Information for society members and students

By Chris King on 01 February 2012

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Concrete has been informed that the Management Committee of the Union of UEA Students has decided to no longer fund the paid editor from next year. This was made known to the Society on 17 January.

Concrete has been informed that the Management Committee of the Union of UEA Students has decided to no longer fund the paid editor from next year. This was made known to the Society on 17 January.
Concrete has had a paid editor since 1995, when the newspaper was originally bought out by the Union from the student-run company which founded Concrete in 1992.
Concrete is editorially independent, as enshrined in the Society’s constitution. The editor role has continually been plagued by controversy, and there has been tension with other societies, none of which have ever had a full-time paid member of staff. In 2005 a campaign was launched to make the editor role elected, considering Concrete’s status as a society. This was defeated in Union Council on 24 November that year.
As the Society was not informed that the paid editor role might be abolished at the beginning of the year, and only told in the second semester of the academic year that it would be, there have been concerns raised at the short amount of time available to the Society in which to restructure itself.
The Union has highlighted that many other student newspapers operate successfully with fully-volunteer editorial teams. These publications tend, however, to have larger sub-editorial teams, and direct staff support from their unions with regards to advertising. This demonstrates that significant restructuring of Concrete would be necessary.
Concrete’s print budget has also been reduced from £20,000 per annum in 2009-10 to the £12,500 figure provided by the Union for this year.
The incumbent Union officers have suggested that the money saved from the editor position will either be distributed between the Union’s 173 societies or invested in a new member of staff to support these societies.
The issue will be raised at Union Council on 2 February, though this will be mainly in regards to implementing plans for Concrete’s future, as the decision about the paid editorship itself is regarded as a staffing issue by the Union.
Concrete will continue to engage in discussion with the Management Committee regarding this issue and potential restructuring, and will not be making any further comment at this time.



What are your thoughts?
 Comments

Anonymous
 
01/02/2012 19:19:43
Quote:I would be inclined to agree that the Union was doing this for altruistic reasons. However, its timing, and flagrant disregard for Concrete's constitution leads me to believe the Union wishes to finish Concrete off. It does after all have a habit of uncovering its officers' juvenile incompetence.

Society committees do a brilliant job, but it must be remembered that the Concrete editor works hours far in excess of those Sabbatical officers who were voted in on the back of a matter of hundred votes. It is far in excess of 40 hours a week.

Remember, the Union removed the advertising potential of Concrete to strengthen their argument. Prior to this the paper generated 2k an issue in advertising. It made a loss of perhaps 6-7k a year, but is that hit a necessary drawback of a paper that's produced countless national journos and enhanced the CVs of a generation of UEA students? Do the Union care about this? Frankly, no. It's a sad fact that it is an institution run by ambitious yet incompetent children.

Anonymous
 
01/02/2012 19:09:44
Quote:I would be inclined to agree that the Union was doing this for altruistic reasons. However, its timing, and flagrant disregard for Concrete's constitution leads me to believe the Union wishes to finish Concrete off. It does after all have a habit of uncovering its officers' juvenile incompetence.

Society committees do a brilliant job, but it must be remembered that the Concrete editor works hours far in excess of those Sabbatical officers who were voted in on the back of a matter of hundred votes. It is far in excess of 40 hours a week.

Remember, the Union removed the advertising potential of Concrete to strengthen their argument. Prior to this the paper generated 2k an issue in advertising. It made a loss of perhaps 6-7k a year, but is that hit a necessary drawback of a paper that's produced countless national journos and enhanced the CVs of a generation of UEA students? Do the Union care about this? Frankly, no. It's a sad fact that it is an institution run by ambitious yet incompetent children.

Anonymous
 
01/02/2012 19:05:15
Quote:I would be inclined to agree that the Union was doing this for altruistic reasons. However, its timing, and flagrant disregard for Concrete's constitution leads me to believe the Union wishes to finish Concrete off. It does after all have a habit of uncovering its officers' juvenile incompetence.

Society committees do a brilliant job, but it must be remembered that the Concrete editor works hours far in excess of those Sabbatical officers who were voted in on the back of a matter of hundred votes. It is far in excess of 40 hours a week.

Remember, the Union removed the advertising potential of Concrete to strengthen their argument. Prior to this the paper generated 2k an issue in advertising. It made a loss of perhaps 6-7k a year, but is that hit a necessary drawback of a paper that's produced countless national journos and enhanced the CVs of a generation of UEA students? Do the Union care about this? Frankly, no. It's a sad fact that it is an institution run by ambitious yet incompetent children.

Anonymous
 
01/02/2012 18:58:43
Quote:I would be inclined to agree that the Union was doing this for altruistic reasons. However, its timing, and flagrant disregard for Concrete's constitution leads me to believe the Union wishes to finish Concrete off. It does after all have a habit of uncovering its officers' juvenile incompetence.

Society committees do a brilliant job, but it must be remembered that the Concrete editor works hours far in excess of those Sabbatical officers who were voted in on the back of a matter of hundred votes. It is far in excess of 40 hours a week.

Remember, the Union removed the advertising potential of Concrete to strengthen their argument. Prior to this the paper generated 2k an issue in advertising. It made a loss of perhaps 6-7k a year, but is that hit a necessary drawback of a paper that's produced countless national journos and enhanced the CVs of a generation of UEA students? Do the Union care about this? Frankly, no. It's a sad fact that it is an institution run by ambitious yet incompetent children.

Anonymous
 
01/02/2012 17:55:47
Quote:I feel the Union has made the right decision to cut the editors funding. It is more far, as there are some societies, whose Committee members get paid no money at all, and do it for the experience, and because they want to make their societies successful.
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