It’s term time again! The holidays are over, the winter season is kicking in, and I still don’t have internet at the new flat. But never fear! Imperial College Library is ALWAYS here!

Finding our new house was surprisingly easy. With 8 of us looking to share accommodation, we didn’t think it would be very likely to find somewhere cheap and close to Imperial, but we got lucky. I know lots of people who went through the whole rigmaroll of attending accommodation fairs, going through estate agents, and looking at houses for weeks and weeks before finding anything decent. However, for us, word of mouth was best. I got the number of a landlord who was sorting out a friend and gave him a call asking him what other properties he had for big groups. We saw our house the next day, and signed the contract within two weeks. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I’ve got my own room, a double bed, and non-stop friend-time for cheaper than a single room in halls, and a half hour walk away from college. I’m sure there are better deals out there, but I feel like we did pretty good!

So we found a house, and we moved in at the start of September. I carted my possessions from various corners of London where they were stored over the summer and created a beautifully organised mess that my mother would be proud of. I went home for a few weeks in September after moving all my things – I had spent the summer working here in London and on holiday in America, where my brother lives with his wife and two kids. All in all, a jolly good time lad.

On a side note, while I was at home in Limerick, I had the good fortune to run into Munir, an Imperial alumnus who had seen my blog and commented on it. He recognised me at a gig and we laughed at the craziness of actually running into each other the one time I was home – here he is, a lovely guy!

Myself and Munir, an Imperial alumnus living in Limerick!

Next hurdle, Fresher’s Fair.

Not sure if I had updated the blogosphere about this before posting my Felix radio article, but at the end of last year I was elected the Station Manager of IC Radio for 2011-12. IC Radio is the student radio station at Imperial, and one of the coolest societies on offer, seriously. I just posted a rather more comprehensive article about the society and what we do, so this time I’ll stick to describing my own experiences with being on the other sides of the stand at the Fair.

For one, I had no idea how much work actually went into planning for the Fresher’s Fair. Last year I was a fresher casually perusing the stands and dodging the over-zealous students peddling their societies – this year I WAS one of those over-zealous students peddling her society. Interspersed with a few casual insults thrown at the other stands, of course.

As of this year, because of financial cutbacks in virtually every sector, our society’s publicity budget has been severely lessened – to nothing, in fact. It’s not just us – everyone seems to be in the same boat. Anyway, our lack of funds made it exponentially difficult for our stand to provide as many free goodies this year. We had some jellies and lollipops, but mostly the sound of music blasting from our speakers and our enthusiastic sweet-talking was the enticing incentive our freshers got this year. And it seemed to work! We had a bit of trouble getting power at the start, and we had to make several trips to the library printers to replenish our handy flyer stock, but all in all, it was a successful outing! We’re almost at full membership, and from what I can tell so far there’s some really great enthusiasm this year, which is awesome!

In other news, our blogs were featured in the online Imperial magazine Reporter. An online compilation of our bloggers’ best bits can be found in that article here. The radio article I posted up here made an appearance in the music section of our newspaper Felix last week, which was rather thrilling, I won’t lie. Also, with the campaign for getting new bloggers, all of our faces have appeared on the Imperial website’s homepage – my face greeted me first thing last Tuesday morning in the computer labs, it was quite scary. I should’ve taken a screen snapshot, but my expression was too terrifying to be documented on this I’m afraid. To give you an idea, it looked a little like this – only much goofier.

Radio, Felix, blogging, Reporter… Not at all the typical attention-loving youngest child, am I? Here’s to the new year!

Welcome back everyone!

I thought I’d let everyone know what’s been taking up my time since I got back to Imperial… Here’s some info on one of Imperial’s coolest societies to get involved in! This was the article I wrote for Felix, and will tell you everything you need to know about Imperial’s very own student radio station!

Now in technicolour! IC Radio keeping current in 1986...

When I got elected as station manager of IC Radio for the coming year, many people were surprised… including myself! I stood a clueless (albeit enthusiastic) fresher whose first suggestion to get the station on FM airwaves was very swiftly shot down (An on-air radio license in the middle of London? Good one, fresher!). Honestly, I don’t know how I got elected – I remember saying the phrase “I’m charming, so vote for me”. Must be the Irish accent that made that statement seem endearing rather than obscenely obnoxious. Anyway, I can tell you now, that despite being barraged with hundreds of emails, being station manager of a student radio station really is as awesome as it sounds.

But enough about me. What does the radio society actually do?  Who are we? What on earth are these programmes broadcasted so shamelessly for the entire world to hear? Why do you care? Why are you reading this? Shouldn’t you be studying? Where am I?

IC Radio is the official sound of Imperial College London. We’re an internet-broadcasted station playing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, alternating between live broadcasts and a play-out of our enormous library. Our music team is working hard on reviewing new music that we’re sent every day from labels, independent artists and flat out gangstas to ensure that our play-out system only contains quality tunes. Our presenters are students just like you – hard working (ish) nerds who sincerely love a laugh.

Radio is fun. Even for people who get a little bit nervous speaking in front of people, you can still tell yourself that you’re really only speaking to the wall when you’re in the studio. Listen to any decent station and the presenters are generally having a good laugh (unless they’re reading the news, in which case that’s incredibly unprofessional and I highly disapprove). Societies are meant to be fun and rewarding – otherwise what’s the point?

Here at IC Radio, we will give you a show which you can make your own. We only ask that you undergo a 20 minute training session on how to use the equipment and obey the usual don’t-be-racist, etc. From then on, you’re basically given free rein to do whatever genre of programming you like – talk, pop, rock, electronica, psychedelic funk, Australian folk, whatever. Once you have joined the society the door is pretty much open for you to use our gear. If there isn’t a show on you can come in and practice on the decks in the studio – much cheaper and convenient than buying your own stuff and carting it to uni every time you want to jam. And all for a very reasonable 8 pound membership fee? Simply fabulous, dahling.

LONG LIVE THE CROC

24 hour music and programming isn’t all we do. We are blessed with a fully equipped recording studio as well as our production studio, meaning we get plenty of bands and artists in to do live sessions and recordings. We are pretty unique to have such a facility as a student radio and we’re planning on holding lots of live sessions this year. They are open for anyone to turn up to and watch, and are held in our “shared studio” (completely separate to our production and recording studios, and shared with Music Tech, Photosoc and Stoic). Some names we have lined up for this year include Tay Mos,Sam Gray, The King Blues and Missing Andy. I was told by the previous station manager that our recording studio is unrivaled by other student radio stations here in the UK – in fact, he compared our studios to the professionals at XFm. Not to be tooting our own horn or anything, but I think that’s pretty impressive – even if the man I’m quoting basically founded IC Radio Recordings himself and is therefore fairly biased.

We also make a point of hiring out our equipment to parties and events to make some extra cash so we can buy new toys (and pay our license fees, etc.) and there are always opportunities for budding DJs to play some gigs, which our members do take advantage of whenever they can.

As a London-based station, we have the advantage/disadvantage of getting lots of emails from those in the media industry and upcoming artists. True, we get a lot of spam, but sometimes a golden ticket flies our way. Just last month we were contacted by the presenting company for the Olympics with an opportunity for budding presenters to audition for 2012 events. [Insert scream here.] And just last week, a representative from the Student Radio Association contacted us about some radio work with BBC 1xtra. [Insert further cheers here.] For anyone who’s even vaguely thinking about a career in the music or media industry, we have some really incredible opportunities coming our way all the time where you can gain invaluable experience.

Honestly, I can’t imagine the week without my one-hour slot (entitled “Mad Craic”) in our modest Beit West Wing Basement studio. I wouldn’t be at Imperial if I wasn’t at least vaguely technical and all the buttons and slides down there make me positively gleeful. Music, technology, and the sound of my own vo– I mean, banter with my co-host, notorious biologist Craig Woods. What else does a girl need? It’s an absolutely brilliant society to get involved in – whether it’s music, production, presenting, technical, DJing, or even marketing that you’re into, we’ve got an enthusiastic committee member who can help you out!

Check us out on www.icradio.com, where you can listen live or listen back to previous shows, and hear some of our best sessions and recordings!
To get involved in our music team, contact music@icradio.com
To get involved in our live sessions and recordings, contactproduction@icradio.com
To hire equipment or get some DJing gigs, contactdiscos@icradio.com
To get your own show, contact programming@icradio.com
To complain about the length of this article, contactmanager@icradio.com. Cheers!

And now... IC Radio's station manager keeping it semi-current back in 2010!