Since the whole point of us Sabbs having a presence on the front page of UPSU.net is to let the students of Portsmouth know what we're up to, this is a (slightly edited) version of the report us Sabbs present to the Board of Trustees meeting, which takes place monthly at the Union and is used as a way of us all reporting on what's happening with the Union.
Although I'm sure not even the terminally bored would want to read this, here it is anyway. Enjoy! ;o)
August report – Alex Harries, Media & Publications Orifice
My first three weeks in office have been a very busy period of work, with a lot of travelling around on training and our Sabbatical “tour”, and accompanied by an inevitably steep learning curve.
This month’s highlights include…
- Sabb tour: I think the whole team gained a good deal of insight into the workings of the differing ways in which Students’ Unions have to prioritise their resources and efforts as we visited Liverpool, Sheffield and Birmingham SUs. To this end, I believe the UPSU is very fortunate in a number of respects in terms of its successes and strengths as a Students’ Union,
- Communication in Action training: this was a good opportunity for me to learn some of the key aspects of my role as a communications officer, and to gain an insight into various methods of prioritising and focusing my workload. The course also gave me another opportunity to examine how other Students’ Unions various media operations have taken shape, and the reasons for their development, helping me to develop a clearer understanding of the UPSU’s media position and its relative strengths and weaknesses,
- LGBT society: I have been working closely with the Union’s LGBT society to determine whether our website can offer them the feature set they require in order to communicate with their members, and to allow them to provide an appropriate online web presence,
- Pure:FM society: the Union’s student radio society are in the process of re-branding, involving a change of logo and online presentation. I have been focusing on working as closely with them as possible to ensure their work is completed on time in order for them to be a fully-functioning arm of UPSU Media in time for the start of the year,
- UPSU.net: I have spent some time this month further developing the Union’s website presence, with major updates to a number of pages including the Get Involved and sports clubs homepages in order to provide a clearer and better-advertised service in these areas. I hope to be able to continue this hard work in time for the Union’s major areas to be highly presentable and content-rich in time for the start of our Freshers’ marketing phase, beginning around mid-September,
- Media Executive: discussions have taken place with the Sabbatical team and trustees about the benefits and need for a Media Executive to lend direction and guidance to the Union’s media presence. Having discussed this at length, I am confident that the introduction of a Media Exec can bring a powerful and tangible benefit to the Students’ Union’s presence both on campus and to wider audiences, and will be working hard to realise the exec committee as early within the academic year as possible,
- News: I have also spent some time on finding ways in which students and staff (at the Union and University) alike can quickly and easily submit news to the Union, to allow a greater focus on news-led media to develop at the Union. We can now boast a very simple news system which allows even the least experienced members of the Union’s contributors to create news articles on the UPSU.net website to a presentable standard, and will be creating documentation and publicising this system further during the run-up to the start of the academic year,
- Media Review: the often-spoken about Media Review process, which is intended to ensure the most effective use of the Union’s media resources over the coming year, is taking shape – albeit at a different pace and in a slightly different but ultimately more effective format. [The goal is for the Union as a whole, and this year's Sabbatical team in particular, to look for ways in which] the Union’s media presence might be further developed over the coming years in order to help develop a strong media strategy for the Union to work to,
- Wallplanner and Directory: the Union’s annually-produced wallplanner, a Membership Services-owned project, is taking shape and is looking particularly strong as a coordinated joint project with the Union’s Directory publication,
- Pompey Guide: work on the Union’s annual guide to Portsmouth is continuing apace, with contributors from Pugwash magazine’s talented designers and writers working closely with Membership Services manager Steve Baker and Communications Manager Mike Cooter.
Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my predecessor Adrian Fraguela for all his hard work over the last two years, and I’m conscious that there is a lot I have yet to learn in order to do this job to the high standard it requires. To this end, I would like to express my gratitude to the Union’s permanent staff members and this year’s Sabb team for their continued support and efforts.
