Hey,
Next
installment of my long-awaited update, here we go.
As some of
you might know, I ran for being Social Secretary for the fencing club this year
and got the position. Bear in mind, when I did fencing in my second year there
were about 40 members, of which pretty much the same 10 people attended the
socials. This was the idea I had when getting into it. To my surprise, this
year the club has become incredibly popular, with us pretty much doubling the
membership aim we’d set (which already was higher, 65 members). Turns out, we
have over 120 members this year! So suddenly my role as Social Sec has become
vastly more relevant… Me, an introvert, being Social Sec. What was I thinking?
Fortunately,
it has gone well so far.
The first
event we had as a committee was, of course, our stand on Parade during Sports’
Day in Freshers’ Week. I got the chance to meet the rest of the committee,
since I only knew James and had seen Xavier a couple of times. We managed to
fill in the position of Secretary and we pretty much have the complete
committee this year, even non-core positions. Everybody is super nice and
helpful and I think we work well as a team which is fantastic.
During
Sports Day we were assigned a great spot right outside the Library and we set
up a table with some fencing videos and some of the equipment. So many people
were interested and signed up on the spread sheet; we got a few queues and all
with about 180 people interested on coming to the tasters. It was definitely a
huge success and I think the fact that I was there (clueless about fencing as I
actually am), but representing the female side of the club was also a good
incentive because the table was quite male-heavy. The fact that Ben and Will
were in full gear letting people hit them with swords probably helped to raise
interest too…
This year
we run foil and épée classes for beginners and have moved to the fencing salle
so all the equipment is in the same place. The two taster sessions went super
well and a lot of people showed up, so much that we’ve had to order extra
equipment to cater for the amount of members. Although attendance died down
with the weeks, the training sessions are still pretty popular (nothing
compared with the situation in my second year lol). I haven’t managed to attend
that many myself because of rehearsals and deadlines, but the few I did were
pretty good. Not doing a great job at being a role model, but I do what I can.
Next semester will be tough though because I can’t attend foil so will only be
able to do an hour a week unless I try the Friday Open Sessions…
That is
another point; we have three teams this year. Not only the Men’s First, but
also a Men’s Second and a Women’s Team, such a massive achievement! Teams have
been getting really good results in the BUCS matches, so we’re all very happy.
Honestly, this year has been a really
good one for the club: membership, BUCS, Inclusivity Award… We’re working hard
to improve and slowly but surely we’re getting there!
Now, what
about socials? Like, that’s my job. Well, we had a few socials last semester. I
have to say, I’ve found it slightly hard to find time for everything, but I’ve
managed. I organized a few different things last semester and am planning some
extra ones for this one.
·
Welcome
Social: Black & White Pub Crawl challenge. We had a decent turnout of about
30 people and so I split the groups into returners (black) and freshers (white)
and handed out a list of challenges to complete as we hit a few pubs in town.
Will and I stuck with the freshers to make sure they knew what they were doing
and it was a fun night of drinks and weird tasks: line dancing, human pyramids,
getting stranger’s numbers, finding birthday buddies… I have a tonne of videos
from that night and I think everybody enjoyed themselves and got to know each
other. The night ended in Po’s but the very tired Social Sec who’d come
straight from a full day of In The Heights rehearsals decided to skip that and
head home.
·
Score.
Fencing has successfully made it to a few Score nights. With freshers hosting
on campus and all sorts of crazy themes, it is definitely the night out for
sport clubs in Bath.
·
Glitter
social. I made the mistake of setting this on Bonfire Night, but a few
people still showed up. The plan was
meeting in Spoons and then heading to Komedia. Spoons was good, I managed to
grab a table and had a good chat with a few different people but because of the
fireworks, the bunch going into Komedia didn’t seem like a lot of fun so we
changed plans and ended up in Canon having a few drinks. The night definitely
didn’t go to plan, but I still had a lot of fun ngl
·
Ice
skating. This was honestly such a fun social. Making the most of the ice rink
for Christmas, I organized a trip to ice skate. Quite a few people showed up
and because it wasn’t the usual night out with alcohol involved we had a few
different people coming which was a good surprise. It was a lot of fun to see
everybody skate or attempt to. Megs came along and we had to help Simon out who
was holding onto dear life trying to skate around the rink. We laughed so, so
much! The BUSMS lot was around too so I also made it into their photo (cheeky).
·
Snowball.
The Sports event of the year. Left it super last minute and we ended up having
pre-drinks at Slug and Lettuce. Fortunately James and I managed to score a few
tables and took over a space by the bar. It was really busy though and quite
hard to get drinks because they took forever, but it was nice to have some time
to chat before heading to The Pavilion. Quite a lot of people came, both
beginners and advanced. Lydia, James and Ben handed out awards and then we went
over to the ball. So busy but I had a great night. Some people had one too many
drinks but we got a few crazy photos together and I also saw Megan, Erin and
Jess which was super nice. I had a great night, who am I trying to fool.
·
Christmas
Meal. This was the one that took most time to organize. I hosted the meal at
The Westgate, which has been renovated. The place is super nice. Had to pay a
deposit and set up an online product for the menu and choices and chase quite a
lot of people down and it was all a bit of a nightmare, but the night itself
was good. The food was great, I made little presents with Christmas greetings from
the club and all in all everybody enjoyed it. We then ended up in Spoons
playing charades and Pictionary… And I also met another Spanish girl who fences,
what?
This next
semester we have a few non-alcoholic events to plan and some other fun socials
so I hope it will go well. My aim is to try to go to the épée sessions weekly
and not make excuses, as well as actually go an support the teams on at least
one of their home matches (I’ve been slacking, I know). I’m pretty pleased with
how the social side of the club has gone so far, so I just need to keep it up.
On another
note, I now live in town which has made my Social Sec job so much easier too as
I can just go to the venues/home quite quickly. I share a second floor flat
with Amélie (and Liam) by the Rugby Rec and Pultney Bridge. Let me say, the
upgrade from Oldfield is insane and definitely worth the money. Although the
house has been quite cold in the winter (I’ve got myself a convector heater
because the night storage ones aren’t warm enough), the flat itself is super
nice. It has just the things we need and my room is super big with a double
bed. The kitchen is new and has a lot of storage space and the neighbourhood is
amazing. Ffs, I walk down Great Pultney Street every day, how can I complain?
It is pretty expensive but for final year I just wanted the convenience of
sharing a house with Amélie that was close to the centre and I definitely have
that. Only sad part is I’m not allowed hanging posters and I’m a sucker for
posters so I’m quite bummed about that. I’ve made do with a cork board though…
It’s been super convenient to be able to head into town for dinners or club
nights and then only having to walk for like ten minutes to get into my house.
Great upgrade, 10/10 would recommend. Oh, I also adopted a succulent for my
window and decided to name it Bruce. I have successfully managed to care for it
and not kill it (yet).
Finally in
this post (it’s quite long as is), last semester I took up German lessons. I
initially wanted to continue with Arabic but I had dropped it during my Year
Abroad and so decided taking level two in my final year would most likely be a
bad idea. I am so glad I did that because even with German I had no time to do
homework and revision and only passed my exams because I’d attended the lessons
and fortunately had done some German before aaaaaages ago. The teacher was a
lovely woman but the course was not very structured and she was not the best at
explaining things. The first week there was confusion with the rooms and the
class lists and it didn’t have a great start honestly. I met a few cool people
on the course, Katy and Esther and Kieran, but the two weekly hours were not
really worth it. I will be able to introduce myself and ask for my room at the
hostel when I go to Berlin in a few weeks, but that’s about it! No German next
semester, have better things with which to use my time.
Hope you’ve
enjoyed the second update. The third and potentially final one will come in the
next few days. I plan on writing about Berlin after that, but I can’t promise
when that will come along so enjoy while you can!
‘til next time!
Zoe
Snapchat: zoeamma
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