Nightline

On Friday’s show we talked with Bethan, Cardiff’s newly appointed Nightline coordinator.

Cardiff Nightline is a confidential listening, emotional support and information service for members of Cardiff University, UWIC, RWCMD, and Glamorgan University.

Run by students for students you can ring them about anything from wanting a pizza or taxi number, to feeling lonely, feelings of depression, emotional issues or exam stress.

Nightline is totally confidential, non-judgemental and non-directive. We won't try to solve your problems, but we can help you to do it yourself.

02920 870 555

8pm - 8am term time.

Find out more at: http://www.cardiffnightline.com/

OR on Nigel the Nightline bear's facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NigeltheNightlineBear

Bethan said ‘Nightline is a great service to help you vent any thoughts, concerns, worries or if you just need some advice. With the forthcoming exams people often use the service if things are getting on top of them and we are here to help. We are run by students for students so we can listen to you; it’s anonymous and confidential and we’ll listen, not lecture. If you are interested in helping with the service we are always looking out for new volunteers across all the universities to keep the service open, training will be given and will begin at the start of the new academic year in October’

Today on the show.....

On today's show we will be talking about the forthcoming BigLittleCity exhibition (see below), talking with a guest from nightline, which is a listening, emotional support, information and supplies service, run by students for students, chatting about some great new ideas for our Student Bucket List and telling you about some fantastic charity events that are coming up this weekend and next week.

So tune in to xpress radio 12-1 to bring more of this beautiful sunshine into your life, through your ears and into your soul.

BigLittleCity

BigLittleCity will be having its grand opening on Thursday 14 April, 5pm til late.

After that We Are Cardiff will be exhibiting and inviting you to interact until 22 July


BigLittleWhat?

BigLittleCity is a celebration of Cardiff and Cardiff’s creative talent for photography, art, film, writing, music and performance, animation, illustration, painting and graffiti. BigLittleCity is about the city and the experience of its residents. The team has been invited to stage a four-month exhibition to help launch Cardiff’s prestigious new people’s museum The Cardiff Story at the Old Library building, The Hayes, in the heart of our city. The BigLittleCity exhibition will showcase everything that is special about the Welsh capital and is set to attract tens of thousands of people.

So where is it?

The Cardiff Story is a new city museum for the capital of Wales, situated in The Hayes (between House of Fraser and St David’s Hall). More here The Cardiff Story

We Are Cardiff is a storytelling project in which the citizens of Cardiff are invited to tell their story of the city.

What’s special about your neighbourhood? What do you love about living in the capital, and what do you hate?

We Are Cardiff will be exhibiting a selection of stories athte BigLittleCity exhibition gathered since We Are Cardiff launched in 2010. They will also be inviting visitors to the exhibition to write their own Cardiff story, which they will be adding to their storyboard throughout the course of the BigLittleCity Exhibition.

Cardiff Students represented in new museum

A new museum dedicated to the history of Cardiff has officially opened in the city; The Cardiff Story Museum shows how much the city has changed over the last 200 years. The Museum focuses on telling Cardiff’s history through the eyes of those who made it – its people.

Cardiffdigs.co.uk was asked to contribute to this exhibition and highlight some of the positive influences of students on the city. You can explore a number of photos and quotes from the cities student liaison officer and cardiffdigs.co.uk on the digital screens related to the ‘Changing face of Cardiff’ section in the exhibition.

An example of student volunteering

“As well as the financial benefits students bring to a community they volunteer hours of their time using a wealth of skills to help within the community. It’s my job to encourage good relations between new and existing residents, by educating students about social responsibilities and finding ways where we all can contribute to a cleaner, greener, safer, healthier and more optimistic city.” Kieran McCann. Cardiff Council’s Student Liaison Officer.

The new Museum provides an introduction to the city for visitors and a community resource for residents. The Museum is open seven days a week on the site of the iconic Victorian Grade II* listed Old Library. Entry is free.

Museum Manager, Dr. Kathleen Howe, said: ““It’s been a unique opportunity to start a city museum and collection from scratch – a mammoth but very enjoyable task! I know that The Cardiff Story team has found it a real privilege to work with the community groups, individuals and organisations across the city and county, to gather objects, information and stories that will represent Cardiff’s long history for generations to come.”

Living on £1 a day

On Fridays show you heard from Sophie Gale a third year student at Cardiff University. We spoke to Sophie just as she was finishing her challenge of living on £1 a day or less for five days in order to raise awareness of extreme poverty.

Sophie is raising awareness of the ‘Live Below the Line’ campaign launching in the UK in May and will promote the £1 a day for five days challenge as a means of raising money and awareness of those who live ‘below the line’ on less than £1 a day. Sophie took the challenge to get a better understanding of the challenges faced by people living in Extreme Poverty, and to raise funds for crucial anti-poverty initiatives.

Sophie completed her campaign on no-frills food like rice, couscous and soup, throughout she was fundraising for Results UK, a group which is geared towards generating the political pressure needed in order to end world poverty. Sophie was surprised at how difficult it was to ensure she was eating three meals a day, how little she could buy with £1, she spoke about how it was affecting her social life and how having to live off mainly stodgy food like carbohydrates wasn’t meeting her dietary requirements.

There’s not much you can do with £1. However, surviving on this small amount each day is the reality for the 1.4 billion people currently living below the extreme poverty line. Sophie is now campaigning for students to take part in the challenge and come to a special screening of a 1.4 Billion Reasons DVD presentation.


1.4 Billion Reasons is a thought-provoking journey that explores how we can see an end of extreme poverty within our lifetime. Based on leading research, 1.4 Billion Reasons clearly articulates the challenges of extreme poverty and demonstrates that by making simple changes, everyone can be part of the solution. It has been described as a groundbreaking movement that will certainly catalyze the movement to eradicate extreme poverty.

A brief snippet of the 1.4 Billion Reasons presentation can be found here

On the 25th of March, it will be coming to Cardiff University. You can find details of the event via Facebook here

The event itself will be free of charge and there will be refreshments provided, as well as a professional speaker on hand. We are anticipating that the screening will be extremely popular and as such it is necessary to register your interest early!

So if you are interested in attending, please contact Sophie at: GaleS2@cardiff.ac.uk

The presentation has been made possible with the backing of the Global Poverty Project and in partnership with RESULTS UK. The special screening of their 1.4 Billion Reasons DVD is an exciting and very exclusive upcoming event.

To find out how you can take the £1 a day challenge visit: http://www.livebelowtheline.org.uk/

Cardiff Students’ Union Elections

Campaigning begins today across campus for the Cardiff Students’ Union Elections

Download the list of candidates standing for each position here

You can come along and quiz your candidates at the Candidate Question time on Thursday 17th at 6.30pm in the great hall.

Here on the Union show ‘cardifference’ Friday 18th 12-1 on http://www.xpressradio.co.uk/ we have an exclusive interview with the current Union president Olly Birrell talking about the elections, how you can vote, why it’s important to get involved and all about his work this year and his aspirations for the coming years.

Download the candidate’s manifestos at:

http://www.gairrhydd.com/

The Executive Committee are the elected representative of the whole student body who work for you to make sure that your views are represented. Part of this committee are the Elected Officers, a team of students who have taken a break from their studies or recently graduated who are elected yearly by the student body to lead the union as a whole. All positions are up for election.

On the show on Friday we were very privileged to host two members from STAR – Student Action for Refugees. Hazel Hathway is the president of the Cardiff Union group and alongside her campaigns officer Miriam they came to talk to us about the work of STAR nationally and at a local level here in Cardiff.

STAR is the national network of student groups working to improve the lives of refugees in the UK by:

• Promoting positive images of refugees

• Volunteering for local refugee projects

• Campaigning for refugees

Refugees and asylum seekers are a vulnerable group of people who often have a long and difficult struggle to secure their safety in another country. As people fleeing persecution, torture and prejudice they need and deserve our support. The group here in Cardiff help promote a positive image of refugees as they believe it is vital that our fellow students have a positive attitude towards refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people.

Here in Cardiff Hazel and Miriam talked about how some of their projects past and present including:

- Volunteering every Wednesday at a local drop in for asylum seekers and refugees teaching conversational English.

- Asylum monologues

- Refugee rhythms

- A sleep out as part of the still human still here campaign

Up coming events include:

- Taking part in the student power debates at the union

- 'STARs' in their eyes fundriaser with act one

- Another performance of asylum monologues by act one

- Cup cakes and cast offs the festival.

You can find out all the details about the Cardiff based group on their facebook page here and the contact email is hazel_121@hotmail.com

The drop in centre is open every Wednesday for asylum seekers and refugees at Trinity Methodist church, four elms road (just off Newport road) 5.30 - 7.30. There is a social area upstairs and an informal English conversation class downstairs. The group is always looking for new volunteers to get involved and everyone is welcome to come along. So please e-mail Hazel if you are interested: hazel_121@hotmail.com

To find out more information about STAR’s national network and their work visit their website:

http://www.star-network.org.uk/

Kieran I want...

Thank you for listening to the show today. We had a great interview with Samar Wafa talking about the Census and Kelda Remington from People and Planet chatting fairtrade and ethical and environmental campaigns. We will post up the interviews soon.



If you have stumbled across us from the amazing blogspot that is hackflash then welcome – thank you for visiting. Thank you hackflash and Helia for our guest blog. 

If you haven’t come via hackflash you are still more than welcome have a read about the Kieran I want challenge and Student Bucket List feature; all suggestions welcomed!


I’ve watched as throughout the last few years friends have been having mini melt downs when their 30th birthday approaches. There is little doubt that when I was in my formative teenage years I was convinced that I would not make 30 and that it was such a seminal and preloaded date with various connotations connected to it.


When one of my closet friends turned 30 I did what all good friends should do and facebook hijacked him with a list of all the ways in which he had changed as a person written as if by his own fair hand

I’m 30 ‘I’ve changed’ I think you all saw this coming as I:

Have bladder problems and need to pee every few seconds (in fact just reading about wee makes me want to go)
Feel comfortable telling everyone I get my eyebrows plucked
Suffer from hangovers – if you can get me down the pub in the first place
Have not been near a club in years, when you say club I think biscuit
‘Extreme’ is a word I now use to describe the weather
When you say Stella I think ‘that’s a nice name for a girl’
Think hooters is a sound a car makes
Think a gentle ride in a canal boat was a good idea for a stag trip
My super bike now has peddles
My winkle pickers are now slippers

Then just last week I realised that it was 34 weeks until my 30th

Far from dreading it too much I am pretty excited it’s like Albert Camus says: ‘At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things’.

So I started writing things I’d like to have done before I’m 30:

Milk a cow, Learn to Eskimo roll a kayak, Have a go on a Unicycle, Learn to sign a full sentence in Sign language, Roller skate to work, organise a Karaoke eve, Go to a Michelin star veggie restaurant, Walk up Ben Nevis/Scafell Pike, Sleep rough/work in a soup kitchen, Watch dancer in the dark and Last of the Mohicans, Clear out inbox, Fix bike, Place a bet, donate sperm, be an extra in TV/Film, be a life model/ get portrait painted/caricature, make some money for charity, give blood…

But this all seemed a bit self indulgent. I’m fortunate that I have done many things some quite major in my short life in no small part to all my friends, family and random acquaintances so it struck me that I should ask them what they want me to do for them that I can add to the list, stuff that I promised to do but never got around too for example pre 30 I would like to take mum on a weekend away as we missed out last year or finally go and watch my mates band. Basically stuff they want me to do with them…or something they want to teach me or something they thought I should see/read/watch (you get the idea).

Kieran I want…(your suggestion here)

So I’m giving them a few weeks to send in their suggestions. I sent this out last week and so far its great to know that my friends what me to:

Have colonic irrigation please
Get your hair permed again
Find a nice girl who appreciates you (surprisingly not from any family member)

One friend said ‘It's hard to consider what someone else should do without bringing yourself into the process’ which I liked as lots of requests involved the responder or were asking me around for food, visiting flats or new homes, to go for a cup of tea or for a pint. I’ve had offers to help with suggestions on my list, been sent some unachievable ideas and many ‘Kieran I wants’ which I’m waiting on…hint hint. Some other examples:

Kieran I want you to:

Write a blog post about this for the hackflash blog (consider this achieved)
Find somewhere to learn a flying trapeze
Trek Everest base camp
Walk Hadrian’s Wall
Take me to Glasgow or Liverpool
Bake a cake for my charity event
Come with me to the bingo
Take me to see a cracking band of your choice
Get the portrait done with a friend (take me!) at the Moulin Rouge
Come around for dinner and watch little shop of horrors
Get into Metal (I’ll provide the CD) and watch A Headbangers Journey
Go to diggerland (don’t you dare go without me)
Come to my treatment room and have a chest or leg wax

I wanted to have a bundle of ideas as I still want them relatively spontaneous and not feel contrived but I find that if all else fails making a list is a good start to focus the thoughts (is that my age speaking!).

It’s nice to see that things I’d been meaning to do over the last few years; various visits et al are things that friends want, so this way if its on a list it gives it that bit more focus. It’s so easy to put off trips, visits, or cups of tea so over 30 weeks I will try and do 30 things or more. I’m not going to laminate the list or set it in stone so it can change and then obviously I can have a party to celebrate.

As excitingly The Kieran I want idea sparked a feature for a radio show http://www.cardifference.co.uk/ on xpress radio. Alongside my personal Kieran I want we are creating a Student Bucket List – all those things you should do before leaving Cardiff, some I have already stolen for my list:

Experimental travel around Cardiff by asking bar staff what they drink and where they would drink it then going there and so on and so on

Partake in Photo marathon
Have photo taken under Brains advert like in Super Furry Animals album
Go to Barry Island and act out some Gavin and Stacey scenes
Take a Roald Dahl book to the Roald Dahl Plas or the Norwegian Church where he was baptized and have your photo taken
Go to Splott Market
Buy a Love Spoon and send to a stranger

So I throw open the challenge to the world and see what bounces back.

If you don’t think this is too contrived or egotistical and have any suggestions, comments or thoughts send me an e-mail at cardifference@gmail.com

Student Bucket List ideas….

Kieran I want…..

Following the progress of the list and Kieran I want on this very blog http://www.cardifference.blogspot.com/ as I will update as we go along.