Hello everyone! I'm currently bashing this out on one of the two massively popular open-access laptops provided at the NUSSL convention to allow delegates to check their Facebook catch up on important work ;o) As a result, this is going to be a bit hurried...

A quick bit of background: NUSSL is, to all intents and purposes, the trading side of the NUS, providing large-scale buying power to students' unions across the country for a wide variety of services. Each year, the NUSSL convention is held in some plush location, and is basically a big networking-and-freebie-grabbing opportunity - the antithesis of the NUS Conference, if you like.

While sitting in NUSSL's AGM this morning (notable for being possibly the shortest AGM in the history of mankind), I decided to start scratching out some thoughts on the strategy I'd like to see the Union's online media employing in the coming years. Much of it is already in operation in some form or other, and much of it is common sense, but we don't - as far as I know! - have a "ten commandments" listing of the key underpinnings which can and do make the Union's online media presence great.

So, here's my first, very rough draft of the things that I think might be vitally important to the Union if it is to make sure that what it is doing online continues to be relevant and effective for its students in the coming few years. If you can be bothered to read on (and, I'll be honest, these ramblings are usually enough to make even the most committed person stifle a yawn or two), then please bear in mind a) that this is a VERY rough draft, that b) there are more people involved in setting the overall direction of the Union that just myself, by a very long shot, and c) that nothing below is presented in any order of priority. At this stage this is just a simple listing of ideas.

As a result, the bullet points below will no doubt be reworded and rejigged, and may completely change, in the coming couple of months. That said, I hope some of the common-sense aspects will stay in some form or other!

Hokay, let's go: in the next couple of years, I would like the Union to focus on...

• Content digitisation: get *everything* online, delete nothing, and make it as easy and logical as possible for people to discover this information,
• Instilling a cultural shift in the Union's staff and student volunteers: it is important to seek to foster a sense of ownership and a desire to invest time, effort and - where appropriate - money into the development of the Union's web presence,
• Ensuring training is a cornerstone of everything we do online: it is important that any new aspect to the website, any new tools, and any new functionality, is both as easy to use as possible, and as well-documented as possible, so that it is as easy as possible for anyone to quickly pick up and use a new system,
• Investing in developing and documenting the current Content Management System (a Frankenstein-like version of Mambo): the only way to get the most out of UPSU.net is to make it as easy as possible for developers and owners alike to develop it*,
• Committing and maintaining its focus on the importance of accessible and usable design**,
• Avoiding the temptation to allow invasive advertising practises: too many good websites are let down by an overwhelming abundance of adverts which only serve to annoy visitors with very little effective gain. Sorry for the mini-rant!
• Investing in staff: I really do think that we can justify employing a member of staff to work full-time on the website. With the right commitment from the Union's myriad staff and student volunteers, the job of maintaining, updating, and develo...
  
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Radio 1's Newsbeat have responded on the BBC's Editors' blog over their coverage - and Radio 1's handling - of the banning and subsequent un-banning of the word "Faggot" from Fairytale Of New York, and how Newsbeat's coverage may have triggered the public backlash against the "overzealously PC" attitude of the radio station.

The interesting aspect for us at the students' union is how Newsbeat works within Radio 1, as well as the BBC's non-profit objectives which aren't entirely dissimilar to the union's.

Newsbeat operates as a news team within Radio 1 - vaguely similar, perhaps, to the way Pugwash News operates within UPSU. Newsbeat's coverage of Radio 1's censorship has been objective and arguably fair - entirely as any quality journalism should be - but the issue here is that, in effect, one part of Radio 1 has caused a backlash against another part of the same organisation for its handling of a potentially sensitive matter.

Within the editorial teams responsible for the Pugwash, Pugwash News and UPSU News output, discussions have often centred around the "what if" scenario of whether and how the Union's media should publicise a story which levels criticism against the Union. Questions have ranged from the broader "can we criticise the Union?", "should we criticise the Union?", and "if we do, how would we go about it?", to some occasionally hilarious potential (and entirely theoretical) scenarios which I obviously can't relate here without libelling myself...

Rod McKenzie, editor of Radio 1's Newsbeat, writes on the BBC Editors' blog: '[this issue] raises some interesting dilemmas for us though: without Radio 1's 10 million plus audience Newsbeat wouldn't exist. But what happens when the station itself IS the news? Does this cramp our journalistic vigour or make us feel we shouldn't take on "the mother ship”? I don't think it does - nor should it ever do so. If we argue that our job is to report the news without fair or favour for other organisations, why should Radio 1 be exempt from that rule? I think pulling our punches would be failing our listeners - Radio 1's listeners. That's just my view.'

Apologies for the lazy journalism - quoting such a large chunk of Mr McKenzie's words - but that paragraph pretty much summarises the way student media should act towards its parent institutions, at least at Portsmouth, but in the wider context of student journalism as well. Our editorial teams should never feel that can't report on something they feel is in the interest of their readers simply because their story might level criticism at the Union or the University.

The counter to this argument, of course, is that this freedom can only work as long as the student journalists maintain a professional approach. Anyone with common sense might wonder whether, on hearing about a story which might criticise them, the Union might feel compelled to "pull" - cancel - the article, preventing it from being published.

This is where we come to the grey area which I think is somewhat unique to student media: the Union should never be allowed to prevent the publication in its media of an objective, balanced and fair article which levels criticism at the Union, but it would be remiss of the Union to play little or no active role in ensuring the content produced in its student media was legally and morally acceptable.

This balancing act is a relatively new consideration for student media in Portsmouth as, until the start of this year,...

The office is empty and so quiet it feels like everything's fallen asleep - apart from me and my cup of tea - and once I've cleared my desk and finished playing this Paul Van Dyk mix at ASBO volume, I too am going to be packing up and clearing off home until the start of January.

I've been in office now for a smidge under five months, and it's been nothing short of a whirlwind ride - there have been late nights, lots of hard work, dangling from trees, "ideas theft" from other students' unions around the country, awards, tears, new ground broken, relationships made and un-made, shouting, hugging and even the occasional drink.

Scattered around my desk are piles of to-dos scrawled hurriedly on the back of yellow post-it notes. These probably total less than 10% of my overall pile of "things I must do two weeks ago or the world comes to an end", and even if I could clone myself over Christmas and not sleep, I wouldn't be able to complete everything I need to.

Still, this year has been, this far at least, an incredible learning experience. I've been more stressed and grumpy than I've ever been, and spent more money on bills and less on my social life - now a distance memory - than ever before, but I wouldn't change the majority of it for the world.

Last night over a beer, the conversation wandered onto the forthcoming Sabbatical elections, which pretty much kick off as soon as we come back in the New Year. We agreed that one of the hardest things any election candidate has to get their heads around is the fact that, as a Sabb, you're a trustee of the Union charity first - taking on all the responsibilities and duties that go with that role - and a president/sports officer/support officer/meeja whore/etc second.

What this boils down to is having to modify your thinking a little... Ok, a lot: when it comes to making important decisions about the future of the Union, as the Sabb team each year is tasked with doing to make sure the Union continues to provide a democratic and student-focused service, you have to have your "trustee hat" on.

For me, this year, this has already brought me a couple of sleepless nights where I've had to make decisions which call into question whether it's more important to put my trustee's responsibilities first, or my media responsibilities. Without going into detail (for I fear I may be taken outside and shot... Ok, maybe not shot...) I hope I made the right calls, but sometimes the only person who can be sure your decision was the right one is you, especially if the rest of the world happens to think you're the devil incarnate for making the choice you made, because they don't understand your reasoning.

I know the other sabbs this year have also faced some tough decisions they never expected to have to make, and possibly the second hardest part of being a Sabb is going from higher education - where you have lecturers and course mates to guide you to making The Right Decision - into a role where the future isn't planned, the decisions aren't clear, and the "right" answer is only right if you believe in it, commit to it, and do the hard work which your particular decision entails to make it happen.

This rambling monologue seems to be circling a potential problem - as a former maths teacher of mine put it, "always show your workings"; it's all too easy to fall into the trap of making decisions which affect students as a Sabb team without explaining to the student body why the decision was made on their behalf, and what factors were taken into account. In fact, it's all too easy to completely miss telling students that a decision has been made by the Sabb Exec which affects them!

This year, we've made some major inroads into further developing regular lines of communication between the Sabbs and students, making it easier and more beneficial for students...

The Freshers' Ball line-up - happening on Saturday 20th October - was announced today and I have to say that, with its diverse and slightly eclectic line-up, I'm actually pretty excited about the night. (Sorry for the little plug, but I'm only saying it 'cos I think it's true...!)

The main Freshers' Ball headline act is a Scissor Sisterz tribute band which, having listened to the tunes on their website, should make for a brilliantly messy one in Lux, while CO2 is being themed in a Bhangra style, with Eastern sounds, visuals and even some Eastern flavour in the form of special cocktails. In five years of being here at the Union, I don't think I've ever know such a random and eclectic event take place, and that alone should make it one of the most fun nights of the year. Brucie Bonus: £15 is nothing to pay for a ticket to the best way to end your first few freshers weeks! (Check out the Freshers' Ball event listing for more info if you've got a minute free).

It's been a while since I've written anything here, and that's mainly thanks to spending a ridiculous amount of time on the launch of our new student newspaper, Pugwash News/Purple Wednesdays, which was swiftly followed by the traumatic workload associated with the fun of Freshers' Fayre. Since then, for the last few days I've been running around putting all our archived Pugwash content onto the iMacs so the bods who get involved in meeja this year have plenty of material to refer to - we've got Pugwashes going back to 1997, and I even found a dusty old copy of the Portsmouth Student Guide from '79 down the back of a filing cabinet - random...

I think the newspaper has been an amazing success: we printed 3,000 copies of the 12-page Pugwash News/Purple Wednesdays, and in the space of 48 hours at Freshers' Fayre and around campus, almost 2,700 copies were handed out to students. Despite having a huge range of content I want more, so every other sentence I've been uttering for the last few days has been about recruiting more people to help with the paper, and to get more ideas and content for it (interested? mediaofficer@upsu.net!).

Freshers' Fayre, while I remember, was really good - more than 200 people signed up to Pugwash! Everyone enjoyed themselves, especially the people who got to see me being gaffer-taped to a tent pole. Many videos and photos were taken and, since self-embarrassment is something I'm so good at,  I'll put them online as soon as we can edit them down.

We've also taken on two new pixel munkis, and UPEL (the trading bods who run the bars) have also been spending some time on their Social:Life section: Tom Worman (aka the Union's photographer) and Nathan Sweeney (a bars supervisor in a former life), to take up some of the workload on the website now I've got less time free to push pixels around. Mind you, I never did that much hard work really, so it's not like they're going to find it particularly hard or anything... ;o)

I should mention the Sabb team a bit, since I'm supposed to be promoting their work and all that: loads of students signed up at Freshers' Fayre to take part in clubs, societies and the Union's support and training groups, including STAND, RAG and About 321 more words in this entry