It’s strange to think Welcome was a month ago. I’m happy to say we had a very successful Welcome 2020, which included both a Virtual Fair and in-person activities like Lakeside, giving you the chance to get to know Brum and your fellow students.
After such a fantastic start to the year, I caught up with some of our student groups about their welcome activities and to do another round of student group shout-outs… Welcome 2020 edition!
Birmingham Marrow society:
Birmingham Marrow ran an exciting ‘talk and train’ event to give potential volunteers a chance to learn what Marrow is all about, hear a story from someone who received a bone marrow transplant that saved his life, and train virtually to become an official Marrow volunteer. The events were on 1st and 6th October and everyone who attended had the chance to win a Google nest mini home assistant device!
Paintballing and Airsoft:
Paintball and Airsoft are a group of students that try to get people to try out paintballing and or airsoft (a sport similar to paintball except small plastic BBS are used instead of paintballs). Due to current guidelines they can’t host any games for these sports but they are hosting a range of online socials. They hosted a unique welcome event by doing their own spin off of the comedy show “Would I lie to you” using members of the society as contestants. They did this over lockdown and it was a big hit, so they thought it would be a great icebreaker for all new members. They also did multiple online socials and pub quizzes during lockdown, and made their own gaming servers so that the society could play their favourite games together.
PolSoc:
PolSoc introduced a brand new Buddy Scheme for their members this year. With all the lockdown restrictions and the reduced contact time on campus, they wanted to find a way for, particularly first years, to connect with others easily. They paired first years up with either another first year or a second/third/fourth year, so that they can get to know each other and (hopefully) build friendships while we can’t do many in-person events!
PolSoc also ran some other events. One being CosmoPolitics on 24th September. This was a virtual cocktail/mocktail making night hosted by the President and Social Sec of PolSoc. They wanted this to be as inclusive as possible, hence the mocktails, as the society are aiming to push for more sober socials this year. They also ran a Quiz Night and started weekly initiatives for their socials called Good News Fridays. This involves the committee finding their best positive political news each week and sharing them on their social media to bring some positivity to politics! They’ll be posting more events they have planned later in the year like guest speaker events on their social media.
PhilSoc:
To kick off the year PhilSoc hosted a virtual ‘Think & Drink’ taster event. For those who don’t know about PhilSoc, a Think & Drink consists of discussing questions (somewhat related) to a theme in Philosophy with other people, and having an optional drink. It’s all very chilled out. Look out for more of their Think & Drink events this year!
For their second event they teamed up with UoB’s Women and Non-binary Association to host a virtual discussion on feminism. This event included speeches from a number of students from UoB on various topics within feminism and feminist philosophy. There was the chance to discuss these interesting topics afterwards!
Islamic Arts & Heritage:
The Islamic Arts and Heritage Society ran an online taster session where they looked at different architecture styles, including activities like; matching the picture to the country/area in the world it's from. There was also an activity where participants guess words that have Arabic origins and an opportunity to ask the committee questions.
Burn FM:
Throughout Welcome, Burn advertised different ways to get involved with Burn FM, from hosting a radio show or podcast, to advertising all of the journalism teams they have on offer. Alongside this, they hosted a live Q&A which is archived on their page and in online groups to answer any questions people might have.
The response to their social media posts, particularly through Fab, has been immense, and they're really excited to meet all of the new members albeit virtually!
Watch this space to hear more about the amazing things your student groups were doing during Welcome 2020.