Journalism Awards Night Club has long way to go

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Shelbey Hernandez

 

For the eighth annual Journalism Awards Night to happen, journalism students will have to make over $700 per month by April.

Last year, JAN cost more than $4,000. Former JAN president Sarah Ryrie had made a little over $1,000 but was able to make up the money she didn’t have by selling the JAN tickets according to Ryrie. These tickets were $40 each and there were approximately 180 sold. Food alone made up 92 per cent of the total cost for JAN.

This year, although the club is close to making $1,000 from the first semester, there is still a long way to go.

The JAN club is a journalism student club that works to raise money for an end-of-the-year event. This event is called the Journalism Awards Night, where students from each year are presented awards for a variety of categories.

Last year, some of the categories included Bell Media Journalist of the Year, Beat Reporting, Convergence Technology, CP Editing and Photojournalist of the Year.

At last year’s event, there were many media outlet representatives present, such as Dan Appleby, the news director at CTV and CBC’s David Common, who was the guest speaker.

Taylor Busch, the current president for the club, said part of the problem was not having any money at the beginning of the year. Everything had to come out of her own pocket for the first event which cost approximately $300 to put together.

Busch also said she may not personally know how much she has to raise, but she does have a goal in mind.

“My goal is to make about $500 every month and I only came up with that because for the barbecue thing which we were hoping to break even, we made $400,” said Busch. “So my goal is to do a little better than that every month going forward.”

Ryrie said when she was the JAN club president, one of her main issues was not having much help. She only started with $14 in the bank, so like Busch, she had to pay for a lot of things.

Last year, many students were unhappy with the cost of JAN tickets, but Ryrie said she had no choice. She had hoped to have extra money for the next year’s club, but it was impossible. She was a full-time student, a vice president for the student government, the JAN club president and worked part-time so she never had enough help. Since she had to do so much with little help, she said it upset her when people complained.

“There was times when I was doing so much JAN stuff that I didn’t even have time for my own stuff. My grades definitely even took a toll… and that’s why it bothered me that the people were complaining,” said Ryrie. “I was like, ‘You don’t have to do any of this. You get to go to bed at a decent time. You get to just go to your work.’ It was so hard to work and do all of this at the same time.”

Ryrie also said the awards night is crucial for students to develop future careers. At that event, she said journalism students are able to make connections with potential employers so it is important for students to support the JAN club. “At the end of the day, we go to school because we want to get a job and our Journalism Awards Night really helps people make those connections and increases our chance of getting a job. We’re not in an easy field, so we need to do as much mingling and meeting people as we can.”