The Half-Scarlett Award
Yesterday I attended the RGU Society awards Gala with all my fellow RGU:Radio members. It's been one year since those same members unanimously elected me as their Station Manager. The year has flown by so fast and I can only say that I'm so proud of where I, the committee and the members have taken RGU:Radio in the past year. As a second year Journalism student, the Station Manager role seemed rather overwhelming at rist, once emails, license agreements and invoices started coming trough the door. I took over an inactive society, but I had big goals for the Radio. Surely bigger than what I could realistically achieve in one year. But I saw a potential to grow RGU:Radio's influence on campus and I saw passionate members willing to work hard.
By April 13th 2019 - the day I officially handed over RGU:Radio to the new Station Manager, I had met my biggest goal, which was to create a community for people who are passionate about making audio content.
The amount of regular shows increased by 80%. To create better environment for show production, I made sure each show had a team of three to four people. In the beginning of the year every member had the chance to voice their biggest interest and the committee allocated roles after that. Every show had at least one presenter, one scriptwriter and one editor. Members were, therefore, guaranteed to work with elements and topics they were interested in - which resulted in more show. At RGU:Radio is in not an obligation to produce a show, it is a passion.
It was important to me to create more than a place where people could come to make content. I wanted to build a platform that gave students a voice and created a free and creative media outlet that connects the RGU’s students and staff. I wanted members to produce shows about their interests which resulted in shows from fashion, crime to music.
I also attempted to boost RGU:Radio's social media engangement to gain more listeners for the shows. Our instagram grew with 50 followers since September, which is a 25% increase.
RGU:Radio is a volunteer project that runs purely on our member's motivation and passion for creating audio content. I wanted to make the radio is a free space for our members to express themselves creatively, to build their portfolios in the way they wished to - either independently or with the assistance from our training officers.
Throung our monthly social activities, I believe RGU:Radio became a more open and welcoming society where all level of experience, participation level and interest was greeted and valued. We made sure that the committee was present at socials and training sessions, to make sure we were familiar faces.
During the first semester RGU:Radio hosted weekly "studio-hangouts" where members and non-members had a chance to stop by for a chat with the committee either to see the studio, ask questions or just get training or advice with radio related things.
RGU:Radio arranged a competition that gave one RGU:Radio member + one committee member a chance to go to a SRA radio training session in Edinburg. Kirsten Tait and Sarah Miller were the lucky winners.
RGU:Radio arranged training sessions for members, with training officer Sara Torre or Rose Rose, after members time schedules and two arranged training session with RGU staff technician Alan Walker.
It is with great honor that I personally for this effort received a half Scarlett Award at last night's award Gala and RGU:Radio received the "Most Improved Media Society of the Year"-Award.
It is with a heavy heart I haded over RGU:Radio to Sara Torre last night, but I have no doubt the new committee will carry the society even further. I'm off to Paris for the summer to work as a technician and producer for World Radio Paris and then a semester in Seoul awaits me.