Sad times at Portsmouth Students’ Union as key venues close and staff numbers slashed
There is outrage among students at Portsmouth University after the sudden announcement that the students’ union’s two nightclub venues are to close at the end of the week, with the loss of up to fifty part- and full-time jobs, in order to make way for an alcohol-free “flexible learning space”.
The University of Portsmouth and the students’ union’s charity, UPSU, have been in discussions on the future of the union’s nightclub venues for more than two years. An internal briefing paper written in 2007 by then-president Chris Yorke, referring to a “third space”, asked the UPSU’s sabbatical team to consider how the union’s venues could be repurposed.
Commentators have observed that the timing of the announcement, made in the last few days of the academic year and as the majority of students leave for the summer, is almost certainly a tactical move designed to hinder the organisation of opposition campaigns.
UPSU, the students’ union’s charity which is responsible for student representation at the university, claimed that students had requested the changes, stating on their website: “After a consultation exercise in 2008, students expressed a strong desire for a flexible learning space where they can work individually or in groups.”
The article does not mention whether any further news was published regarding the changes before yesterday’s announcement was made.
Students attempting to call for debate on the announcement at an EGM held in the students’ union on Tuesday 2nd June have complained of not being allowed to have their say. A further emergency meeting has been scheduled for Friday 5th June, with opponents rallying support through social networking sites such as Facebook.
The union’s main venue, the 1,200-capacity nightclub “Lux”, has been the subject of vocal criticism of its redesign as a “white box” in the summer of 2005, after the failure of the union’s trading company.
During this change, the Lux nightclub was redesigned as a multi-purpose space, with the room to be used as a lecture and examination hall during the day, and a nightclub venue at night.
However, the room’s design was criticised by many as being too bare. Almost all fixtures and fittings were removed, with basic furniture including stools and benches replacing the seating features.
Despite these changes, the room was rarely used for academic purposes, standing empty during daytimes for much of the following years, or being used by clubs and societies as a training space.
With the closure of the two nightclub venues, which have seen a dwindling number of students attending following these refurbishments, only a downstairs bar and restaurant will remain, with the union’s night-time capacity slashed from around 2,250 to 500.
It is understood that the remaining venue, “The Waterhole”, will continue to operate with a small permanent staff team, supported by a small number of part-time student staff. Staff wishing to continue working for the union’s trading company – UPEL – in the remaining positions are expected to have to reapply for their jobs.
The students’ union’s trading company – UPSU Trading – was placed into administration in the summer of 2005 after strugging to make a profit, with the operation of the union’s trading activities being taken over by the University of Portsmouth company, UPEL.
Between the 2005 and 2008, one of the trading company’s key positions – that of entertainments manager – was taken over by the security manager after the departure of Richard Dore-Dennis, who had run the venue’s entertainments since 2004.
Marketing was similarly under-staffed, with no official position relating to the marketing of the union’s trading company events.
A Facebook group has been set up to protest against the closures and to coordinate a campaign against the closures, and a number of students have demanded the calling of an EGM to put forward motions both against the closure, and against the students’ union’s handling of the announcement.
Further information
- Press release by Portsmouth Students’ Union
- “R.I.P. Lux and CO2″ Facebook campaign group
- Event: “A chance to have your say” – Friday 5th June, Portland Building room 1.53, Portsmouth University
- University of Portsmouth Students’ Union
- University of Portsmouth
Apologies for the random post. Normal service will be resumed shortly… :o)
Posted by Alex on Thu 4th June 2009
Ross/Brand – how not to let a molehill become a mountain (version 2,137)
This thought-provoking blog entry by the BBC’s Steve Bowbrick on how the BBC might have been able to avoid the media storm is well worth a look:
This is interesting for me: in my last job at Portsmouth students’ union, I remember trying – and failing – to express as eloquently as Steve has exactly why openness in a crisis is A Good Thing, and this school of thinking – be open and honest with your stakeholders and always maintain a dialogue – is one I really do believe in (uhhm, unless you’re MI5…).
Well worth a read, especially if you’re in a position of power in any company. Or if you’re bored ;o)
Posted by Alex on Tue 18th November 2008
Bye bye, Portsmouth!
(This has been lifted from my UPSU work blog)
Well folks, that’s all from me. As of 5pm last night I ceased to be an employee of the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union. Tom Worman has officially taken over the reins of the Media & Publications Officer role, and as I speak is probably swinging 50 new projects into action.
I’ve been employed by the Union in one capacity or another for one month short of the last six years, so it’s quite strange to think that yesterday was the last time I’d be poking around the place as an employee. In my time there, I’ve learnt to pull the perfect snakebite (although I’ve probably forgotten how to, as well) as a bar monkey, put together and run a sound system and lighting rig as an ents monkey, been involved in designing, building and running the website as a pixel monkey, and – for the last year – been the media officer, looking after the Union’s student media output.
I’ve made a few friends, upset plenty of people, and been given some very cool opportunities, so really this is a thankyou from me to everyone who’s made the last six years – and especially the last year – as fun, interesting, and challenging as it could have been.
I’m not sure what’s next for me. I have a one-way ticket to Ibiza booked for this Saturday, and I’ll be out there looking for a job and a flat with next year’s Pugwash editor Steph Hall. We might only survive a week and find there’s nowhere to live, or we might get lucky and make it through the last two months of the summer season – I really don’t know. If you fancy laughing at me, join the Facebook group and I’ll keep you updated on the latest stupid thing I’ve done…
No doubt I’ll be in the news soon for being involved in some embarrassing scandal involving a goat and a nudists’ beach in Ibiza…
Rena, Elle, Mike, Steve, Jaf, Fraggy, Tom, Jacob, Tallie, Laura, Pete, other Pete, Ben, Darby, other Steve, Jo, Karen, Tracey, Cherelyn, Sharon, Graeme, Wayne, Cat, Gamel, other Tom, Aakash, Caroline, Gina, Fred, Maz, Sloppy, Carl, Clive, Jim, Ryan, Rob, Hannah, Bex, Shrey, Rich, Alex, Scott, Janet, Stuart, John, Mario, Adrian… ok, «everyone» at the Union: thanks :)
Good luck Tom, goodbye everybody and, of course, bloody cheers :o)
/al
Posted by Alex on Fri 1st August 2008
A common problem
(This post was originally published on my work blog)
It is strangely encouraging to see that, about the same time that Pugwash News was suffering its own dramas during issue 9 this year, Imperial College Union’s Felix newspaper was suffering as a result of non-editorial pressure to censor itself.
This isn’t going to be a rant – or any kind of discussion – about the role of independent student media within a parent students’ union institution, but it is interesting to read the following comment:
“We decided not to take the “publish and be damned” approach because it is ridiculous that Editor after Editor, year after year, Felix should keep coming up against the same problems over censorship by the constitution.
“Felix is regularly faced with the question of whether it is allowed by the Union to publish its news stories that are in the public interest. This is what must change.”
Pugwash News, and Pugwash Online (currently at upsu.net/news, but for how long?) will inevitably – if it is doing what it’s designed to do – run into similar problems next year. This year has already seen several occasions where the publications have been specifically instructed not to publish, for a variety of reasons, stories which have been arguably in the public interest.
That’s not to say that every story which was pulled was in the public interest, of course, but this year’s introduction of a newspaper and larger news-orientated media team has led the Union into a lot of previously unchartered territory, and has naturally caused concern among some members as to the role of student media – should it be an unbiased source of incisive observation about the effectiveness of the Union and the University? Or is it ever right to play down the problems and bad news encountered by its parent institution?
While it is important for students’ unions to act in the best interests of their membership, there are cases around the country where student media editors have questioned whether censorship has been thrust upon them appropriately, or whether it has been done to save face or due to an overcautious approach to information dissemination by their union, as is the case with the Felix article I mentioned above; for the sake of Portsmouth’s students and the Union’s media, I hope this never needs to happen again.
Two more days to go for me at Portsmouth, but the learning curve still continues…
Posted by Alex on Tue 29th July 2008
Two weeks left – time’s ticking…
I’ve just realised that I only have two weeks left in office. That’s two weeks to change the world, train Tom (my successor) in changing the world, write a whole raft of training documentation for Tom and whoever else is unfortunate enough to have to tidy up my mess after I’m gone, and God-knows what else.
Fun times ahead indeed… ;o)
Posted by Alex on Thu 17th July 2008
Here’s where we’re at…
The Union Council report of a Media & Publifications Numpty, aged 19 and 36/4…
This month, UPSU’s media bods have mainly been focusing their attention on…
Pure FM
- The 24-hour broadcast is looming – as February’s Union Council happens, the broadcast will be underway, with charity fund-raising eBay auctions taking place every hour throughout the day. Tune in! www.purefm.com
- The Pure FM Masterclass – with radio professionals including Radio 1’s BB Aled – is pretty much booked up now, and everyone’s getting ridiculously excited at the prospect of seeing Real Live Celebridees talking radio… ;o) Well done, Pure!
Pugwash magazine
- Issue 3 is out – well done to the team for working so hard on this issue, especially as the end-of-semester period is horribly packed with exams and coursework deadlines, so huuuuge thanks go to everyone who worked so hard. You can pick up a copy around campus now, visit www.pugwashmag.com to download it, or drop into the Union to get yours!
- Distribution of the magazine has been good again, although I think there is a general awareness that we can be more proactive in getting the magazine to a wider audience – watch this space!
- Thanks go to the Pugwash team for their extra hard work in re-jigging the magazine to take into account the change in space availability due to advertising.
Pugwash News & PWs newspaper
- Issues 9 and 10 came out on deadline (although issue 10 then went back in, had a think about it, took off its front cover and came out again…) and both issues received widespread distribution.
- Issue 9 was also a first as we had advertising for the first time – woohoo!
- Sadly, issue 9 fell victim to a very unfortunately-worded article, which resulted in us having to print a full apology and retraction to the University. Here’s what I had to say about this matter in my editorial in issue 10 of the newspaper:“You may have spotted that the front covers from the last issue were conspicuously absent. As you may also have spotted, this issue carries a sincere apology to the University from the Union, relating to the article printed in the last issue which we had to cut out. The last two weeks have been very stressful for a number of the newspaper team and Union staff, as we worked hard to put new systems in place to try to prevent any reoccurrences of the problems which beset that issue.
-
“As Media & Publications Officer I want to extend my thanks to all the staff and students involved with the Union, and the staff at the University, who have shown a great deal of patience and understanding while we worked to fix our mistakes, and I am happy that we can now move on with a lot more confidence problems like this one should be avoidable in the future.
“Once again, many thanks to everyone involved for working so hard this issue, and I hope you as our readership haven't lost any faith in the Union's youngest publication just yet.” - As a result, a new system for tracking content submissions has been put in place for both publications, and is mentioned below…
Contributor teams – features, news and reviews
- Pugwash and Pugwash News are both supplied by the same three teams of news, features and reviews bods. Due to the newspaper’s issue 9 problems, we have a funky new paper-based tracking system which has – understandably – caused a lot of headaches for the editorial teams as we work together to put theory into practice. However, despite having only three days’ warning and a lunatic sleep-deprived MAPO to guide them, everyone involved in issue 10 of Pugwash News managed to put out a great issue, and one which I intend to be one of our candidates for the media awards this year, so – again – a huge thank you to everyone who worked so hard :o)
UPSU.net and other online goodness
Nothing much to report here…
- We have a funky new “rotorvator” thing which does geeky pixellated magic on the homepage, the Social:Life section (upsu.net/sociallife) has had a revamp, the biggest-ever elections minisite (upsu.net/elections) is online, and we have a videos page (upsu.net/video and youtube.com/upsuportsmouth) which will be playing host to the bazillions of videos I’m hoping to be able to produce during elections and as we digitise the hundreds of hours of video footage we’ve accumulated over the last couple of years.
- Loads of photos of the Refreshers’ Fayre can be found on our new galleries – at upsu.net/galleries – and on our Flickr pages – at flickr.com/photos/upsuportsmouth
- … and a couple of videos of the Refreshers’ Fayre can be found on our videos page – at upsu.net/videos and at youtube.com/upsuportsmouth – enjoy!
- The Union also has a Facebook fan page, which you can find by typing in www.upsu.net/facebook – very bling…
- … and a similarly bling “I’m voting in the UPSU Elections 2008” Facebook badge application, which you can find on our Facebook page.
UPSU Media in general
- With elections fast approaching (as I type this, there seems to be veritable pile-up of people filling out candidate pack forms in the Sabb office), we have cautiously agreed to invest in a brace of highly-recommended hard-disk video cameras to capture reams of elections footage for the purpose of a) posterity, and b) candidates’ embarrassment. Of course we don’t want to embarrass candidates. But when they do funny things, I’m hoping to be there!
- I understand that we are in the envious position of being able to offer a number of advertising opportunities in our magazine and newspaper publications, so if you know of any businesses which offer a service of relevance to the student population, please encourage them to get in touch!
Some related UPSU Media things for your perusal…
- Upsu.net/facebook – our Facebook fan page
- Upsu.net/galleries – photo galleries galore
- Flickr.com/photos/upsuportsmouth – loads of photos
- Upsu.net/video – our YouTube videos on UPSU.net
- Youtube.com/upsuportsmouth – a few videos, and more to come
- Upsu.net/blogs – the UPSU blogs (including mine – a shameless plug, I know…)
p.s….: the things I completely forgot to mention in my official report…
- Elections! Candidates are now announced, and there are some surprises – the two most-popular positions from years past are uncontested this year, and the candidates are a wide-ranging group. The next four weeks will be interesting and fun, no doubt… ;o) upsu.net/elections
- Did I mention the shiny new video cameras? ;o)
Posted by Alex on Thu 21st February 2008
More random pics: Giant Jenga…
Random photos from a random Giant Jenga game in the UPSU Sabb office. Well, it was half 9 in the evening, and we were still at work…
9.30pm and still in the office? It must be Giant Jenga time…
Working a typically late Tuesday night. Suddenly, the Pure FM and Pugwash bods in the office discover Sarah B's Giant Jenga and it all gets a bit messy… ;o)
By the way, we don't normally have big kids' games in work – it's just that tomorrow's the Re-Freshers' Fayre, so there's a lot going on at the moment… :o)
Concentration…
Clearly, Ben can't handle the pressure and leaves as Gina goes for a tough shot with the Giant Jenga. It's ok though – her tactics paid off…
Caroline pops in to show off Gamel's latest creation
Gamel Oki, Pugwash mag designer and editor extraordinaire, made this with his eyes shut… Ok, he didn't have his eyes closed, but who cares – very eye-catching design based on the design of the Pugwash mag reviews pages.
If you're online or near the Union on the 21st/22nd Feb, tune in to Pure FM to hear their 24 hour eBay-tastic broadcast!
Now you've done it…
… and then Maz goes and makes a mess of it all. Maaaaaaaaaaz!!! ;o)
Posted by Alex on Tue 12th February 2008
Today, I have mainly been…
… taking random photos:
Indian Summer at the Union – woo, sunshine!!
Students enjoy the sunshine with a drink outside in the sun. Colder weather is forecast for tomorrow, though :o(
Ideas and photography
Jacob, news editor, drafts ideas for the reorganisation of our online news content.
On screen you can see Aperture displaying one of yesterday's photos of the CopyShop clothing range.
My desk is a busy place during the day…
New toys!
Ooh, new toys for Pure FM! The student radio station's brand new audio recorder arrives on my desk.
The speakers in the background are my desk set-up, running off a decommissioned 700W PA amp from the nightclub venue across the road
Posted by Alex on Tue 12th February 2008
Where does UPSU Media stand?
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, there has been little if any culture of news journalism at the Union, so this issue hasn't been covered before (as far as I know!).
The way the Union and its student media teams work together to judge what is and isn't ok to publish – based on whether a story is fair and balanced, and not on whether the story will make the Union look bad – will probably need a little more fine-tuning over time, but I'm confident that the foundations are well in place now, so that when Pugwash News decides to publish a story calling me all the names under the sun (and I have no doubt they will at some point… ;o), I can't pull the story just because I don't want the world to know I'm a numpty!
What it boils down to is this: unless the students of Portsmouth can be confident that UPSU Media isn't just a propaganda dissemination service for the students' union – and, no, I'm not saying it currently is – then it can never be taken seriously by the students it targets.
So much of UPSU Media is brand-new that everyone involved knows that we have a long way to go in many areas, but the one thing I'm confident of is that we have some of the best student journalists and one of the strongest voices Portsmouth has seen in many years. Let's keep it up!
Posted by Alex on Mon 7th January 2008