With three issues of Label completed and released and our Christmas issue off to print today, I can’t help but sit and wonder exactly where our time has gone this term. This editorial involves me thanking a lot of people for what we’ve achieved so far as well as a summary of what we’ve been up to, so, here goes!
Before we came back to uni at the end of September, the Label Committee had already done lots of work and produced our wonderful Freshers’ Issue of Label. Since then, it’s been all systems go as we’ve encouraged and welcomed lots of new volunteers whilst “facilitating opportunities” (my favourite phrase) for writers and designers alike. Judging by the quality of content produced this term, I can only see things improving even more after Christmas as everyone gains more experience in writing or using indesign, to name a couple of things that we do within Label.
Although I feel as though the last couple of months have gone far too fast, Label have achieved a lot. Whilst producing more issues in a term than Label have done during my time in Loughborough (I’m too young to remember the fortnightly editions and can’t imagine what that would have been like, hats off to them!); interviewing various celebrities, introducing new sections in our magazine, including Exec Focus, an interview section, readers comments and columnists in each issue, I personally feel we have achieved a lot- which would not be possible without the commitment of various people.
We’ve also put in our bid for the SPA National Conference (wish us luck!), so a huge thanks goes out to Leanna Kightley, Paul Johnston, Alice Priestley, Jamie Hutton and Greg Carter for their help with that. Even putting in a bid would not have been possible without the extensive help and huge commitment from Chris Moore, so here’s a name drop and a massive thank you from me. With any luck, I’ll be informing everyone that we’ll be hosting the conference when we find out the winner in December, but I don’t want to jinx us so we’re hoping for the best, we certainly put the work in! We also met with some people from the SPA last week in Birmingham for their social which was great fun and we look forward to working with them more this year.
I also have to give a special mention to Assistant Editor, Leanna Kightley and Art Director, Greg Carter this editorial, as they’ve been absolute gems all term and are constantly there to chat to and help me out with editorial or design issues and ideas. Greg was also named LSU Media’s “committee member of the fortnight” this week, alongside our “volunteer of the fortnight”, Craig Searle, also on Label Committee- we’re taking over! Craig is currently working on our “Label Hotspots”, so watch out for that at the end of next week, when we’ll inevitably be handing out our Christmas issue of Label across campus, providing you with a relaxing and very student- based read between lectures (or whenever you fancy, we don’t actually mind when you read it).
We’re producing lots of exciting articles online at the moment, including three series of recurring articles: Student Struggles, Keeping Up With Action and our most recent one Societies Showcase! These are all student related, some of which are informative, others which are more humorous and relatable. Great work by Features and Culture on these so far. Music are planning for Flashback Friday’s as well as Genre Focuses- so there really should be something for everyone. Of course, you can always read news stories too, as well as finding out a bit more about style, sports reports or our latest illustration competition winners.
I’m really pleased with how this year has gone so far and I am currently in the process of catching up with everyone on my committee on a one- to- one basis to check that everyone is happy and to set targets for the next few months. If there’s anything specific that you’d like to see, or indeed get involved with, feel free to contact me via email. We hope you enjoy our Christmas issue, available from Friday 4th December, and thanks again to everyone who’s been involved so far this year. If you don’t hear from me before, have a wonderful break!
