Anger over parking costs

Students are having to pay up to £1200 a year for parking on campus because they have a residential parking permit.

The University of Sunderland will not allow students who own a residential parking permit to also apply for a parking permit for any of the university’s campuses. This means that those students who live in Halls of Residence, such as Clanny House, and own a car have to pay one pound an hour which on some days can add up to eight pounds a day.

Over a 40 week university year this would amount to an average of £1200 - A third of university fees for a year.

Students who do not have a residential parking permit need only pay £1 a day to park on campus.

Kayleigh Munday, a first year student, said: “It’s ridiculous. I brought my car to university so I could drive to lectures everyday and not have to get the bus but it’s too expensive to park.

“I would have expected the university to understand that if a student was living at Halls of Residence and had brought their car then they would be more than likely drive to university.”

Miss Munday lives in Clanny House in South Hylton and studies at St. Peter’s Campus so she said it is unrealistic for her to walk to university in the morning.

Students have resorted to parking on nearby streets she said: “The streets are not very safe to be parking on and they’re very risky. There’s not always spaces, no matter how early I get there in a morning so sometimes I have to park in the car park and end up having to pay one pound an hour anyway.”

A spokesperson for the university said: “Facilities have funded the Campus Bus now for several years. The bus has provided frequent, safe and reliable transport to and from the Halls of Residence to all the teaching campuses – alleviating the need for residential students to use their own vehicles.”

However, Miss Munday said, “The campus circular bus is always full when it arrives which means being late for lectures or having to pay for a taxi so it would be a lot easier to drive to my lectures.

To gurantee a seat on the bus you have to get there at least 20 minutes before the bus is due and when it does come it involves being pushed around. At eight o’clock in the morning this isn’t very fun.”

Kayleigh is hoping the universities car park permit rules will change so she will be able to drive to her lectures and only pay £1 for the day to park.

Oxjam festival at Sunderland

Oxjam in Sunderland

Chief organisers of the national Oxjam music festival are confident that the event will be a roaring success when the bands roll into Sunderland this Saturday.

This month has seen the launch of a programme of gigs leading up to the Oxjam festival in March 2009. Drawing on the North East’s diverse range of bands and artists, Oxjam will be hosting four very special launch events in the region and will be coming to Sunderland’s Independent venue this Saturday. Read more

Trick-or-Treat with Unicef

Every Hallowe’en UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) help deprived children around the world with their Trick-or-Treat campaign, which was launched in 1950.

UNICEF is a global organization that saves kids’ lives in over 150 countries by providing clean water, nutrition, medicines, education and aid in emergencies. Read more

All Saints, No Surf!

With the work now piling up, students at All Saints accommodation fear that problems with the internet may hold them back with their studies. Since September 22^nd, residents of All Saints have struggled to gain access to the web and are now concerned over whether the internet will ever be a feature they can use in their own homes.

The problem occurred when students realised that the internet would not connect to the server, Spectrum. Chris Wilkes, 18, of All Saints, said: “the internet sometimes does work but loses connectivity when opening new webpages. I also find it difficult to not use the internet as it is essential to my website design course and this frustrates me, and it seems that nothing is being done!”

Spectrum Interactive, providers of the internet service, have been working at All Saints for the past two weeks but several complaints suggest that no progress has been made in fixing it.

Not only is studying becoming stressful without the web, residents are also finding it hard to communicate with university lecturers via e-mail, to inform them of any absence. That’s not the only other problem, as some fear for their safety online whilst purchasing products such as books, as connection is often lost part way through entering personal details. Students are worried that their personal details are not being received by the websites, and therefore are anxious to find out if their details are being sent to any other party.

However, the university do offer their own alternative for using the internet, but many students argue against using the internet at the university during their free time. Stephen Brown, a student at the University, is one of many outraged by the problem. “Why should I have to go into uni on my days off just to use the internet? We are supposed to be able to use it here! At the end of the day, we pay £2000+ to live here and internet was named as one of the features here!” He said. “Besides, the library shuts at half eight and I feel that by the time my lectures are over at five, I’ll be too tired to continue with work for another 3 hours. It’s not much time, anyway!” Residents at All Saints have already started a petition to sort out a reliable internet connection.

Chris Wilkes continues to argue: “Yes we do rely on the internet, but our lecturers rely on us to have access to the web to collect learning recourses for our programmes. The internet needs to be sorted as soon as possible and for all the problems that it has caused us, we all deserve some compensation.” The university, however, briefly mentioned in a recent meeting with Denise Ridley, that the residents in All Saints could be getting a compensation of electricity payments, but this has not been confirmed as of yet.

‘Welcome to the real world’

For all you fresher’s, you have nothing to worry about. Except perhaps the odd wet bed of a morning after a heavy night drinking, but generally, university accommodation is great fun.

Someone will clean your toilet and hallway every other week and the only thing you have to do is balance your plate on the pile next to the sink. Unless of course, like me, you’re slightly OCD, in which case you’ll find yourself doing other peoples dishes all year long.

It all changes in year two, except the part about washing dishes. In most cases you will have moved in with friends who you met last year and, having chosen a room weeks ago, are enjoying the comforts of living without anyone telling you not to light candles or stick pins in the walls.

Your friends are great fun and the loans are in, and, depending on how much money you spent over the summer, it’s time to hit the clubs and bars. Don’t be too hasty though. Remember, things aren’t as cheap as last year and you’re probably going to have a lot more work to do.

The game of Life has just stepped up a difficulty and we’re now fully responsible for looking after ourselves, which includes many similar tasks as last year, such as feeding and washing, with the added bonus of bills.

That’s not the worst thing though. Everyone, I’m sure, will have set up or be in the process of acquiring an internet connection and no doubt some form of television package. This is when it becomes frustrating. When you’re living with six other people, who decides on the programme?

Suddenly the dream house you thought you were moving into isn’t so ideal and I’m not just referring to being forced to watch Xfactor over Match of the day. You speak to some friends and it feels like they got a better deal than you, the house is constantly cold because it’s too expensive to put the heating on and there’s a strange smell and you’re not sure where it’s coming from.

There are bound to be some changes to your lifestyle now you aren’t living in student halls, but don’t let them get you down. You can have just as much fun in your new home as you did last year and despite how it seems, most people feel the same as you do.

For those with unsympathetic parents, whatever the problem, never ask for their help, as you immediately become in danger of hearing the immortal lines “that’s life” or “welcome to the real world.”

Got a funny experience? Tell us about it… but try not to scare the freshers.

Contestant number one; what’s your name and where d’ya come from?

In answer to Cilla’s question, I’m Scott, 21, and a journalism student at Sunderland. I’m also from Washington, to answer the final part of that question.

In this blog, I’ve been asked to talk about what I do - run www.themusicmagazine.co.uk. It’s a site I started off as a blog way back in December 2006, when I was a lowly fresher. Now, in my third year, the site has grown and grown to the stage where it attracts a relatively modest 10,000 people a month. For a student-run site with little to no promotion I think this is somewhat of an achievement. EDIT: We’ve also just been ranked 40th in the ‘Best Music Website’ category in the BT Digital Music Awards’ People’s Choice section.

To be honest, the whole thing has been a lot easier than I’d expected. Creating a site using a CMS (content management system - most websites are advanced forms of these) software (such as phpNuke, Seditio, Drupal or, to a lesser extent, Wordpress - like InJournalism) was a bit difficult, however there are plenty of people out there willing to lend their knowledge. The current site, which I call TMM 2.0, was created using Wordpress, and features quite a few of my own modifications to a theme called The Morning After. The only downside I can think of is that I can often spend hours with my head covered in codes as I sort things out - I’ve learned much more about the internet than I ever wanted to know!

You don’t actually need any kind of prior knowledge of HTML, CSS -not the band! - or PHP to start a site (baffled? I was too), as Wordpress can do pretty much all of it for you. That said, I have ended up knowing more about the internet and the aforementioned pieces of code than I ever wanted to! The late nights and stressful early mornings have been worth it though, as I’m extremely proud of the site as it stands.

So where does that tie in with the university? Well, without the help of some of the staff (some, sadly, have moved on) and a lot of the students then it would never have reached the stage it has. At least a quarter of the volunteers who contribute to the site are from the university, and I take a lot of satisfaction from the fact that I’ve helped a lot of my close friends get published and gain some good writing experience in a field that they’re interested in.

I’ve met some good people in my time as well, being lucky enough to go backstage with Badly Drawn Boy, interview some of my favourite bands - Travis, Ash, Athlete - catch (and interview again) some good up and coming acts, as well as not paying for a gig for the past two years and receiving a ton of free CDs along the way.

I’ll be using this blog to advertise furiously (only joking!) and also to share my own thoughts on the current music scene, the magazine industry, and share some of my favourite bands - hopefully I’ll introduce you to your next new favourite at some point!

It’s definitely not a bad way of life. I don’t make anything from it as of yet, but the fact that I’m doing something productive alongside my course is great, and the experience is obviously vital. One of my main goals for this year is to get a weekly/fortnightly/monthly band night going on - so watch this space!

Thumbs up for Campus Frat House

(Steph Clark, Joey Gomez-Mannion and Cara Woodley)

There has been much anticipation surrounding the opening of Sunderland’s first American frat house. Replacing the much loved Manor Quay, Campus had a lot to live up to, and if Fresher’s week is anything to go by then boy has it delivered!

The new union has provided us with a Fresher’s we’ll never forget. With everything from roller discos to school raves, from Lee Ryan to Dirk Benedict, this place truly has something for everyone.

From first years to third everyone is loving the Campus experience. Charlotte, 18, from London tells us her thoughts on the nightlife on offer: “Campus is great fun, the USA theme is brilliant and I always feel safe there no matter what time of night it is.” Read more

A ‘Beautifully Crafted’ celebration

Sunderland’s National Glass Centre will open one of its largest exhibitions to mark its 10th anniversary on October 25th.

To celebrate the landmark a showcase of innovative art works from over 60 artists will be shown and available for the public to buy.

Grainne Sweeney, National Glass Centre (NGC) Creative Director, said: “This exhibition has provided a welcome opportunity for NGC to build and cement our partnerships with other cultural  organisations and artists across the whole of the North East.”

‘Beautifully Crafted’ will show how contemporary artists fuse cultural histories and ancient techniques with the more modern ways of working. Old artisan techniques including glass making, taxidermy, lace making and marquetry will be used.

On display along with the contemporary art pieces will be antique furniture and objects from the late 18th and early 19th  century, from The Bowes Museum collection and Beamish Museum’s archive.

The National Glass Centre has almost 200,000 visitors a year to the venue and over 17,000 people view its website each month.

After three years under new directorship the NGC has a brand new education programme and an exhibition programme to rival many other contemporary art galleries.

Artists’ demonstrations, talks and guided tours will also be running alongside the main event which takes over the weekend 25-26 October at National Glass Centre.

Sunderland raises the bar with higher education project

Sunderland University is set for national recognition after becoming a finalist in the Times Higher Education awards.

The award will be presented to staff for their pioneering efforts in offering life-changing opportunities to young people who have been in care.

Over the summer more than 100 young people spent the day as university students at Sunderland, combining outward bound and confidence-building activities.

Sue Reece, director of Student Recruitment and Business Partnerships, said Sunderland is the highest performing university in England for its participation with disadvantaged groups. Read more

Campus will be biggest venue in Sunderland

Sunderland University’s nightclub Campus has officially been re-launched.

Over the coming weeks the venue will play host to legendary throwbacks such as ‘Neighbours’ star Toadfish and former Busted star Matt Willis. However Campus’ self-proclaimed ‘professor of fun’ Carlo Citti sees a much more serious future.

Citti’s vision is that Campus will become the biggest venue in Sunderland for live bands, with the venue linked with some of today’s cutting edge music.

“We’ve been in contact with a lot of people recently,” said Citti. “Once Freshers’ is out of the way we can concentrate on booking some really good bands round here, I mean we’ve got the biggest venue in Sunderland and we could make it the best.”

Many names have been rumoured around the local area with whispers of the likes of Paul Weller making an appearance. However Citti says that nothing has been made official just yet. “We’ve been in touch with the Courteeners, Ocean Colour Scene, lots of people. So we’ll see what happens.”

Should Carlo’s idea become reality Campus could become the musical Mecca that the city so desperately needs.

Indeed over time Campus could build a reputation that would encourage new local acts to take to the stage and make their name, following in the footsteps of the likes of The Futureheads. Until then watch this space.

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