Alumni and Friends

‌Colin Stone

BA (Hons) Multimedia Journalism
2012 Gordon Masterton/Magnusson Award

Colin, a Mutlimedia Journalism student, was hand-picked to be part of the Press Operation team at the London 2012 Olympic Games. He recalls his experience:

In the blur that was the 10 days of track and field competition, it’s an impossible task to single out one particular highlight as my personal favourite of the 2012 Olympic Games.

Was it meeting Usain Bolt, not once, not twice, but on three separate occasions? Was it seeing Russian pole vaulter Elena Isinbaeva, once at the top of her game, lose her rag and rant hysterically for 20 minutes in the mixed zone? Was it witnessing Mo Farah claim his second goal medal by winning the 5,000m? Or was it having my Yohan Blake quotes sent out to every major international media outlet in the world?

I could probably write an entire book of the extraordinary things I was a part of during my time in the press team at the Olympic Stadium. For example, I'm sure that I, like everyone else who had the pleasure of being there, will never, ever forget the atmosphere created by the 80,000 rapturous supporters on the evening of the final Saturday. To describe the noise as thunderous would be an understatement.

During the ten days of competition, I saw world records being obliterated; I watched competitors celebrate in the most unusual ways, and I worked alongside some terrific journalists and some genuinely fantastic people.

I even bumped into John McEnroe at one point.

But none of it would have been possible without the help of the Magnus Magnusson fund…

View Colin's full report of his time at the Olympics

Joel Somerville

BSc (Hons) Optometry
2008 Glasgow Caledonian University/Magnusson Award

Joel Somerville is an optometry graduate and one of the winners of the inaugural Magnus Magnusson Awards.  Joel travelled by car (a distance of over 6,000 miles) to Togo, in French-speaking West Africa, where he worked on-board a Mercy Ship as a volunteer optometrist, carrying out eye surgeries and getting involved in pre/post–op care and screening patients.  Later on in the year, Joel travelled to Guatemala and Nicaragua to work for Latin Link a charity involved in medical and educational work in South America.

Joel said: “The Magnus Magnusson Award has done two things for me -  practically I am now much more confident speaking French and Spanish and I’m skilled and confident in my professional diagnoses; personally I have also been changed.  I’m not afraid to live my dreams wherever they take me, and I’ve been given the courage to realise that the one stone I carry can be part of the building of the world.”

John McAlinden

Dip HE/Bachelor of Nursing (Mental Health)
2008 Gordon Masterton/Magnusson Award

John received the Gordon Masterton/Magnusson Award in 2008 which enabled him and his band – Colonel Mustard & The Dijon 5 - to record their album and develop their song-writing skills.  John also manages the band For Abel, who are ready to release their first album, Greater Inventions, on Glasgow label Flowers in the Dustbin.  The album has already had airtime on Radio 1 and 6 Music, and their single OnTV has featured on Sky TV. 

On the album sleeve, John has expressed his thanks to GCU, the Magnus Magnusson Awards and Gordon Masterton.

Dawn Turner

Bachelor of Law
2009 Glasgow Caledonian University/Magnusson Award

The Magnusson Award helped Dawn to travel to Uganda as part of a three-month internship in 2009 to carry out legal research in active death penalty cases as part of the Death Penalty Project; and coordinate the launch of a national Ugandan electoral reform coalition, the Citizens’ Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda.

Since then,  Dawn has been completing her Diploma in Legal Practice at the University of Glasgow. She has recently become an Amicus caseworker, which means working on active death penalty cases from around the world.

Richard Bell

BSc (Hons) Diagnostic Imaging Science (Radiography)
2010 Icelandair/Magnusson Award

Winning the Icelandair/Magnusson Award enabled Richard to develop his website, X-RAYTODAY, which addresses key learning needs of student radiographers, as well as the professional development needs of radiographers in practice.   The inspiration for the website was conceived by Richard through his frustration at the lack of current diagnostic imaging learning resources online. 

Richard said: “Since receiving a Magnusson Scholarship, I have been working hard developing and maintaining professional ties with key individuals within the healthcare sector, in order to drive e-learning within radiography and health forward. This award has acted as a real springboard for the development of an e-learning portal for healthcare and, specifically, radiography e-learning education. This scholarship has given me the tools to develop and realise an idea of more specific, relevant and engaging e-learning education within healthcare.”

Kellie Gibson

PhD Rheumatology
2010 Gordon Masterton/Magnusson Award

Kellie volunteered with The Leprosy Mission International in Bangladesh for four weeks in 2010.  During her visit, Kellie spent time at various hospitals and visited rural outpatient clinics, working with patients with rheumatoid arthritis and survivors of leprosy. 

Looking back at her trip, Kellie is adamant that she would do it again: “I went out there for personal experience, which, without a doubt, I definitely got! I loved being involved with the patients, I even loved visiting the slums.  I was never going there to change the way they did things; but was happy to help in any way I could, which turned out to be more in a personal than a professional capacity.  This will always be the most memorable experience of my life.  I would urge anyone to do it.”

Robert McQueen

BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying (p/t)
2010 Magnusson Award

Last year, Robert travelled to Posadas, Argentina, where he stayed with a guest family for two weeks.  He worked in an orphanage and coached football to underprivileged children who lived in extremely poor conditions.    Robert spent his time taking the children on regular trips to the park, helped with cleaning and teaching some of the older children English. Robert reported that the children were extremely receptive to having a foreign coach, even if they did mock his broken Spanish.  Robert enjoyed the Argentinian culture, and helped bring a little bit of happiness and joy to the underprivileged children that he worked with during his stay.

On his return, he has been working towards setting up charity events to help send parcels over to the children in the orphanage and is contacting large sport manufacturers and teams in a bid to get training kit and equipment for them.

Armenia Occupational Therapy Group

(Laura Holmes, Gail Frame, Jane Thomson, Mairi Manners, Doreen Mall)
2010 Santander/Magnusson Award

The five Occupational Therapy students had gone to Yerevan, Armenia, as part of a two-week student professional development trip. They were inspired after attending a lecture about the work undertaken by the European Network of Occupational Therapy in Higher Education, to establish Occupational Therapy education programmes in Georgia and Armenia as a means of promoting the social inclusion and human rights of people with disabilities in these countries.  This captured their imaginations and inspired in them a desire to learn more about the new approaches to occupational therapy service delivery, which are in contrast to current educational practices in Scotland. 

The students said: “The visit has helped us gain a more global perspective of our profession by seeing first-hand how our shared skill-set can be used in very different ways.  The trip has inspired us to think creatively about where and how our occupational therapy skill-set can be used, and not to be deterred by challenging circumstances.  Although our visit was brief, we hope that the links we have made will support the continued development of the Occupational Therapy profession in Armenia.”