Firstly, a meeting with the Guild on Friday confirmed that the Northern Society is a good idea. Our section of the meeting lasted no longer than five minutes with a simple question to answer: what do you want to do with your society? After a brief explanation, emphasising the aim to get rid of the North/South divide within home students, there was a unanimous agreement and we were given a document to give to the office in Student Development. Bish bash bosh! We were told that in about a week or two there will be a training session and start up meeting that we will have to book and attend, dates for which will be emailed to us soon. With that under our belt, we went on a search for another one or two committee members (as the minimum is three and the average is four) through Facebook in a group message. Three people replied, one of which was in mind anyway, and the decision will be made soon. The first social for the Northern Society should happen in two weeks or so. Good news, good news indeed.
In other news, after a weekend away in Sheffield to see the Winter Varsity Ice Hockey game between Hallam and Uni, a childhood want was reborn: I've always wanted to be able to ice skate, with even a very young dream to be a figure skater (this is before the hype of Dancing On Ice... in fact it was before Popstars). I knew already that there are no ice rinks in Birmingham. Ironically, the Birmingham rink was burnt down a few years ago. There is a rink in Solihull, though, which can be accessed by bus from Birmingham Moor Street. Lessons are in five week blocks at £36 plus skate hire (£2 per session). Though this seems a bit steep to me, having known a cheaper block in Doncaster which includes skate hire, Solihull Blue Ice rink do include the invitation to the extended session afterwards for free. For those who become or are already competent skaters, the University of Birmingham has an Ice Hockey society which includes access to the Birmingham Eagles, the team with players from UoB, Aston and City.
Showing posts with label societies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label societies. Show all posts
Monday, 22 February 2010
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Week 3: Starting up a society
At Birmingham, there are over 160 societies so there's usually something for everyone. However, I'm a very picky person. Having spent hours looking at the variety of societies and not deciding on one that I'd like to commit to, I was ready to just concentrate on studying and procrastinating. On Wednesday, though, I was having a conversation about just going through the motions, with my boyfriend, and some words slipped out my mouth: 'let's start a society for Northerners'. Genius. As a representative of 'The North', I'd like to warn anyone else in my group that the University of Birmingham is choc-full of student from the south and abroad. I know there are some Northerners hiding in here somewhere. I found a few of them myself. My boyfriend is one. We need more! That's why we decided to start up a society for us.
We then thought of how exactly we could do that. I insisted that on our way home, because we had the revelation over a mug of hot chocolate in Starbucks on New Street, we visit the Guild reception and ask what they know about setting a society up. It was about 7pm so we didn't expect anywhere to be open but I knew that there would be someone at the reception to help. She told me that the Student Development office deal with the society and volunteering side of the Guild and it would definitely be worth asking them for more details. I'd read or been told somewhere that to start up a society you need to prove that it would be successful so a certain amount of signatures would be needed.
The following day, I went down to Student Development and they were very excited that I wanted to do this. It seems that very few people have the courage or initiative to start up a society of their own so I was praised like a Queen. I was given a form to read and fill in. The very important bit of it was that I needed 20 people to say they liked the idea of the society. I did mention to everyone I asked to sign that this did not mean they would be committing to signing up, they'd just be helping me out. There's also two pages to fill in about justifying the reason for starting the society - you have to reassure the Guild that it would not threaten their financial status or offend in any way. Also, just because the society would be aimed at people from the North of England, it doesn't mean we can cast away anyone who is not from that area. Anyone is welcome as long as they are willing to embrace Northern culture. I am making it very clear, in our advertising, that the society does not promote the North/South divide but celebrates the minority of Northerners in the University.
So far I have six of twenty signatures. That shows how few people of Northern descent there are. Admittedly, I have only approached a handful of joint honours drama students and most of the single honours crew. A group has been set up on Facebook (link below) and advertising material is in the process of production. I plan to stand outside the library at some point either tomorrow or Tuesday and ask randoms for their interest. ...if I can muster the courage. Surely I can, I've performed on stage in front of a full house before. How hard can it be? Gulp.
Click the logo to go to the Facebook group
We then thought of how exactly we could do that. I insisted that on our way home, because we had the revelation over a mug of hot chocolate in Starbucks on New Street, we visit the Guild reception and ask what they know about setting a society up. It was about 7pm so we didn't expect anywhere to be open but I knew that there would be someone at the reception to help. She told me that the Student Development office deal with the society and volunteering side of the Guild and it would definitely be worth asking them for more details. I'd read or been told somewhere that to start up a society you need to prove that it would be successful so a certain amount of signatures would be needed.
The following day, I went down to Student Development and they were very excited that I wanted to do this. It seems that very few people have the courage or initiative to start up a society of their own so I was praised like a Queen. I was given a form to read and fill in. The very important bit of it was that I needed 20 people to say they liked the idea of the society. I did mention to everyone I asked to sign that this did not mean they would be committing to signing up, they'd just be helping me out. There's also two pages to fill in about justifying the reason for starting the society - you have to reassure the Guild that it would not threaten their financial status or offend in any way. Also, just because the society would be aimed at people from the North of England, it doesn't mean we can cast away anyone who is not from that area. Anyone is welcome as long as they are willing to embrace Northern culture. I am making it very clear, in our advertising, that the society does not promote the North/South divide but celebrates the minority of Northerners in the University.
So far I have six of twenty signatures. That shows how few people of Northern descent there are. Admittedly, I have only approached a handful of joint honours drama students and most of the single honours crew. A group has been set up on Facebook (link below) and advertising material is in the process of production. I plan to stand outside the library at some point either tomorrow or Tuesday and ask randoms for their interest. ...if I can muster the courage. Surely I can, I've performed on stage in front of a full house before. How hard can it be? Gulp.
Click the logo to go to the Facebook group
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Name: Vici Royle