One Nation

I've recently joined this voluntary group known as 'One Nation'. It aims to help the community by getting youths off the streets via the use of sports and leisure activities.

My dads friend, Swab Ali, is the chair of the organization and asked me to be apart of One Nation, as its General Secretary/Press Officer. He saw my links with the local paper and probably thought: "i could use this guy". Anyway who am i kidding? The only reason i joined was just so i can get some experience in the voluntary sector. Apparently employers like this sort of thing.

The One Nation football team won the Barry Boltons Sunday league and so the chair thought this would be a good way of promoting One Nation as a football team aswell as One Nation, the Youth and Community organization. So they asked me to write a story for the local paper. Its also on the papers website which can be seen following this link: http://www.lutontoday.co.uk/lut/Nation-on-the-rise.5170942.jp

As the general secretary i was also assigned to create posters for One Nations and also modify its logo (at the top of this post) to make it look abit more modern. I used photoshop - obviously.

The Reality of TV

I used to think TV was real. Oh, how ignorant I was. Soon enough watching all those backbiting boardroom arguments in The Apprentice, to the misery of Luton Town losing out to Liverpool in the FA cup did start to bug me about the reality of TV. You could say I finally saw the light.

My fellow Journalism students and I at the University of Bedfordshire, had a one days work experience, shadowing the film crew in BBC's morning programme, Celebrity Cash in the Attic – a typical reality TV show. It was one of our Journalism lecturers, Kate Ironside, who gave us the opportunity of going behind the scenes and seeing how everything works in the ‘lovely’ world of television. It was Kates half-sister, Virginia Ironside who was both an author, agony aunt, and the 'celebrity' in the programme. Kate was the 'helpful friend', assisting to raid her sister’s attic for anything worth a bit of dosh.

The day we were to film, was when the bidding of the items would take place. We arrived at Chiswick Auctions in London and found ourselves hanging about for the first half hour until the film crew slowly started to warm things up. Whilst we were hanging about though we saw some famous faces there, such as Angela Rippon, the first ever woman newsreader in Britain and the presenter of the show, along with David Emanuel, the designer who created Princess Diana's wedding dress, and Maggie Philbin, a TV presenter who might you have seen in the programme, Tomorrows World. All of them were chatty and friendly, especially Maggie Philbin, who gave us some tips to get going in the media industry. She was telling us how to always take whatever chance you get and never miss an opportunity. I guess that’s how all the big players get their jobs eh?

Surprisingly, Leopard Productions, the production team behind Cash in the Attic were actually shooting four programmes on the same day, so you can imagine how hectic it was. Apart from all the urgency, Kate believes the experience was well worth while and said: "There’s an awful lot of waiting around then sudden bursts of frantic activity. It was great for the students to see the crew in action and the amount of time it takes to film a short sequence, not to mention the importance of the presenters appearing fresh and spontaneous, even if its the third or fourth take." When it was time for Kate and Virginia to speak to the presenter Angela Rippon, me and the other students just couldn’t help laughing our socks off with the amount of dramatisation and bogus reactions we were hearing. Everything was rigged! From the reactions of the presenters to their laughter!This was the real world of television. Every opportunity needs to be made to make the final edit up to scratch.

This experience showed me that this 'lovely world' of television isn't so glamorous as one would think. It’s actually a lot bloody hard work! One shot is redone about 5-6 times, so I didn't really envy my lecturer for being on TV, I was actually put off.

But at the end of the day, anyone whose face hasn’t yet been on TV, have this urge right at the back of their minds of being in front of the camera. And unfortunately that’s what happened with us. Whenever the film crew would start shooting we’d wish the camera would point at us ( I know, it’s sad) and some of us even thought about making bogus bid’s for any of the items on sale, just so the camera might point at us.
The whole experience was an eye opener and quite frankly something which needs to be done more often in universities. Kate stresses that there is no substitute for seeing the industry in action: “The aim is to get students jobs and it’s vital that they see it as it is."

AUEE conferance at Cranfield University

I write furiously while at the same time giving her a glance and making that acknowledging nod. But it’s no use. My quotes are in a mess and I can’t keep up with her answer. Damn. I knew I should’ve practised that shorthand. Next time I’ll have to be ready, but I guess it was a good experience...

If haven’t noticed, I was talking about an interview I did at a two day conference, in Cranfield University. And oh yes; this was work experience.

Universities need to give students the opportunity of work experience. The harsh reality is, it’s the only real ‘x factor’ which makes you stand out in terms of getting a job.

As a Journalism student my future career mainly depends in my contacts and any work experience I may have. I need to write and publish whatever material I can in order to have some evidence of my work as well as being different, from the rest of the ever increasing journalism students out there. So being asked to do the press coverage as a reporter, for a two day conference about how universities can contribute to help rebuild the economy, should’ve been the best that happened to me. But, I was nervous. More nervous in fact, than arachnophobe standing in front of a mirror with a daddy long leg on her head.

To be honest, I had other things on my mind like assignment deadlines, hospital appointments and fixing a computer which didn’t work. But then I thought about it. How much work experience have I actually done? Just a few days in the Herald & Post won’t get me ‘National Student Journalist of the Year’ award. So I moved my hospital appointment to another date, left my assignments on hold, and lost hope in fixing my broken computer. Now I was ready for the conference.

Some of my fellow journalism students also came along to get the experience so I felt comfortable that people were here in the same position as myself. Our main jobs were to write up a news story after every speech or workshop that occurred in the conference, with some help from our very kind and experienced journalism lecturers.

What was the hardest part of the whole experience? Probably waking up to a freezing -5 at 5:00am. But one thing that stuck in my mind was when I was in a workshop full of different industry specialists and heads of departments of various business and economic organisations. I didn’t have a clue about what they were talking about. My job was just to note what they say and so that’s what I did. But it was interesting to hear what they said. They were talking about how universities have helped their local communities, with the previous University of Luton in particular. I thought it was interesting because they helped rebuild and refocus the lives of the Vauxhall workers who were made redundant after the factory closed down ten years ago. Luton University staff trained these people and gave them the confidence and skills they needed to get back on the job market.

The conference press coverage was less ‘nerve-racking’ than I had presumed. All these experienced people and industry specialists did obviously make me nervous at first but I actually felt quite relaxed around them. Most of them were very friendly and often introduced themselves to me, rather than the other way round, which was quite welcoming.

The great thing was my transport to and from the conference was paid for by the university so that was very helpful. And free buffets; who can deny that?

Near the end of the conference I had a little interview with the UoB Vice Chancellor, Les Ebdon who’s also the chair of the AUEE (Associations of Universities in the East of England) which organised the conference. He was telling me students will find it hard in the global recession: “It’s typical of recession that younger people are the ones being affected mostly.”

He told me three pieces of advice for students who are going to enter the job market after finishing University this year.

1. The financial and economical crisis is affecting the job market but he says to students: “You clearly have to be flexible in where you work”. This means if you really want a job you have to be prepared to move to a totally different place because maybe the job that you want won’t be inside your town or city.
2. Secondly he says: “You may decide it appropriate to take a gap year to do something that will give you the experience”. But this gap year should be one that it is productive. Just sitting at home all won’t help at all. You have to get up, go out there and do some research. Look for something you really want to do and go do it. Try lots of different things, because this is the time to do it.
3. Lastly he mentions students should: “Be persistent if you know what you have to do and work harder.” This means never giving up on something you really want to do. There’s always a way around a problem – it’s just the case of you putting the effort in.

The Vice Chancellor stills thinks even in this global recession, people in the long term will definitely benefit from coming to University: “I still think and all the evidence is there that investing in yourself, investing in education is the best investment you can make.”

The whole experience was much better than I thought it would be. It made me more confident in myself and also told me the areas in which I need to improve on. This is what work experience is all about and I just hope the University of Bedfordshire creates more of these ‘rare’ opportunities for students, who will benefit immensely. More so than any 2500 word essay could...