By Claudia Sorescu
Societies are a key part of life at our Union, and it’s pretty amazing how there’s a society for everything, from tea appreciation to board games. But why spend your entire experience in your favourite society as a regular member, when you can take control of it yourself and set its existence into legend?
For most societies, you have to be a regular member for one year until you can join its leading committee, and then you can run in an election for a number of positions, like President, Secretary, or Treasurer. Obviously, they all have their responsibilities, but are immensely fun, and being genuinely responsible for a society (that’s probably already doing something you’re already really interested in!) is a great feeling.
Most of my committee work this year goes into one called One World. Though it’s not entirely your typical society, it works in a similar way, and our passion is all about the massive international community at our university. We open our events to all students who wish to come, rather than keep track of memberships like most societies, and let everyone celebrate different cultures and languages with us. We hold big celebrations for all the major cultures at the university, from Hannukah to the Chinese New Year, as well as other kinds of socialising and cultural events, or just silly stuff like treasure hunts, Easter Egg hunts and our infamous Global Food Crawl (yes, like pub crawling, but with food- your mum would be
proud)
My official role within One World is Social Secretary, which is one of the core roles any society must have. A Social Sec has to make sure the committee members are happy, work well together, and attend team-building events (anything from proper training to nights out together or just grabbing a pizza in one of the Union’s restaurants).
Our weekly Café event is all about socialising and meeting people from other cultures-great way to make friends. Every once in a while a nat ional society takes over and we theme the event to showcase their country’s culture.
The coole
st part about being in a committee though, in my opinion, is going from simply joining events to organizing them. I really enjoy event management – brainstorming ideas, seeing your plans come to reality as your team puts everything together, the whole atmosphere that’s special to a team with a goal in mind – and there’s nothing as rewarding as a successful event and a bunch of happy guests at the end of a day of hard work- and the whole experience is great for our CVs too!
I learn something new from around the world all the time – a custom, a proverb, small phrases or habits, anything goes – and that is something that really defined my time at university and made it special, so it makes me happy to get other students to experience that feeling through One World. You should give it a try!