This week at the University of Gloucestershire it the Students’ Union Elections, and the SU radio station, Tone Radio, has been providing live coverage of each Question Time event.
It has been a weird week, because I have spent most of my evenings so far this week in the various SU bars across all university campuses – not being someone who drinks, I’ve only used the SU bar at my own campus (Park) once or twice!
On Tuesday, we were at the Oxtalls campus in Gloucester, last night we were at FCH and tonight we’re at the Park campus (both in Cheltenham).
I’ve been to FCH once or twice before, but never to Oxtalls. Oxtalls, for those who don’t know, is where the sporty students live. FCH has a lot of people doing ‘proper subjects’ – English and Geography. There is a higher proportion of female students than at other campuses. Park is where the media courses are based, along with the business and computing students.
Not knowing my way around Oxtalls, I managed to get lost. I found my way to the refectory though, booted up my laptop and tweeted the university to ask where on earth I could find the SU bar. I looked at a campus map, and realised I was on the wrong side of the campus. I found my way ther eventually, via Johnny and the library.
SU Election Question Time is where election candidates answer questions from students in the audience. Some questions are very in-depth, challenging those with controversial policies. Others are more ‘fun’ questions: “If you could be an animal, which one would it be” and “What biscuit would you like to be”.
With the Oxtalls QT session being very sport-biased, and the FCH QT session being very general, quite challenging for many candidates, I hear that media students want their say now.
And I have a question that I am going to be asking on behalf of all Radio Production students.
If you could sum up your election campaign with the title of a BBC Radio 4 programme, which one would it be and why?
Based on what I’ve seen already, I’m thinking that this will be quite challenging for this year’s candidates.
I do have a more serious question as well, as some candidates have in their manifestos that they want to give students Wednesdays off across all campuses to allow for sport and other extra curricular activities. So I want to know how this is realistic, given that there is very little flexibility at the moment as there are so many lectures which have to take place in the Media Centre at Park.
Come along to the bar at Park campus tonight for your final chance to question the candidates. It starts at 7pm, and will be broadcast live on Tone Radio as well. And don’t forget to listen to the results show at thr same time tomorrow night.
FH.
