An Focal Editor Steps Down

Deano7788

reunion wrote: »

1. Offer to sell the paper to alumni's. I never understood why this was never offered. I'm sure Finn or any previous Communications officer would love to see how the paper is doing since they left (not to mention other sabbats and possibly other students). To put this in terms of money: 360 alumnis at ~€50 for 12 issues = €18,000 the extra money needed to run the paper last year and this is within the amount that is thrown away (so far) of each issue.

I honestly don't think there would be many takers if they were charged €50. That's over €4 an issue, which is extremely high for what they would be getting.

wnolan1992

reunion wrote: »

When there was a threat of losing the paper, not a single suggestion from the an focal camp to even attempt cost saving or innovate in anyway. The only thing is they may start to innovate when the irish times stops printing.

Well that's rather over-simplifying what happened IMO. The An Focal editor (at the time) stated that the paper was on track to make a profit this year due to increased advertising revenue. He also stated that there had been cost saving since you now had 3(?) students running the paper as volunteers instead of a salaried Sabbatical Officer.

1. Offer to sell the paper to alumni's. I never understood why this was never offered. I'm sure Finn or any previous Communications officer would love to see how the paper is doing since they left (not to mention other sabbats and possibly other students). To put this in terms of money: 360 alumnis at ~€50 for 12 issues = €18,000 the extra money needed to run the paper last year and this is within the amount that is thrown away (so far) of each issue.

TBH, I doubt you'd even get 50 people to pay €50 a year for AF. Let's face it, most alumni who would be interested enough to get AF probably live in the area, so could easily get a free copy. Not to mention the paper is put up on issu.com, so why would they pay for a physical edition when they could just read the entire thing for free.

2. Reduce the print run of an focal, make it once a month. The money saved could be used to print flyers that have a few main headlines and then a QR code and a thing saying visit anfocal.ie for more info. This could be printed more often then the paper could and for a lot less money.

Really like this idea. Could double as advertising for other SU services as well (ULFM, any events they're organising, etc)

3. make the news available on anfocal.ie. anfocal.ie doesn't even have the same news stories as the paper. At this stage it's a joke that Thomond Student Times does a million times better website than an focal. At the moment I'd give TST €3,000 rather than give an focal any money. They need to realise the paper needs to change urgently.

Completely agree. I can't for the life of me understand why EVERY story that goes into AF isn't put up on the site day-and-date. If it's a case that they don't have enough man-power to do this, then FFS put out the call for web editors.

7. Don't throw away the papers! Give them (after the 2 weeks) to some shops around the area so they can give them away for free to some people around the area. At least that way the local residents can see the good students do (and might complain less during RAG charity week).

Don't know how many people from the area would actually read it, but if shops were willing then it would be better than throwing them out or recycling all the left over copies IMO.

reunion

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Well that's rather over-simplifying what happened IMO. The An Focal editor (at the time) stated that the paper was on track to make a profit this year due to increased advertising revenue. He also stated that there had been cost saving since you now had 3(?) students running the paper as volunteers instead of a salaried Sabbatical Officer

But the paper is then just relying on advertising revenue as it has been for the last couple of years. It sounds harsh I admit, but at the same time, what has changed in the last couple of years for an focal? Bar, what seems to be the unwanted child, anfocal.ie; I see no difference from the paper when I was in 1st year and now. what has changed about the paper?

Also the communications officer's job was not solely the paper. Just every person elected gave a high % of their time just to the paper.

wnolan1992 wrote: »

TBH, I doubt you'd even get 50 people to pay €50 a year for AF. Let's face it, most alumni who would be interested enough to get AF probably live in the area, so could easily get a free copy. Not to mention the paper is put up on issu.com, so why would they pay for a physical edition when they could just read the entire thing for free.

If you got 50 people, that's still an additional income for relatively little work. While I don't think you'd get 360 people, you may get some current 4th years who are leaving signing up for it for the year they are gone. Personally someone might like to know how there club/soc was doing, updates about the new student centre, etc. You could get a few people.

These are just ideas, it could be a useless idea, it could only be alright. I admit that idea is a stretch for making €18,000 but it surely would make some money.


You could also allow people to donate to an focal via the website.

Or reduce the print run and make 4 big issues, 1 at the start of each semester and another at the end of each semester.

Deano7788

reunion wrote: »

If you got 50 people, that's still an additional income for relatively little work. While I don't think you'd get 360 people, you may get some current 4th years who are leaving signing up for it for the year they are gone. Personally someone might like to know how there club/soc was doing, updates about the new student centre, etc. You could get a few people.

These are just ideas, it could be a useless idea, it could only be alright. I admit that idea is a stretch for making €18,000 but it surely would make some money.

I honestly don't think it would, unfortunately. As was said already, it's available for free online as it is. Most past students, and current ones, know this, so there would be zero incentive to pay for it.

There's also the issue of delivery. Graduates could be spread all over the place so it could prove costly. The cheapest/easiest to deliver to would be in Limerick but they could just as easily call in to the campus and pick one up if they wanted. Again, zero incentive.

Polar Ice

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Well that's rather over-simplifying what happened IMO. The An Focal editor (at the time) stated that the paper was on track to make a profit this year due to increased advertising revenue. He also stated that there had been cost saving since you now had 3(?) students running the paper as volunteers instead of a salaried Sabbatical Officer.

He stated that.
At the same time, An Focal has a budget of €10,000 from the SU. Why does it need SU funding if the (ex) editor claimed it was on track to make a profit?

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Completely agree. I can't for the life of me understand why EVERY story that goes into AF isn't put up on the site day-and-date. If it's a case that they don't have enough man-power to do this, then FFS put out the call for web editors.

This is what I don't get. There's a perfectly good website. Relative to the costs of producing a paper, adding content to the website has a negligible cost (~€5000 per month vs ~€10 per month).
What seems even more daft is the content is already being produced. Copy Paste!