Broadcasting Officer

The SSC Broadcasting Officer, also known as the Station Manager, is in charge of STAR. They are elected in the student elections of March each year, and sit on the Student Services Council (SSC) of the University of St Andrews Students' Association.

Past Broadcasting Officers

Year	Name
2005	Sandy Walker
	Steve Pidcock
2005/06	David Wilkinson
2006/07	David Wilkinson
2007/08	Unknown
2008/09	Unknown
2009/10	Phil Torts
2010/11	Unknown
2011/12	Tristan van Deventer
2012/13	Kate Reid
2013/14	Oscar Swedrup
2014/15	Sean McDonald
2015/16	Bruce Kerr
2016/17	Charlotte Flatley
2017/18	Flora Rowe
2018/19	Laura Mueller
2019/20	Tom Groves

Handover

Intro

This section is intended to help new Station Managers settle into the role. Adapted from 2018/19 handover document, written by Flora Rowe.

Firstly, congratulations! Welcome to one of the most stressful, time-consuming, rewarding, exciting, and unpredictable adventures of your university career. You are the new SSC Broadcasting Officer, more commonly known as the Station Manager of STAR: St Andrews Radio. As head of the Broadcasting Society, you are tasked with running STAR, starTV, The Record, and Hearing Aid.

This position requires a lot of dedication and multitasking. To put it simply, you are now a manager: your job is to manage people, and make sure they do the tasks you assign them. Whereas many people on your committee will be responsible for one aspect within STAR, you are required to pay close attention to each element, in order to ensure that everyone on your committee is working hard.

For instance, you must work closely with the events team to make sure STAR is putting on plenty of events each semester. You must work with your Head of Design and Head of Marketing to ensure a constant STAR presence throughout the student body and in different buildings throughout the university. You must work with the Hearing Aid Editors to ensure the magazine doesn’t go over budget. You must work with the Head of News to try and get more writers, have regularly published articles, etc.

As a result, communication between committee members is essential. You need to ensure that your team members constantly keep you updated on what they’re doing. If people do not tell you what they are doing or how projects are progressing, you may start to think they aren’t doing any work whatsoever. Communication is particularly important during deadline season; you don’t want to have constantly hassle committee members about tasks when they haven’t even had time to start brainstorming. It’s important to show your committee that you understand they probably have a lot of commitments throughout the academic year, and that it’s difficult to juggle everything at once. However, they are pivotal members of a subcommittee whose main purpose is to provide a unique extracurricular activity for students, and this cannot be achieved without their hard work.

Some of your other main responsibilities are to chair committee meetings, create a budget, and provide all matriculated students with the opportunity to learn more about radio.

First Tasks

When you first get voted in, you will be overwhelmed. Hit the ground running, be proactive, and everything will be fine; I promise.

1. Read the constitution
   • This should be chapter 24 of the "Laws" document available here, though this source is slow to update changes.
   • This should explain many of the Union's complicated rules.
     
     
2. Search for your committee
   • As soon as you are voted in, you will need to start looking for your committee.
   • The constitution should have a list of positions, and rules about the interview process.
   • Most importantly, the application form should be advertised for at least two weeks, and the following people should be present at interviews: incoming Station Manager, outgoing Station Manager, and one of incoming/outgoing DoES.
   • Try to leave applications for assistant positions until September
   • Make a Google form with questions such as "what experience do you have", "why do you want to be a part of STAR", etc. Ask the previous Station Manager to share previous forms as examples.
   • Ask the Union to help share the form on their social media, and in the sabbs' weekly email.
     
     
3. Committee interviews
   • After you have applications in, organise interview times. I would recommend 10 minutes per person, and tell them when to be there (rather than a sign-up system).
   • The incoming Station Manager, outgoing Station Manager, and one of the incoming/outgoing DoES or DoSDA must be present at interviews, to ensure they are democratic and fair.
   • Choose your committee! Send successful emails first, incase someone turns down the offer. Send rejection emails once all positions are confirmed.
   • People often apply for position X when they're clearly more suited to position Y; don't be afraid to talk to them about this!
     
     
4. Committee handovers
   • Organise a meet-up between new and old committee members. This could be as part of a group meeting, or just in pairs.
     
     
5. Have your first committee meeting
   • Establish what each committee member aims to achieve in the coming year.
   • Let everyone know your own priorities from your manifesto, and what you aim to achieve.
   • Start discussing the budget for next year.
     
     
6. Organise the STAR Awards
   • Book a venue, advertise, release nominations, find prizes, advertise more, and have fun.
     
     
7. Spend a committee meeting getting ready for summer. What needs to be done before September?
   
   
8. Organise committee photos.
   • Post a group picture.
   • Save individual photos for promoting show applications in September.
     
     
9. Check everyone has access to everything they need
   • See detailed table below ("Account Access").
   • Head of Web (or Head Technician) can help with this, especially making STAR email addresses for everyone.
     
     
10. Update the committee on the website team page.
    • Ask everyone to write a short blurb.
    • Head of Web can update the page for you.
      
      
11. Over summer, organise the budget.
    • Based on what your committee has planned for the upcoming year, get the Head of Finance to create a spreadsheet.
    • Ask outgoing Station Manager to share previous budgets as examples. The total amount of funding from the Union is unlikely to change much.
    • Make sure you send the budget to the sabbs before their deadline, usually around the end of May.
    • Ask the Head of Finance to set up an expenditure spreadsheet, to make sure you stick to the budget throughout the year.
      
      
12. Apply for a Freshers' Fayre table, and get merchandise ready
    • Merchandise can take a long time to design and produce, so make sure you start this well before September.
    • Awesome Merchandise and usbmakers.com are great places to look.
      
      
13. Plan events for September
    • Usual examples: give-it-a-go, drinks night.
    • Book spaces before deadlines (subcommittees should get priority over societies!)
    • Request free drinks, etc. well in advance.
    • The DoES and DoSDA are the ones to ask about booking spaces, and event planning in general.
      
      
14. Book a room for committee meetings next year
    • We usually go for the "Committee Meeting Room", 6-7pm Mondays, from September to May.
    • Make sure you do this before the subcommittee deadline, as we should get an extra week before societies can book rooms.
      
      
15. Info Night
    • Organise for the Monday of week 1 (the day after Freshers' Fayre)
    • Book a space (e.g. Sandy's)
    • Make a presentation. Include how to get involved with The Record, Hearing Aid, starTV, Outside Broadcast team, event photography, and poster design. Focus on how to apply for a radio show, what hosting a show involves, and the structure of a typical show.
      
      
16. After Freshers' Week
    • The programming team will need a lot of help with show applications and demos. Together with Tech Training, this will be the main focus for the first couple of weeks.
    • Get into a routine! Make sure design/marketing/tech/events/music teams are communicating seamlessly about events, and the programming team is checking show attendance.

Explanation of "Councils"

This is probably wrong, but it's the best I've come up with in four years.

• The Broadcasting Officer sits on the Student Services Council (SSC), along with people like the Mermaids President and Union Debating Society President.
• There's also the Student Representative Council (SRC), with people like the Member for First Years and Member for Racial Equality.
• Above SSC and SRC is the "Association" – people like the Alumni Officer and LGBT+ Officer.
• Above the Association is the sabbatical officers (sabbs) – people like the Director of Events and Services (DoES) and the Association President (Big Pres).
• The SSC, SRC, Association, and sabbs together form "Joint Councils".
• Everyone on Joint Councils is elected in March (apart from the Ents, Design Team, and Arts Festival Convenors).
• The Broadcasting Officer has to go to meetings for SSC and Joint Councils. This will take up most of your Tuesday evenings.
• More info on Councils positions here.

An average week as Broadcasting Officer

It’s difficult to describe what an average week is like as Broadcasting Officer. Even if you’re not working on a specific STAR-related task, you’ll probably find yourself constantly thinking about STAR. This is pretty common, especially at the start of your term, as it can be quite difficult trying to balance coursework with your SSC responsibilities.

Councils: most weeks you will have either an SSC or Joint Councils meeting, a weekly STAR committee meeting, check-ins with the DoES about potential STAR events, going to see Jillian Cowan (Management Accountant) in the Cash Office to sign invoices, and a meeting with the Deputy Station Manager to discuss how STAR is doing and future plans for the Broadcasting Society.

Committee: I would recommend making meetings compulsory for the most important positions, and optional (but encouraged) for assistants. It may also help to send an agenda to committee@ the day before each meeting, incase anyone wants to add anything. Having a task sheet is also helpful, as everyone can see what they need to be working on before the next meeting. Update this task sheet after each meeting, and check on everyone's progress a few days before the next meeting.

Social media: you will receive hundreds of emails and Facebook messages. Generally they are small queries or musicians asking random questions, but keep on top of these or they will quickly build up. Having a Music Team to deal with spam send to music@ helps. It can also help to assign messages to STAR's Facebook page to the Head of Programming/Events/Tech/Music where relevant. If someone gets in touch about an event idea, society collaboration, performing at a STAR event, or query about hosting a show, try to always be positive, reply promptly, and in detail.

Account Access

It is the Station Manager's responsibility to ensure everyone on committee is able to do their tasks. This means checking people have access to the right accounts, with suggested access as follows:

Account	Positions with access
standrewsradio.com Wordpress (Administrator)	Station Manager, Head of Web (+ Assistant), Head Technician (+ Assistant)
standrewsradio.com Wordpress (Editor)	Station Manager, Head of News (+ Assistant)
admin.google.com Admin	Station Manager, Head of Web, Head Technician
admin.google.com Personal @standrewsradio.com email account	All current committee; members of starTV and Tech Team if appropriate
admin.google.com hello@ group	Station Manager, Deputy Station Manager
admin.google.com committee@ group	All current committee
admin.google.com other groups	Should be obvious, e.g. music team for music@; make sure all group memberships are up to date. Station Manager should be in every group.
STAR social media (Admin)	Head of Marketing, Station Manager, Deputy Station Manager
STAR Facebook page (messaging)	Head of Programming, Head of Events, Head of Music, Head Technician
@garfield.standrewsradio.com server	Head of Web (+ Assistant), Head Technician (+ Assistant)
Streaming encoders (e.g. Ladiocast) (.ogg and .mp3)	Head Technician (+ Assistant), Outside Broadcast Team
manage.standrewsradio.com/netdata	Head of Web (+ Assistant), Head Technician (+ Assistant)
manage.standrewsradio.com/icecast	Head of Web (+ Assistant), Head Technician (+ Assistant)
The Record social media (Admin)	Head of News (+ Assistant), Station Manager
hearingaidmagazine.com Squarespace	Hearing Aid Editors
Hearing Aid social media	Hearing Aid Editors, Station Manager
STAR bank account	Station Manager, Head of Finance, and someone from the Cash Office
mailchimp.com	Secretary, Station Manager
Myriad Playout (Administrator)	Head Technician (+ Assistant), Head of Web (+ Assistant)
Myriad Playout (extended cart range)	Music Team, Head of Production
Myriad Playout (standard cart range)	Every show
starTV YouTube account	Head of Video, Station Manager
archive.standrewsradio.com Gallery (Admin)	Station Manager, Head of Web (+ Assistant), Head Technician (+ Assistant)
archive.standrewsradio.com Wiki (Admin)	Station Manager, Head of Web (+ Assistant), Head Technician (+ Assistant)

• All account access for Ryo Yanagida, Tom Groves, and Angus Ireland should kept as is, incase of forgotten passwords/bad handovers in the far future.
• Head Technician should help, especially with creating Myriad show accounts
• Check with people on past committee before removing their @standrewsradio.com email; when deleting, always tick "transfer data to another account"
• Ask previous Station Manager or Head of Marketing for access to STAR social media accounts
• Ask Ryo for access to server
• Ask Tom if any of this is confusing