Hello everyone,
Given the success of our first newsletter of 2024, we’re going to continue with this method going forward. I’ll just include the usual reminder to grab our free membership if you haven’t already and wish to take part.
Here are some confirmed key dates coming up:
- 18th March | 18:30 – 20:00 | 34/1025 | Workshop/EGM
- 12-14th April – SPANC
Onto the more detailed stuff:
Change and Adaptation Magazine
Remember how it was mentioned in the previous newsletter that some past issues came home to roost, causing delays? Just when we thought we were in the clear some more things came to light. Seeing as saying that everything is solved seems to summon new hurdles, I will instead say that lots more has been learnt and that we have cleared all known obstacles to the magazine being available within the next 7 days. Keep an eye out for that news!
As for what we’ve learnt from the process, aside from a plethora of skills we have cemented our belief that it is paramount to the survival of Wessex Scene that the skills and knowledge required to run the publication are kept as communal as possible. Though it may not be possible for everybody to know everything (at least within the timeframe and constraints of being a student) if, collectively, our members know everything a few times over, losing more talented members (either to graduation, employment, exploring other opportunities, etc.) shouldn’t be as devastating.
EDIT: shortly after this bit was written, we received confirmation that this magazine has gone to print! It will be available on Highfield, Avenue, and WSA campuses very soon! (EDIT3: What delay?)
Workshops
With the weekly workshops for the Luck and Superstition magazine having come to an end, we will be returning to our less regular schedule. Combining what we’ve learnt from the recent workshops and the process of putting together the Change and Adaptation magazine, the upcoming workshop on Monday the 18th of March will focus more on smaller groups discussing elements of print media. The goal is that you can leave the workshop feeling inspired and hopefully a little more knowledgeable; if you’re able to produce anything during the workshop itself, that’s a bonus!
As usual, our workshops are intended to be accessible to people of all ability levels. Whether it’s your first workshop and you’ve never done anything like this before or you’re a seasoned journalist, there will be something for you to do! Bring friends and have fun!
EGM Updates
February Outcome
Firstly, congratulations to Lucy and Jack for being elected as Head of Design and Events Secretary respectively during the EGM on the 19th of February. At that EGM we also passed a constitutional amendment allowing us to use instant-runoff voting when we elect committee members. For a short time, we had a full committee! Sadly, it wasn’t to last which leads us to the next point…
March EGM
We will be holding elections for a new Social Media & Advertising Manager and an additional Content Editor. It is always worth noting that as a student society, our committee roles are intended to be entry-level and a learning experience; although it can help, you are not expected to have any prior experience. This is also something that you can use on your CV as work experience (something which has helped many past members get jobs later on). The application form, linked below, just requires you to answer a few questions which our members will be able to read before they vote.
Apply to join the committee here!
As an aside: there is no harm in applying even if you don’t think you will get the role. All too often, we’ve had cases of no applications followed by several people saying they were interested but didn’t apply because they didn’t think they’d get the position; ironically, had they applied, one of them would have got the position. There is no shame in not being elected, if anything, it just demonstrates that you are serious about helping Wessex Scene become bigger and better! As the old saying, frequently attributed to Wayne Gretzky, goes:
You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take
Here’s a quick explanation of the two roles up for grabs:
Social Media & Advertising Manager
This role is in charge of our social media accounts, this will see you making posts and deciding on the general direction of our presence on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. You will also be in charge of organising promotion for Wessex Scene in addition to being a potential contact point for any advertising matters. This role is a good opportunity to develop skills in leadership/management, online marketing, and even graphic design (being able to put text over an image is more than adequate for this position). Naturally, this role is a great supplement for people doing business-related degrees but it also presents some great opportunities for design students.
Content Editor
This role sees you work alongside the other Content Editors to check articles before they are published and generally help other members out. This role provides opportunities to develop skills in journalism, writing, and general communication. This role is historically popular with students studying degrees involving lots of essay writing (English, History, Politics and other Social Sciences, etc.) but also people studying anything relevant to our sections (or even those with related hobbies).
Voter Turnout
If you are reading this, please please, please try to engage with our votes/elections! Despite our growing membership since the start of the 23/24 academic year, our voter turnout has remained almost the same. Ballots (which include all the candidate information) are emailed to all of our members (see the link at the beginning of this newsletter to join) during the session where the EGMs take place; if you receive a link to the ballot, you are entitled to vote. Although you will be asked to log in with your university account to access the ballot, this is purely for validation purposes, the votes themselves are anonymous.
If you can vote, please do so! The outcomes of these votes can majorly affect the direction that Wessex Scene takes, don’t leave it to chance!
Luck and Superstition Magazine
We’d like to extend a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this magazine so far! Today is officially the last day to submit articles for inclusion in this magazine! If you have any issues or need extra time then please do contact us!
If you can slip something in before we’ve finished editing the articles then you might just get away with it, but there are no guarantees!
There are still opportunities to get involved with providing imagery for this magazine, do get in touch if you would like to do this!
Committee Meetings
This is a general reminder that all of our members are welcome to attend committee meetings. We always appreciate an extra helping hand with running the society and there are a lot of smaller jobs which can be carried out by willing members who are not on the committee.
Currently, the committee meets once a month (and we have text-based progress checks between meetings), you can view the provisional committee meeting schedule for this academic year here.
You can view the minutes of previous meetings here.
Collaborations
We have some exciting collaborative events coming up which have yet to be set in stone. Some of them are on the edge of being announced whilst some are still just concepts.
I may have dropped a hint or two as to what to expect…
Also, we are open to collaborating with any society that wants to do so! We are a student paper after all. We will always welcome any society that wants to send somebody to us to write up a piece on any recent activities or achievements, whether you’re a sports team looking to publicise your latest results or an activist/awareness group looking to raise awareness of a cause, our platform is here for you to take advantage of!
General Opportunities
Being a publication, we can potentially get press access to things. If you’re interested in reporting on something, let us know and we might be able to get you in! (Restaurants are a common one we’ve done in the past)
SPANC 2024
The Student Publication Association National Conference 2024 is in Bristol this year, this will feature talks from industry professionals from a range of outlets as well as the national awards ceremony. This is a great opportunity to meet like-minded people from student publications from across the UK!
There are only a few days remaining to purchase tickets with accommodation included!
They also have a financial assistance scheme which can be found via the link below.
Those of us who have been before have thoroughly enjoyed it and it would be great if some of us could make it to this one! Check out SPANC here!
Imagery Policy
Just to reiterate from last time, we cannot publish any images for which we do not have written permission to use. Images created or otherwise directly supplied to us for use in an article are fine but must still be correctly credited (else they risk being taken down by a future editor who cannot confirm the source). The easiest way to do this is to include a credit in the image caption, you may also wish to include any other details in the description which is not visible publicly. Here’s an example of how to do this using the image from this newsletter:
For in-article images, the caption will appear below as demonstrated above.
This information must be included as the fines for publishing images that we do not have permission to use can be hefty. It is also worth noting that many images are offered online with Creative Commons licences but those may not always be valid for our use case and are best avoided unless you can acquire written permission from the copyright holder. Similarly, it is worth double-checking things listed as Public Domain just in case but if in doubt, do not use an image.
For those interested, the ideal resolution for article header images is 1480×720 (or a multiple of this). Other sizes can work, they just might not display in full.
Closing words
Thank you for reading! Hopefully, something in there was useful to you; in future, we might experiment with making these a bit shorter but more frequent since this one feels a little too long… As usual, feel free to reach out to us with any questions!
Regards,
The Wessex Scene Committee
