(Image Creds: Charlotte Ambrose)
Being a campus newspaper means that we are at the bottom of the list of importance at Roses, and half the time we were forgotten. Unlike our friends over at YSTV and URY (who were incredibly helpful to us), York Vision had a difficult time securing photos, interviews, and communication with people at the event.
I had travelled on the 6 am coach over to Lancaster to arrive in time for my scheduled coverage of Women’s college netball. However, when I arrived, nothing but problems were waiting for me.
We hopped off the coaches and were left confused about where to even go. All we had was the name of a lecture theatre and no clue how to get there. We eventually found our way after lugging our things up the worst hill I have ever encountered to where we were meant to be staying all weekend. I dropped off my massive bags and headed over to the sports centre to watch the netball game. I entered the sports hall at 9 am and rushed to find a seat in the sports hall. After a few minutes, I began to feel confused as to why there were no netball nets set up, only to find out they were setting up for Women’s Futsal. I left the sports hall and went to YSTV’s production office to figure out if I was just in the wrong spot, only to find out the netball match and futsal matches had swapped timings, and no one had told us.
I started to trek back up the hill to the lecture theatre when I received a call from our managing director, who was also in Lancaster, that there had been a miscommunication about our accommodation and that the room was booked until 6 pm and that we wouldn’t have access until 8 pm, so we had to move all our stuff to an unlocked storage room.
After talking to the security office on campus (TWICE!), I managed to find a solution for my team that worked, and then I could finally start the weekend.
Remember how I said that the storage room was unlocked? Well, one of our team’s sleeping bags had gone missing. I started going into other lecture theatres, asking other students if they had seen the neon orange sleeping bag. Only to come across a very guilty-looking boy who claims he thought it was a spare sleeping bag…Strange.
Although the problems weren’t over, I still had to sort the food vouchers out. I headed over to the LUSU to collect them, and day one went smoothly (except the food wasn’t the best). But by day 2, problems arose, and our food venue had moved over 15 minutes away from the Roses hub. At the time of finding out, we were in the studio with YSTV. We headed upstairs to where the food was getting dropped off for YSTV. Turns out they were given all the food from the venue, and that there was none left for our crew to get when they arrived at Barkers (the food venue), so we shared with YSTV. However, by the evening, we received an email saying that YSTV and URY were left with not enough food for their crew. This was weird, as ALL the food the staff had crooked was taken to the media studio. One of our writers had gone to Barkers that day, trying to get food, but they were told there was none left and that it had all been taken over. So I’m still unsure as to where this miscommunication happened, but at least I had my chips and beans for dinner.
After a weekend of sleeping on the floor and running across campus, I think we struggled more than people realise. Hopefully, in the future we won’t be so forgotten.