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 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 [[Studio Equipment#Computers| 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.
Contents
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.
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 |
| God of Web | 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 (kicked off)
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.
- 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).
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.