A former Charles Sturt University (CSU) journalism student has been awarded a $500 scholarship by leading childhood cancer support charity Redkite to assist her to advance her career. Ms Angela Lavoipierre, who studied journalism  at the CSU School of Communication at Bathurst, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia just before she began her Higher School Certificate. Despite receiving chemotherapy and treatment throughout school and university, Ms Lavoipierre has worked hard and excelled at her studies. “I’m surprised and delighted to receive this scholarship and intend to use it to undertake freelance work,” Ms Lavoipierre said. “I plan to focus my stories on social justice issues in remote parts of New South Wales as they are often missed because they are too far out of the way for media attention.” Ms Lavoipierre is currently working as a journalist at ABC Radio News in Sydney.

Students from the Charles Sturt University (CSU) School of Communication will fill several roles in the biennial Catapult Festival for young performers which will launch in Bathurst on Wednesday 23 September. To fulfil requirements for their major work research projects, which are marked by an external examiner for the subject ‘theatre/media workshop’, third-year students in the theatre/media course, Ms Georgia Prince, Ms Stephanie McLelland, and Ms Alice James, are working directly with Ms Kylie Shead, the festival coordinator and creative producer of the Local Stages program at the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre. “The Catapult Festival is a truly national festival now, with performing groups travelling from most Australian states and territories to participate,” Ms Shead said. “The contribution of CSU theatre/media students is invaluable. In addition to the third-year students, all second-year students in the subject ‘devised theatre’ contribute in a variety of production roles that form the basis of an assessment for them in that subject.”

When Australia’s famous Circus Oz performs in Bathurst on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 September as the resident professional company for the 2009 Catapult Festival, its co-director Mr Mike Finch returns with it to where his career began. As a graduate of the Charles Sturt University (CSU) theatre/media course at the School of Communication at Bathurst, Mr Finch says, “My current job as Artistic Director and co-Chief Executive Officer of Circus Oz was a direct result of the CSU theatre/media course. It simply gave me permission to turn those things I enjoyed doing into a career. The drive and commitment of the staff of the theatre/media course, and the various communications disciplines around it, and our access to the theatre/media resources directly led to the creation of Circus Monoxide as an entirely CSU theatre/media graduate project that went on to become a significant contemporary Australian circus. If it wasn’t for that group of people and those resources - the workshops, students and staff - Circus Monoxide would never have come to life, and I definitely wouldn’t be doing what I do now. The thing I love about Circus Oz is that there’s something for everyone and from so many angles - it never gets boring.”

When the Australian University Games began on the Gold Coast on Monday 28 September, Mr Charles Croucher, a Charles Sturt University (CSU) journalism student at the School of Communication at Bathurst, had the important role of Master of Ceremonies at the opening ceremony held at Sea World. CSU is represented by a team of 140 students from its campuses at Albury-Wodonga, Wagga Wagga, Bathurst and Orange. They are competing in athletics, basketball, beach volleyball, fencing, handball, hockey, lawn bowls, rugby union 7s, netball, touch football, ultimate frisbee, volleyball and water polo. Manager of the CSU team and student support officer at CSU at Orange, Mr Nik Granger, said, “We anticipate strong performances from the women’s basketball, women’s hockey, rugby union 7s and men’s water polo. Two of our recently enrolled international students will be competing in handball and water polo.” Go, CSU, go!

As part of Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) commitment to enhancing and ensuring its future environmental sustainability, a new 22 700 litre tank has been installed at the Transport Office at the Bathurst Campus to harvest rainwater to clean the University’s fleet of vehicles. The tank and related equipment were purchased with a $5 000 grant funded under the CSU Sustainability Grants program. The manager of CSU Green, Mr William Adlong, said, “The Bathurst Campus rainwater tank is the first project to be completed under CSU’s new Sustainability Grants, which are available for different projects across CSU’s campuses. The water tank will enable the University to keep vehicles presentable even if local water restrictions are imposed. Also, we hope that the tank will be a visual reminder to staff and students of the range of actions they might consider to help us conserve water and energy and reduce our ecological footprint”.

Paramedics from around NSW and interested academics will attend a workshop at Charles Sturt University (CSU) on Wednesday 7 October to foster research in the management and operation of ambulance services. Associate Professor Peter O’Meara, the Associate Head of the CSU School of Biomedical Sciences at Bathurst, said, “CSU is hosting the Pre-hospital Research Workshop with the aim to enhance research opportunities that might lead to improved service delivery and outcomes. This is an expanding field with much potential for practical action research”. Workshop participants will explore the formulation of research questions and hear research presentations about qualitative and quantitative research from Professor O’Meara and from two prominent visiting academics; Professor Malcolm Woollard, the Visiting Professor of Pre-hospital from Coventry University in the United Kingdom, and Mr Lawrence Brown, from the United States, a Research Fellow at James Cook University in Queensland.

Survey figures show that National Radio News (NRN) which is compiled and broadcast 365-days a year by Charles Sturt University (CSU) journalism students at Bathurst has a weekly audience of 1.35 million adult listeners. “Not a bad result for a ‘bunch of kids in a country town’,” said NRN manager Mr Peter Hetherington. “NRN has had a real flurry of enquiries from potential new subscriber stations, with a number coming from regional areas, while others have come from key markets including suburban Sydney and the Gold Coast. NRN now has close to 90 subscriber stations right across Australia, which is about 50 per cent of all stations in the Community Radio Network. This makes NRN the most popular news service in the community radio sector, and one of the most ‘listened to’ news services of any broadcaster in Australia.” Mr Hetherington also noted that some NRN cadets had recently taken up professional roles at major regional radio stations, which was further proof of the value of the training radio cadets gain at NRN.

The Sprung Festival of 12 productions by third-year theatre/media students from the Charles Sturt University (CSU) School of Communication, was launched at the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre (BMEC) on Tuesday 6 October. One of the festival’s production coordinators, Ms Erica Heller-Wagner, said a crowd of Bathurst residents and university students attended the launch held in conjunction with a Local Stages soiree. “During the soiree, in which local artists also performed, snippets of the Sprung Festival productions, which range from more conventional dramatic plays, to short films and physical theatre, were shown. These included previews of the theatre and physical theatre shows, and trailers of the films and television pilots,” Ms Heller-Wagner said. Tickets to Sprung Festival shows are $5 child/concession/student and $7 adult. For information and bookings call 0414 223 659.

Living sustainably through kitchen gardens in schools and in the wider community is the focus of the 2009 Education for Sustainability Conference to be held at Charles Sturt University (CSU) at Bathurst on Friday 30 October, with a second optional day on Saturday 31 October. The conference is being staged in conjunction with the Bathurst Community Climate Action Network (BCCAN), and will examine growing food as a way of addressing sustainability issues through school curricula and the development of practical skills. One of the conference organisers, Ms Jan Page, from the CSU School of Teacher Education at Bathurst, said, “With food being the largest component of many individuals’ ecological footprints, growing food not only addresses health issues but also provides a framework to develop knowledge and skills for individuals to reduce their footprint by living more sustainably.” As well as educators from pre-school to tertiary level, members of the Bathurst region community are invited to attend.