2019/20
From April 2019 to March 2020, STAR did... Many things. The position of Head of Production was reintroduced to create jingles (imaging) for the station, which had been completely absent for many years. starTV was created in an attempt to fill the void left by BubbleTV collapsing a few years before. The colour scheme changed from orange/light blue/white to yellow/black/white. Starchive was created to start collating photos together with the history of the station. Starchive also took over the recording of podcasts from Tay-Tay, and the website server was changed from RapidSwitch to DigitalOcean, saving hundreds of pounds in each subsequent year.
The show schedule was expanded to every possible hour, i.e. the same as the Union's open hours. This resulted in 116 possible show slots (9am-2am every day, minus midnight-2am Sunday and 1-2am Monday). At peak (late in semester 1), there were 111 active shows, with most of the empty slots at 9am and 1am. Applications for new shows were allowed throughout the semester, in contrast to previous years. Show photos were organised for the first time since 2014/15 (citation needed).
A focus was put on live music, with numerous bands travelling from across Scotland to play at Sounds of Sandy's, in addition to the usual student music in Rector's Cafe, Bell Pettigrew Museum, etc. The station's slogan changed from "Tune in to St Andrews" to "Listen responsibly", which was also used in 2013/14.
A list of future ideas was started, and general STAR updates were posted on STAR Broadcasting Officer 2019/20.
The last month of the committee was disrupted by the coronavirus lockdown, during which the Students' Association building closed, and the University told students to go home.
Contents
Committee
| Position | Name |
|---|---|
| Station Manager | Tom Groves |
| Deputy Station Manager | Blandine Hoge |
| Secretary | Jordan McKay |
| Head of Finance | Emma Stitt |
| Head of Programming | Anna Rose Harris |
| Head of Marketing | Julia Swerdlow |
| Head of Design | Maia Rakovic |
| Head of Production | Jamie Rees |
| Head of Video | Calum Esler |
| Head of Music | Greer Ross-McLennan |
| Head of Events | Alex Ehrenberg |
| Head of News | Cady Crowley |
| Head of Web | Nirmal Rajesh |
| Head of Development | Kieran Wallbanks |
| Head Technician | Emily Baxter |
| Hearing Aid Print Editor | Lucy Bidie |
| Hearing Aid Online Editor | Evelyn Benson |
| Assistant Head of Design | Roberto García |
| Assistant Head of Web | Harris Hutchison |
| Assistant Head of News | Shannon Fox |
| Assistant Head of Programming | Rose Kleeger |
| Assistant Head of Music | Olivia Ramo |
| Assistant Head Technician | Andrew Barron |
Statistics
- Committee applications (March): 46 (incl. 9 for Head of Music) for 15 positions (3.1/position)
- Committee assistant applications (September): 15 (incl. 4 for Head of Music) for 6 positions (2.5/position)
- Semester 1 show applications (September): 124
- Accepted/rejected: roughly 105/1 (after duplicates and withdrawals over confusion about regular rotation)
- Semester 1 show applications (throughout semester): 13
- Accepted/rejected: 12/1
- Semester 1 cancelled shows: 2 dropped out; 3 removed
- Semester 2 show applications (January): 134
- Funding from Students' Association: £5,500 (incl. £1,700 for Hearing Aid)
Starchive
Starchive was created by Kieran Wallbanks in 2019. Most significantly for shows, this meant that recordings of each show were now available online, immediately. Starchive records podcasts from the broadcast stream, and makes files available at the end of each recording. In contrast, the previous setup involved "Tay-Tay", an old computer in the studio control room running Windows 7, which recorded audio via a direct input from the studio. Show hosts then had to collect the recordings using a USB stick. Tay-Tay had become increasingly unreliable, due to problems with both Windows 7 and the previous website server. The new setup makes it easier to record external broadcasts.
Sounds of Sandy's
The Sounds of Sandy's series began in September 2019. The concept was to invite a Scottish band to St Andrews to perform in Sandy's Bar, every Saturday night of the semester. To fund this, the Director of Events and Services allocated funds left over for the recently collapsed Music is Love subcommittee. This allowed STAR to spend an average of around £100 on each Saturday night. Entry was always free.
T-shirt competition
Submissions were open over the winter break. Almost every design received was posted on Facebook. One like counted as one vote. Voting was open for one week. The winner received £50 from STAR.
Results
| Name | Votes |
|---|---|
| Catherine Laugharn | 178 |
| Danaja Kurnik | 170 |
| Rosie Landon | 134 |
| Alexandra Rive | 103 |
| Megan Beattie | 88 |
| Hanabi Blackmoor | 78 |
| Mandy Li | 68 |
| Rhys Hague | 66 |
| Noni FH | 45 |
| Surina Martin | 42 |
| Martin Caforio | 35 |
| Maia Rakovic | 32 |
| Melissa Wright | 32 |
| Quinn Fagersten | 21 |
| Roberto Garcia | 9 |
| Chris O'Leary | 8 |
STAR Awards
The STAR awards were held virtually this year due to the outbreak of COVID-19 through an event on Facebook. In total there were 7 categories, shown below.
Best New Show
| Show Name | Outcome |
|---|---|
| 6-0-fun | W |
| Alphabeatz | N |
| Broadway Banter | N |
| Those Labour Girls | N |
| Her Talk | N |
Best Solo Show
| Show Name | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Girl Talk | W |
| Tennessee Whiskey | N |
| Eco-Activist Journeys | N |
| Young Love Club | N |
| OKUK. | N |
Funniest Show
| Show Name | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Anything Goes | W |
| The Second Sound | N |
| Good Morning St. Andrews | N |
| Stuck in the Middle | N |
| Happy Hour | N |
Most Educational Show
| Show Name | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Fully Stocked | N |
| HiGuys History | W |
| Friends with Flags | N |
| Hispanoblast | N |
| Sabbs on STAR | N |
Best Music
| Show Name | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Gecko Hour | N |
| Nick's House | N |
| Cosmic Explorations | W |
| What's Poppin'? | N |
| RockSTAR | N |
Best Marketing
| Show Name | Outcome |
|---|---|
| JSM | N |
| Into the Void | W |
| Doubledykes Rodeo | N |
| Wet the Bed Again | N |
| Girl Talk | N |
People's Choice Award
| Show Name | Outcome |
|---|---|
| OKUK. | N |
| ...Unless? | W |
| Into the Void | N |
| Memory Lane | N |
| JSM | N |
STAR Honorary Lifetime Membership
This award to given out to shows that had been running on STAR for the whole duration of the hosts time at the University. A total of 7 shows were awarded honorary lifetime membership.
| Show Name |
|---|
| Bubble Rap |
| FC Politics |
| Flapjack Various |
| HiGuys History |
| Miriam and Claire |
| Tennessee Whiskey |
| The Second Sound |
Programming
Website
Numerous changes were made to the website:
- The colour scheme was changed to yellow/black/white.
- The theme's built-in interactive schedule was used instead of a screenshot of the schedule.
- The main contact email was changed from radio@ to [email protected].
- The "Events" tab was updated regularly
- A "Merch" tab was added.
- The layout of the "Team" page was changed.
- A "Music" tab was added to list student and local artists.
- Musicians could ask to be added to this list by completing a Google form.
- A "Shows" tab was added and allows for shows to be filtered by category.
- Shows could ask to have the information shown on their page changed by completing a Google form
- The archive subdomain was created.
Notes from Station Manager
Changes that worked
- Opening applications for assistant positions in September, instead of March/April with everyone else. Three of the six assistant positions were taken up by first years, who otherwise wouldn't have been able to apply until March/April 2020. Being first years, they had noticeably more time to dedicate to STAR.
- Having assistants for people who want them, instead of sticking to the constitution.
- Using bit.ly for things like /TrainingSignup, /ShowSchedule, /ShowApplications, etc. This saved an enormous amount of time for everyone, not just the committee.
- Telling shows to include an image from bit.ly/starlogos in the corner of their page cover photo.
- Having individual meetings and a questionnaire for committee members around week 9 of semester 1, instead of the usual committee meeting.
- Removing the three slots reserved on Thursday evenings for live broadcasts; focusing on publishing recordings of live events on Mixcloud was much more effective.
- Making slots available whenever the Union is open, i.e. 9am-2am.
- Allowing new show applications throughout the semester, though this could have been streamlined by faster demos and a clear cutoff a few weeks before exams.
- Sticking to one show Facebook group for the whole year.
- Having a group chat for show hosts, committee members, and anyone interested in STAR to join.
- Using the interactive schedule within our Wordpress theme, instead of using a screenshot of a spreadsheet. Please please please continue this.
- Using Mixcloud to host podcasts, though you can no longer jump backwards on a mix without a paid account. Mixcloud could have been embedded into our website in a better way (see ury.org.uk).
- Having a list of aims for the year.
- Adding a pop-up form to join the mailing list on the website homepage greatly improved mailing list reach.
- Kieran's podcast email bot worked well in general, though would benefit from an unsubscribe button.
Changes that didn't work
- The mixer when it broke a week before the start of semester 1.
- Regular rotation. Not sure anyone really understood it. Might be worth implementing over a few daytime slots in the future for the sake of trying to get played in local businesses, but try not to make a big deal out of it.
- A show host suggested that the show application form might be better without distinguishing between a main host and co-hosts.
- Booking two hours for committee meetings: people didn't even want to stay one hour.
- Struggled to form an Outside Broadcast (OB) team or cover many events, in part due to a lack of awareness amongst the general student population, leading to a lack of interest.
- We may have ordered way too many phone wallets.
- Selling USB sticks for £2 instead of giving them away likely would have worked a lot better if they were ready for sale before the main tech training weekend.
- Keeping applications for semester 2 shows open from late November worked well, but lots of people forgot if they applied. Email confirmation may help this. (See here.)
- Adverts: committee agreed we weren't ready to run paid adverts for local businesses. Decided that STAR should wait until listener stats are reliably available, and the Head of Production is comfortable copyrighting (or a well-planned system for businesses sending adverts, instead of STAR producing them).
- There were a lot of issues/complaints about clearing Myriad audiowall over winter break. If this needs to happen again next year, plenty of warning should be given.