The beginning of the academic year seems an age ago now, buried almost into the depths of prehistory. The year started in a less than newsworthy fashion with a half-hearted campaign against one particular element of Imperial College?s re-branding.

Still, things didn?t stay quiet for long. While the glue was still drying on freshers? wonderful new Union cards, Imperial managed to drop a dual bombshell ? a proposed merger with UCL and an extraordinary u-turn on top-up fees. From the student media perspective, the autumn seems to have passed in a flurry of fees and merger related news, with various other random distractions. The world finally seemed to be quietening down when ICU President Sen Ganesh found himself the first sabbatical to face a disciplinary motion in over a decade.

The new year kicked off with fresh controversy, this time over the management of the Reynolds Bar. Mr Ganesh roundly seeing off his motion of censure barely saw any pause for breath as Imperial College finally revealed the full extent of its ?new brand? and the government released its long awaited white paper finally giving the go-ahead for top-up fees.

RAG week saw the traditional silliness, with the C&G Hit Squad venturing far and wide. Matters were soon overshadowed however by a series of complaints about the Union?s sabbatical elections leading to first the disqualification and then reinstatement of Ameet Bhakta as a candidate.

ULU Elections were also not without controversy, but no disqualifications this time. This was more than could be said for ULU President Charlotte Dawkins, who found herself facing a motion of no-confidence.

Imperial College's year meanwhile closed out in style with the first Summer Ball in living memory that actually managed to break even on its budget.

For Live! this has been a good year. Over 200 news articles have been posted this year, and countless others in other categories. After celebrating our third birthday in January, we launched our new Culture section in March and this has proved a great success and plans are already afoot to launch an entirely new section this summer. We have more journalists writing for us than ever before and things are certainly looking like a positive future.

With 2002-2003 now officially behind us, its time to look ahead to a new year, new challenges and (dare we say it) new news stories. Your editors this year have been Mustafa Arif, Dan Lehmann and Oliver Pell. Thank you, and goodnight?