ALICE WASS
Exploring Media

Week 29

Manic Meetings

This week marked my 7th month working at UCB, which has flown by. Meeting with someone interested in taking over my intern position here at UCB, and speaking to them about my experience and answering all their questions, made an impact on me. When speaking about all of the opportunities I have had whilst here, reminded me how much I have grown into the professional role.

This week Ruth was off for a couple of days so I spent that time researching and booking in new interviews. I have been making good progress with this, and I am hoping that I can get the majority of June booked up before I go home for Easter. I have spoken with some other Presenters who have been feeling frustrated with the lack of communication about in-studio guests for the shows. To try and help overcome this through Ruth’s show, I am now including more people in my monthly email updating who is coming in for our show. This is an issue I am very aware of and it seems that no one has yet found a permanent solution.

​

I have also spent a lot of time editing and uploading audio onto Soundcloud, especially as this week the UCB1 newsletter was going and therefore more material required uploading than normal. I have also now finished my spring cleaning of Soundcloud. According to instructions I have cleared it from containing 1,158 tracks over 7 years to just 622 tracks from the past year plus any very popular old content. I have put everything into playlists, and continued with my new naming system which I started implementing when I first took over Soundcloud. I am happy with how it looks, and hope now that social media will promote people using it to listen back more.

I have been recording and editing more testimonies for the May Appeal, which I am enjoying hearing as it shows the work I am doing is affecting people’s lives. As well as editing audio for Ruth’s interviewees and organising their chosen song for the end of the interview I make sure it is in the correct file format and uploaded onto Zetta for her.

​

Samuel and I had a long meeting about the Bank Holiday Special show. We listened to the interviews and on a big whiteboard scheduled when the interviews would all play out in what order and how they all linked together. I really enjoyed this, and it took some rearranging until it felt good. Now Samuel is going to edit the interviews to fit into those sections and record his voice to go in-between. I hope it sounds good once it has all been done as it has been a big project which I hope the listeners will enjoy.

​

This week the radio team have been having meetings with UCB’s Charity partner for 2019, Mercy Ships. These meetings included finding out what they were doing and how we are going to be working with them. As well as discussing the content ideas we have for it. The first collaboration is a ‘Volunteering Week’ which is in June, where we will be talking about Mercy Ships on air and sharing testimonies of people who work for Mercy Ships. Then later in September UCB will be holding an appeal type structure with the aim of raising money for Mercy Ships. I am sure this will be a good opportunity to have solid content for Ruth’s show each day focusing on the work they are doing and sharing their stories.

​

This week I have also attended ILM, I am finding the sessions so interesting and having the opportunity to discuss and explore aspects of leadership and teamwork within UCB. The topics we have been covering have been really helpful, such as talking about time and stress management. I have taken on board the advice from it and I am using it positively at this more pressured time, as whilst I am working 40 hours a week on my placement, I also have completed ILM assignments every month and it is getting close to my university coursework deadlines. However, I now feel much more confident in managing my stress levels and working to improve them. I feel I understand myself much better as a professional now, and can more clearly see where I need to improve my performance to be either the best team member I can be or the skills I need to learn to one day be a leader. I am now over half way through my ILM training with only 3 more topics to cover.