancing act of University vs. social life vs. work vs. extracurricular, but anything we as a Union can do to help should lie pretty close to the top of our list of priori...

A few days ago I looked downwards and had to lean over my ever-growing gut to see what shoes I had on (flip-flops, of course), so yesterday I decided to make an effort to start getting fit. In all fairness, Ed & Rep Sabb Andy Machin was also starting his training regime, so I've really just stolen his idea. Given how much I smoke, I decided cycling might be better than running for my knees and pride (since collapsing in a crying heap wheezing for breath before I get to the end of my road is ... well, rubbish).

So, yesterday was cycling day, and pelting off down the seafront for a sprint/cruise/sprint session was going fine until My New Best Mate decided to pull out right in front of me in his shiny new BMW while following his mate (also in a BMW) out of a side road. Cue the only perfectly-formed string of expletives I've ever shouted at anyone in my life without a rehearsal; his face was a picture. So was mine, I imagine....

Today was spent wheezing up and down the local swimming pool with Andy, and since I was late (as always), he'd done 32("-ish") lengths by the time I'd done 1. I managed 11 and decided to call it a day before I drowned - something tells me I need a bit more commitment here...

Meanwhile, back at work, I've been getting more than a little twitchy, thanks to a combination of some extra-potent filter coffee and a backlog of e-mails and to-dos which I'll probably be working on until midnight tonight. I've also been trying to tie up a number of loose ends left over from last year's web work, and get some new projects rolling, with the end result that I've been sending out literally hundreds of e-mails to my unfortunate colleagues, several of whom have now no doubt put me on their junk e-mail list, so this (from the BBC News Magazine) made me grin a bit today...

Anyway, there's no real point to all this rambling, but I guess I ought to mention what I've been up to over the last couple of weeks, since that is (so I'm told) the reason for this blog...

NUS Communication In Action training, Loughborough Uni

Interesting and good fun, and I think I picked up a load of very good ideas. The last day included a debate over how much control the Union's executive should exert over its media, i.e. should the Sabbs have the right to, for example, veto something they don't like? How about something they know is libellous? Illegal?

On the other hand, how much right should the Union's media - for example, the student newspaper/magazine - have to say what it likes, and to ignore the wishes of the exec?

This generated a lot of debate, but (imvho) I suspect in practise that the media should be allowed to write whatever it likes - within some bounds of reason I won't claim to know as intimately as our more experienced staff do, but also that the Sabbs - who have been elected by the whole student body to represent their views and needs - should also have the ability to have items published as long as it's in the student body's best interests.

As always, it's a bit of a balancing act...

Scouts' Jamboree, Essex

I was also shipped off to the Scouts' Centennial Jamboree by Making Waves, a PR company who do a lot of work with students, to do a spot of reporting on the event. Of course, not actually being a journalist of any shape or flavour, I felt like a total fraud all weekend, but managed to write copious pages of notes and will hopefully be able to write My First Feature with the results.

While I was there I also met a lot of the Sabbs who are heading off to Ibiza to promote the About 535 more words in this entry