The Union diaries

Happy Thursday!!!

I hope you are all good on this miserable Thurday afternoon, I'm certainly dandy.  I am looking forward to the blood and sweat of tonight.  Yes its another UOP boxing night.  We are sure to be victorious yet again.  Chin up opponents. 

Anyways, few things going on.  I went to the Hindu society's Garba night last week, which is a celebration of the godess Lakshmi.  I've never seen the waterhole looking so pretty! And filled with such beautifully dressed people.  I was amazed by the music and dancing and had a fab time.

Shoe boxes have been coming in all week, thank you! Last day tomorrow, so get them in please!  Two VIP events coming up on 6th and 7th of December, if your interested please email vip@upsu.net.

A few societies have decided to put on a Nightmare Before Christmas Ball at the beginning of December. Watch this space!  There will also be a society trip to Amsterdam in January.  If your society is interested please contact tom.harrison@upsu.net.

Juggling Society have been doing some workshops with Purple Door teaching kids to juggle.  Bellydancing Society's dance classes have continued to be really popular which is great for a new society.  They're on a Monday at 5pm in Nuffield centre if you fancy it. I'm gonna give it a go.

 Tomorrow night the New Music Society are doing their Rubberdub night at Bar 8 tomorrow night.  See you there!  And on November 28th the Drum & Bass Society are doing their Drum All Over Your Bass night at the same place.  I went to the last one and will be there again so don't miss it!

Oh and on a final note, Sam and Mark (Mark in particular) stop slagging me off on your show!  I seem to be a regular topic of conversationand I'm not sure I like it!  Contrary to your thoughts Mark I'm not after the attention!  Cheeky.

 Stay sweaty unionites xxxxxxxx

This has really got me thinking.

For those readers of UPSU.net, who may not know, members of the web-team can add things to the website via a restricted Content Management System (CMS). UPSU.net runs off the Mambo platform and was created, tweaked by last years MAPO Alex, and is now under the management of Mr Tom Worman. I didn't know that much about CMS's a few years ago, but maintaining a few websites has given me an understanding of what they can do, and how easily they can just slot in and 'do the task in hand'. 

A lot of CMS's happen to be free and heavily customisable and I guess this website's is no different. 

What really intrigued me however is what else we could do with this system that could allow our Union's website to be the best it could possibly be and at the same time improve the relationship between the website and its users. Now the following ideas may be looking way WAY into the future, or some may not even work, but I hope you'll be able to see where I'm coming from. 

•  Profiles-UPSU Profiles already is a firm base for what could potentially be a 'restricted/limited' rival to Facebook. I really like the fact that there is a calendar function on the main website which displays the forthcoming events and dates. Facebook, of course, is notorious for its events and group pages, but can we do something with the profiles and the Union? Imagine being able to add yourselves to these events within UPSU.net and then have reminders et al sent out to you. Whilst Facebook is awesome, we can't expect it to be up forever and with it being events within OUR Union, I reckon having the event management withing OUR website would improve the exclusivity. 
• Still on the topic of UPSU Profiles,would it be possible to have some form of status updates like on Facebook/MySpace/Twitter.  These status's could then be imported directly onto the front page under a 'What are YOU doing?' style box so we could have: 'Joey Bloggs is getting ready for Purple Wednesdays'. The only problem I can see with the logistics is that people may end up promoting other nightclubs/bars outside of UPSU/UPEL which isnt really ideal. 
• Fred Bradley mentioned an idea about using Twitter to allow the Sabbs to update the website easily. In my opinion, that is a superb idea as it keeps things ticking nicely and even if there is no major breaking news in Portsmouth one evening, it would still be nice to see the page change with the latest news on who's turn it is to make the hot chocolates!

On that note, I think I'm going to go down to the kitchen and make me a cup of hot chocolate!

Ever heard of Tchoukball????

Well most people at the University haven't until now!

We are one of only two new AU Clubs to the university and want to establish the club as the Best University at playing Tchoukball!

Unlike most clubs we have the opion that if you are committed to the club and turn up to the training sessions then you will play and represent the University and the AU!

So why should you join our club.......

1) We are coached by the GB Captain, Dave Going and other GB Players who have played Tchoukball at International Level.
2) All the training sessions are locally based in Southsea
3) Links with the Portsmouth Tchoukball Club (Local Tchoukball Club in the area)
4) Tournemonts and Matches organised regularlly and locally played
5) A Committee that believes that every member of the club can play and is good enough to play for the University and the AU so will represent the University instead of just being a social member!

If you would like more information then please look at our website;

www.uoptchoukballclub.sports.officelive.com

It's been an incredibly humbling few days for me recently with not only the rememberance service in Guildhall but also an ex-graduates memorial service today at the Students' Union.

To stare into the eyes of a silent soldier in the pouring rain at the Guildhall in Portsmouth has got to have been one of the most sobering moments of recent times in my life. I'll freely admit i had very little respect of rememberance sunday other than doing the minutes silence, mainly i think due to my own personal ignorance but Sunday really highlighted to me the strength and passion of these soldiers who put their lives on the line for our country. 

I never actually spoke to any of the veterans but you could tell these hero's had seen and been involved with more than you could ever imagine. As the rain poured down on the many hundreds (if not thousands) of people stood in Guildhall in honour of both the fallen and survivors of our military services i couldn't help think to myself how cold it was but that there was no way i could complain about it knowing just what these people had been through to keep our country safe.

Sunday was a truely emotional day but really started me thinking about life, and then Heather Small's song "Proud" came into my head, what is it today that makes me feel proud? Is it the 80+ hours worked last week, the vast amounts of marketing material we have produced, the volunteers who support the union and the services we offer or the way we as a Union work as a team to provide the best we can possibly do.

Well, it's all of it, and none of it Don't get me wrong i'm PROUD of how fantastic we are as a Union and those who are actively involved, but on a personal level i start to challenge myself what exactly I have done to make ME PROUD? Well for that i'm not truely sure. I'll get back to you on that, I took the job to make a difference - i'm just not sure what that difference is yet!!!

I couldn't write that title on the homepage of Pure FM as it's not 'PC' enough, but here it's my blog, thus my "opinion", it's amusing, although I have to say, I really hate the way that the Media (especially the Tabloids) blow a story to high heaven with over the top headline. Seriously, go and type "sachsgate" into Google... it's everywhere. 

Anyway, on with the post, below is an article that I wrote for Pure FM's Homepage, but figured that it'll be just as useful and interesting here.. plus here you can write your comments as well!

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross. Photographs: BBC

By now, anyone that hasn't had their head in the ground would have most likely heard about the latest BBC scandal, revolving around a pre-recorded segment on Russell Brand's show, on BBC Radio 2. We believe that as most viewers of this site, are radio enthusiasts we should do a little research, and bring the news straight to the front page.

• What's all the fuss about? [Read the Transcript]
• Media Guardian Podcast with discussion on the issue, and audio of the indident.
  NOTE: This programme contains the same fruity language Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand have used on Radio 2.
• Why have people resigned? [More about the BBC hierarchy]
• Repercussions [Controller of Radio2 Resigns]
• Repercusions [Suspension could cost £500,000]
• Lesley Douglas, Former BBC Radio 2 Controller
  
• Collegues' thoughts [Chris Evans]
• Collegues' thoughts [Paul Gambaccini]
• Director General's Letter to BBC Staff (PDF)
  
• What happens now? [BBC Trust Statment]