Radish 7

steven · Black Bloc

Just to kick off the discussion nice and early - what do people want to do for Radish 7? Do we want it done by Freshers Fair time? How big do we want it? What do we want in it? Where's the money coming from? etc, etc.

hannoir · Black Bloc

I reckon the week after freshers, cos people get bombarded with so much stuff in freshers...
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Oktober · Black Bloc

I dunno, freshers has the advantage of having everyone coming to freshers fair, although of course it getting lost in all the crap is a risk.

Also, we could have a Radish Live gig in freshers too, (or in the week after and advertise it in freshers).

There was an idea of having an alternative freshers which rocksoc soc thought up, but they didn't go ahead cos they didn't want to team up with indie soc to get enough events. But we could stage our own alternate freshers if we put some thought into it, and if we asked the conference office we could try and have an alternate freshers fair in the daytime out on the grass or somewhere as long as we plann far enough in advance.

JulienP · Black Bloc

So is anything gonna happen or not? (not that it really matters much to me anyway if we're honest, seeing as I'll be in Germany). I agree with the suggestion of having a radish 7 week after, and has been discussed in another thread a stall or something somewhere prominent to hand them out, as well as just walking around giving them out which is what usually happens. I think a gig would be a good idea, but isn't there already enough stuff freshers'? So again week after so we still have funding problem, see other thread.
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gorky · Black Bloc

In my opinion The Radish can take one of two routes:

1. The Leftish Radish

We carry on as before. The Radish is a left of centre publication which tends to publish on a variety of subjects both domestic and international. These are mostly inspired by "grown up" leftist publications (e.g. The Guardian, New Internationalist, Red Pepper etc.). The Radish is basically a pale imitation of other left-wing magazines and newspapers combined with a bit of UB/BUGS news.

2. The Satirical Radish

We go for a Private Eye approach. Hit out at BUGS. Hit out at the NUS. Hit out at the university. Hit out at Birmingham City Council. There's plenty of material out there and it's ripe for satire. Chuck in the odd lefty article to keep up a thoroughly anti-establishment stance.

In short: Slaughter the sacred cows. Publish and be damned.

I favour approach number two. There are plenty of lefty magazines/newspapers out there already with much bigger budgets (off the top of my head: The Morning Star, Socialist Worker, Red Pepper, New Internationalist, Green Anarchist). It's a crowded market.

This city needs satire. We're talking about a council that can't even count votes at a local election. Hell, even a crusty old judge described the city's politics as worse than a banana republic.

This university needs satire. Muirhead Tower. The AUT dispute. The logo. It's all ripe for satire and some hard hitting stories.

This guild needs satire. Well, actually it's hard to top Angell's leaving speech. It had me in stitches for days.

The Radish may have patchy production values, an ultra democratic editorial system and other attributes that seem to horrify junior conservatives at this university. However, it has one brilliant saving grace: It can publish anything within reason.

The time has come to publish and be damned.

Long live the satire boom!

JulienP · Black Bloc

We had a few satirical odds and ends in some radishes last year, and yes they are good. However my only problem with this approach is that it cuts out a lot of people from writing, cos a lot of people can write articles, but not satire, being funny is not easy. If we do a majority of satire, we narrow instead of widening the potential number of writers writing for the radish.

And also with regards to the fact we're doing something that everybody else is doing, so what? We're not competing, we don't need to find a part of the market that is underserved. The Radish is a student magazine, not a capitalist company, this means The Radish should have in it whatever the students who write for it want to write about it.

Not having a go (honest!) just a few things to consider!
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hannoir · Black Bloc

I like satire, but I am rubbish at writing it.
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nick_b · Street Demonstrator

mighty glad to see that the old site is still thoroughly active. and my apologies for being away for so long.

ideally, i think something should come out in freshers week. its distribution will therefore last through into week1 of term proper as well.

matt and i had long chats about what we thought should be in a freshers radish. theres so much that people are never told about - the guild execs and the res execs powers for example. the second is particularly important - i'd never heard of the res exec till we went to them for vale festival, but they have a budget of half a million pounds a year. they'll never be accountable for that if no-one knows they exist. we should also i think be promoting alternative venues and events. many of us have wanted to do alternative freshers weeks, but they're very hard to organise for a variety of reasons - mostly because freshers get snapped up the minute they arrive to sign up to broad st. club tours, and that then fills their lives for the next two weeks. but we can certainly play a part in spreading the message that there are good places out there that do not in any way resemble the works.

from a more long term point of view, i agree that satire is an extremely effective way of getting a message out there, and its a lot mroe fun to read, but i tihnk we should try to preserve a balance. a lot of very good articles could be ruled out if we decided that something had to be funny to get in.

ok. i'll shut up now. but it does feel nice to be chatting about the old radish again.

peace,
Nickx

jenc_green · Black Bloc

its a bit difficult to sway an edition in a certain way it seems people mainly write about whatever they want and there's not usually a main theme, how would we persuade writers to take a similarity. we could have meetings before freshers

steven · Black Bloc

To return to this, we really do need a meeting. We need to sort out:

--money (where's it coming from?)
--Radish 7 (when's it coming out, what's it having in it?)
--Freshers Week publicity (do we wanna make people take notice by doing something during Freshers? Just hand out Radishes? Put up posters? Paint ourselves red and talk to everyone possible until they think we're demented?)
--Other events (specifically, I'm thinking: do we want to do more open mic nights? more film showings? and my own personal favourite, the Radish Freshers Week picnic)

Discussion seems to go slow online, so is anyone around next week to meet up in person and get the ball rolling? Let us know.

Sazzle · Black Bloc

Let me know when the meeting is and I'd love to come and help ..... and if there is a need to distribute amoung halls I'm living in Shackleton and am happy to hand them out Smile

nice to see things are still goin strong

Sarah x

gorky · Black Bloc

I'm around. When will this meet up take place? I presume it'll be in the Basement as per usual.
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“But you are a thin-blooded lot! Ere you have grown up you are already overgrown and withered. You live like an old radish." - Maxim Gorky, The Man Who Was Afraid, Chapter 10.

steven · Black Bloc

Problem with the Basement is it doesn't seem to be open much these days; I think the Guild's only open until about 5 during the holidays as well. My suggestion: meet in Joes on Tuesday at about 2PM - is that ok?

gorky · Black Bloc

Sounds good.
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“But you are a thin-blooded lot! Ere you have grown up you are already overgrown and withered. You live like an old radish." - Maxim Gorky, The Man Who Was Afraid, Chapter 10.

JulienP · Black Bloc