It is with a heavy heart and a pinch of self-indulgence that I write my final editorial of the 2013/2014 academic year, as quite frankly I’m stunned that over a year has passed since I was elected into this role. 13 issues, around 1,000 articles and plenty of InDesign practice later, here we are.
Congratulations to those of you who have completed exams and especially well done to fellow History students for sitting those nightmare three-hour special subject exams – exam season is a hard time for all.
It seems to be traditional for the SCAN Editor to get all sentimental in their final editorial of the year, so here we go. This was the first trial run of an elected student editor taking the reins of every aspect of the paper and at times, it’s been truly terrifying. Trying to fit meetings, copy reports and designing 64 pages around coursework and seminar reading was much, much harder than I optimistically thought – in fact, I don’t think I actually started doing work for my degree until Week 8 of Michaelmas term. Whether or not this affects my final grade only time will tell, but the wealth of experience this job has given me is something I could talk about for hours.
As tempting as it is to sit here and take all the credit for what I believe has been a wonderful year for SCAN, it would not have been possible without the support of last year’s Assistant Editor, Jack Smith, and this year’s absolutely brilliant and beautiful VP Communications Rachel Harvey. In addition to this, my Assistant Editor Jess French stepped into the role effortlessly after the resignation of another, and has been consistently lovely, helpful and smiley – which helps – as well as becoming a very close friend. You’ve all been an absolute asset to me this year and I’m eternally grateful that I got involved with SCAN, otherwise we probably never would have met.
I’m also grateful to have been given this opportunity at all and to have chosen such a great bunch of people for my Editorial Team – it’s been a group effort to make SCAN the best it can possibly be, and the wealth of experience and fresh ideas that my team have offered is something they should be extremely proud of. All of their names and positions are listed to the left – a tremendous thank you to you all and to the deputy section editors, who I hope applied to continue working on SCAN next year.
Finally, I’d like to wish my successor Jack Perry, who will release his first issue in Freshers’ Week 2014, all the luck in the world and I hope you have as much fun as I did. On a day-to-day basis, this job can be stressful and occasionally frustrating but I would not have changed anything this last year. After briefly meeting and knowing of Jack in his first year at Lancaster, due to his presence in Bailrigg FM and hearing stories of how wonderful and naturally at ease he was in the face of big events such as the Full Time Officer elections, I decided to approach Jack and persuade – and by persuade I mean mildly harass – him into applying for News Editor this year. I am certain he will take the role in his stride and excel. I was very lucky this year in that there were three brilliant candidates, and although we obviously could not elect them all, I’d like to wish Erik Apter and Julia Molloy the best of luck in whatever they chose to do this year.
Last of all, thank you to everybody who has read SCAN this year and to all of the writers who joined us and supplied excellent content throughout the year. SCAN is nothing without you. Really, if none of you were interested I’d have been sitting twiddling my thumbs with no articles to lay-up. I hope the experience has been fulfilling and enjoyable for you all, last year I used to get overly excited about picking up the issue to see my name in print.
I’m giving the cute animal of the week thing a miss this time, as you’ll find that there are just lots of bonus cute animals this issue. I suggest if you want to continue getting your daily dose of cute, look me up on Twitter @RachelMayQuin.
Though this is the final ‘proper’ edition, I’m very excited for our special 50 year anniversary edition of SCAN, celebrating the University’s birthday. We’ve got interviews with the incoming and (fingers crossed) outgoing Chancellor, we had a chat with a Game of Thrones actor, Fashion have produced a beautiful photoshoot and there’s lots of other fantastic content celebrating all things Lancaster. It will be available around campus on Monday, Week 10, as well as during various opening and community days throughout the summer. It’s been a real pleasure planning and working on the 50th, so make sure to pick it up.
Goodbye, good luck, and thank you again for the best year of my life so far.
