Catz students launch new podcast

A group of undergraduate students has launched a new podcast series called The Spoke, which has been specifically designed for students at St Catharine’s to help our close-knit community stay connected.

George Cristin-Marks (2018, Modern & Medieval Languages), Emily Gobet (2018, Law), Ellie Gregson (2018, Geography), Emma McDonald (2018, Geography) and Robert Sizer (2018, HSPS) will be sharing presenting and production responsibilities. Listeners may want to look out for the striking graphics created by Caterina Dixon (2018, Veterinary Medicine) and listen out for a delightful jingle composed by Alex Wallace (2019, Maths) with “For the wheel” sung by several members of the St Catharine’s College Choir.

Emma said, “Thinking back, I’m not sure whether the idea of a podcast came first or The Spoke as a name. There’s probably a bit of nominative determinism at play because the idea of a magazine was discussed only briefly before we settled on a podcast.”

Emily added, “We all started talking about The Spoke back in Lent Term, well before the pandemic, but the podcast format has really lent itself to the situation we’re in at the moment. It has understandably taken a little time to get off the ground because of exams in Easter Term.”

“While we’ve all got a strong interest in the media ­– Emma has been involved with the Geography department’s Compass magazine and Emily has written for Varsity – working together has been a very welcome nice distraction from dissertation research and, for me at least, making plans for a year abroad,” explained George.

The team put out a notice on the JCR Facebook page to encourage potential interviewees to put themselves forward and reached out to members of the College community to set up interviews. Thanks to so many positive responses, The Spoke is already available online on SoundCloud, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, with work going on behind the scenes to share the series on other platforms very soon.

“I’ve really loved the chance to work with a group of College friends on The Spoke and learning together about the intricacies of how to produce a podcast, especially when we can’t be in the same room together. I hope that listeners can tell we’re having fun even while we’re apart!” commented Ellie.

Robert said, “Looking ahead, we’re hoping to speak to staff, students, Fellows and representatives from different student societies across Catz. We’re hoping to produce more episodes over the summer months and potentially ease off a little during term time.”

Find out more about life at Catz as an undergraduate student.