November 2011
UoS International Welcome Event @ The Stadium of Light
Student Radio Awards 2011 & London

December 2011
The Lock In

January 2012
Simon Wright and The BBC’s Production Trainee Pool

Gullible – Funny Radio Clip from 107 Spark FM with Calum Hider & The Team

May 2012
Blueprint & Contrapunto
Will She? Won’t She?

June 2012
The Final Results

Well there we go.
That’s the year, pretty much in a nut shell – and what a year it has been!

There. It’s all over. Here I be.

Crazy isn’t it? You wait till it is you.

Arriving with my parents, I was ushered into the Stadium of Light into what became a long queue to the Gowning department! How exciting. Here I received my gown, had my photograph taken and was greeted by fellow graduating friends. It wasn’t long before we were reunited with the parents ready for some catch ups and pre-celebrating chit chatter. Not long went by before a rather formal gentleman revealed over the tannoy – ‘Will all graduating students please make their way to the stand seating’ – This was it. The moment.

The ceremony itself flew by – good riddance – I was so nervous about “that moment”, AKA, the stage and the walk.
Thankfully it didn’t go to badly; some people decided to do a “paparazzi” wave – good for them.
There was speeches, a list of people to read out, more speeches and then my good friend Calum Hider (see below) popped on stage to read out the “Vote of Confidence” for the student body. A ruddy good speech might I add; he summed up well the feeling of Class 2012. Nice work.

After the event we turned to a few more photos with friends and family and then then settled on a deal which would set of a chain of events involving hard partying throughout the evening and into the rest of the night!

Below are some photos from the graduation and also the night that followed! Some have had to be cut from this post - as those involved in those pictures were doing some quite explicit things (terrible behaviour) – well after all we were celebrating our graduation!

The results are in.
This is it.

As I fixed my eyes upon a unsuspecting standard white envelope, everyone in the office focused upon this object – treating it as if it was a new born baby – Open it!, What are you waiting for?, You can do it!, were all part of a series of phases uttered by bystanders. Blanking my mind, I had to leave the room.

In a peaceful environment it was time to part the envelop’s sticky material from it’s paper counterpart.

Okay. Honestly, cut the arty explanation!

I’ll be graduating with a First Class Honours.

We will all be getting our best frocks on with our hats, robes and parchments at the Graduation Ceremony this Monday afternoon at the home of Sunderland AFC, The Stadium of Light.

Where do I begin with how grateful I am for this whole experience?!
I hope throughout my blogging this year it has been made clear how thankful I am for all the expereinces and people I have met and collaborated with over the past three years; for without them, I would not have achieved my goals and more!

Thank you.

It only seemed like last weekend when we opened the doors of the Newcastle Companion Club for our Charity Launch Event.

We screened, In Memories, The Zombie Room Book Trailer, In Pursuit of Perfection and Detached.

Throughout the evening, we had some Live Music on offer, courtesy of The Beth Macari Band who kindly cancelled a previously arranged gig to perform at the event.

We raised £303.84 for Age UK Newcastle.

We have some exciting and unique projects with various North East organisations in the pipeline - we can’t wait to get them into production.

We will also be working this Summer with the University of Sunderland who will be mentoring us with our business plan and ideas in preparation for this October’s North East Blueprint Business Planning Competition.

We filmed a short video at the event. I’ll post it on it here when it’s ready. For now though here’s are some photos – courtesy of (I’m not embarrassed to say) my Mum!

Don’t forget, that if you decide to come to this Uni, you can get involved with Spark too. You never know, you might be interviewing the likes of Miles Kane or Band of Skulls at next year’s music festivals.

Full Coverage

Click here to view the embedded video.

Miles Kane

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Milk

Click here to view the embedded video.

Band of Skulls

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Lake Poets

Click here to view the embedded video.

The last couple of days I’ve been recouping from what was an amazing weekend.

The #sparkatevo (see Twitter) Team were out in force on Sunday & Monday – documenting the best of this year’s Evolution Festival.

I spent most of my weekend in between 3000 people and a massive stage playing host to stars (Miles Kane/Noah and The Whale)/mega stars (deadmau5/Dizzee Rascal) – AKA “The Photo Pit”. Myself and Christopher Smith (Editor at Spark Magazine) were taking stills and video footage throughout the weekend.

My favourite set of the weekend was from an emerging band called, The Milk. For Monday’s opening act, they really held the crowd well. On the other hand, none of any of the weekend’s acts could beat deadmau5′s stage set and lighting show. Some five metre cube shaped bright LED displays with a huge lighting rig and his unmistakable mickey mouse inspired (surely?!) head piece were unreal. I’d never seen anything like it. Phenomenal.

You can catch all the content the team produced; pictures and interviews from the of the North East’s biggest music festival over here:
http://www.sparksunderland.com/events/evolution2012/

All weekend I’ve literally been on Cloud 9.

Last Thursday myself, Adam & Amy (also both members of the new production company, Contrapunto) attended the Blueprint Business Planning Competition.

We entered into the University’s business competition after seeing a very small poster (A5 size, if that), pinned onto a noticeboard in The Media Centre back in April.

The awards ceremony was held at The National Glass Centre where a good hundred guests; local/regional business people, university staff and the competition’s finalist were invited to. There was a sit down meal and an opportunity to network with business people.

It was a lovely evening.

A speech from North East entrepreneur, Tom Maxfield offered tons of inspiration. Tom’s diverse career has seen him take on big leadership roles at various companies including the third largest software accountancy firm in the world, The Sage Group. More recently, he successfully developed a luxury hotel and spar brand which includes, Seaham Hall. I felt his top ten tips were of particular interest. At one point I felt like I should have got out a pad and pen, like I was in some lecture!

After the good food and business orientated speeches, the most nerve-racking part of the evening was about to the beginning – The Awards.
The team were delighted to win the Creative Industries Award but we had no idea, nor did it cross our minds that we would ever be consider for the Overall Winner prize. We are all still in a state of shock. It is going to be a honour to represent the University of Sunderland in this year’s regional heat, The North East Blueprint Business Competition.

I’d like to say a massive thank you to our lecturers, Nicholas Glean and Shafik Obrai, plus Nickola Gray (Internships, University of Sunderland), author R. D. Ronald (The Zombie Room) and Laura Foster from Creativitiworks. Without these people, Contrapunto would not have existed, let alone be winning these awards. Also, thank you to all the other businesses and people who supported us throughout the last year.

The University also did a piece on the awards – See here.