What we did last year: Socials 01:59

Hi all.

I thought I'd kick start the new blog with a review of the socials we did last year (2011/2012), to give people an idea on the sorts of things we did and (Hopefully!) make people look forward to the year to come.You'll see in my next blog post that we'll have an even larger range of things to do, which is why I'm excited about the forthcoming year.

I'll point out now that I'm not a 'blogger' so you might have to bear with me with the layout etc. But there is a first time for everything!

Before the November march

As we have done for the past few years and plan to for the first social this year. We kicked off the year on the Thursday of freshers week in Scholars. Which does seem to be one of our more favourable pubs in Aber. The first social has always been a good one, it's a good way of getting to know a few more people and having a laugh. It's one of those where there is no real structure we'll gather together, go to a few pubs, maybe play some games and get to know each another. You'll probably find that you find out things that you didn't know about the other people, the party and politics in general as well as having a good time. I remember from my first social, a couple of years ago, everyone was really welcoming and enjoyed a good bit of socialising. I believe last year was similar as well. This forms the basis of the regular Thursday night socials which run throughout the year. Expect a mix of debate, general conversation, humour, and sometimes even outright ridiculousness.

As some will know, and others will find out very quickly. I'm quite a big sports fan. So when the weather was improving last year, we came up with the idea that we should play some old school style 'jumpers for goalposts' style football. This was quite popular. So we made a regular thing of it. We even had a day down to Ynyslas (near Borth) to attempt some beach football. This had to be cut short due to someones idea to not wear shoes which culminated in an injury. Wonder whose idea that was... My attempts to “save the day” was foiled by my driving and some wet sand but it is something that we all look back fondly on (except the person who got injured, presumably. Ed). We also competed in a cross party football tournament. Special thanks have to be given to Heff and Huw who dropped everything to help out. We managed to reach the final due to a questionable decision by the Lib Dems to force the Greens to pull out of the final. My hope is that we can do one better and win it fairly this year!

AULS football team, pre-final

One of the most enjoyable socials we did was the trip to the cinema to watch The Iron Lady. Odd choice, I know, as many don't think highly of Thatcher (Justice for the 96! is one thing that springs to my mind given recent events). It gave us the excuse to talk politics and to talk recent history. We have done a few one off socials such as this, as well as a couple of curry nights, just to mix things up a bit. The November 30^th protest springs to mind. We'd got up early in the morning and made our way to the top of the hill to march in solidarity with those who were on strike. While this wasn't essentially a social event, it is one that I'll remember fondly. Like most of the events we will lay on, I'd like to incorporate a social aspect to it. Be it going for a meal after wards or even a coffee so we get a chance to have a good old talk about the days events, something we did after the N30 protest.

After the Iron Lady

Another thing which was almost a mainstay of last year was the pub quiz. We've trialled many around Aber and one of our members even created one. It's always a good laugh with some reasonably intelligent discussion, but sometimes that discussion has bordered on the ridiculous! We've also got a pretty good record of wins/ second places in many quizzes. This culminated in our 2nd place result in the Cwrt Mawr bar quiz, and us winning a rather large bottle of vodka. This was re-invested into the society, something that I barely remember. Rumour has it that our own chair, Tom Keane, had to crawl home after that reinvestment (something he likes to be reminded of).

Tom responsibly enjoys his quiz victory

Two dates to fix on the calendar (when I know them) will be the Christmas meal and end of year meal. This is an excuse to get suited and booted, put on that fancy dress and have a jolly time. The Christmas meal is always a popular one. A mix of good food, some nice wine and a rendition of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air rap, which spontaneously happened at the last one. Not sure if the members of staff at the restaurant were too impressed with us after that... We normally put together a secret santa, as you do. This is something which normally gets people in the christmas spirit, and any excuse to wear those paper hats is good for me! The end of year meal is a bit like the christmas meal but without the presents and the paper hats (which is a bit sad).

Union events are something we did quite a bit last year. Comedy Works in the union gets a big crowd. Whilst some of the comedians have been somewhat questionable, on the whole it's normally an event worth going to. The yearly event which normally gets a good attendance from us, and one of my favourite events, is Ginesis. I was gutted I couldn't make it last year. Bloody essay deadlines! But it's a mix of a wide varieties of gin and a questionable Phil Collins tribute act. What is not to love! Back in the day (last year), Reload used to run pretty much every week. For any fan of cheesy music of the past few decades, it's one that should be attended. It normally incorporates some shocking attempts at dancing from well.. most people.

The last thing I'll mention is the cross party socials. We normally do one a semester. They provide an opportunity to question/ argue with the other parties and show that we are clearly the best political society on campus. Not that we need to prove that! The one we did in the first semester last year was a dress up social. We each could dress up as someone stereotypical of the other parties. So of course some of us dressed up in typical Tory attire, such as a top hat and cane. My Boris Johnson face mask was also passed to around to pretty much everyone. The second semester cross party social was a white T-shirt affair, each party had to bring pens in their own party colours. As you can imagine our t-shirts filled up with questionable statements, even some from our own members! These socials are all done in good humour, even if the debates can get a bit heated at times.

Myself and Hyw, stereotypical Tories

That's just some of the social things we did last year. I hope that by this time next year, whoever takes the realm of social secretary will have a much longer list, with a wider variety of activities to include on this blog. We've got many things that we want to do. One thing that I'm excited about is attempting to do a treasure hunt! It's something we've never done before and I hope it makes it onto the list next year as just one of hopefully many new and different activities we'll do throughout the year. If anyone has any suggestions don't hesitate to let me know. Also any feedback, constructive or otherwise is much appreciated.


Here's to a very enjoyable 2012-2013!

Adam.
Social Secretary
(adw6@aber.ac.uk)

AULS' Cardiff Day Out 23:49

Aberystwyth University Labour Students' first trip of the new year (or the last trip of the old year, if you’re feeling pedantic) was a great day out followed by a night out in the Welsh capital. Members came from as far afield as Edinburgh to help in the By-Election campaign for Cardiff South and Penarth, as part of a Welsh Young Labour Campaign Day. The member from Edinburgh was so eager he turned up at 00:20 am on the day of the campaigning and had to survive a trip through a Cardiff City Centre in full swing to reach somewhere to crash. 

A slightly blurry Welsh Labour doorstep team

The day began properly with a general meeting at the Unite HQ in Cardiff… once the motley team of councillors, students and young people was gathered we were greeted by the irrepressible Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith who had some important points to make about the upcoming by-elections. First and foremost, he said, we cannot afford to assume the contest in Cardiff is any less important than the contest in Corby. The majority in Cardiff South and Penarth is only 4709 votes and by-elections are strange things (just ask George Galloway). Any margin of victory in Corby is mission accomplished, but in Cardiff South and Penarth we’ve got to do more. We’ve got to increase our majority to say that we’ve really won the election. He also had some interesting things to say about changing how we talk about things in the party and not being afraid to disagree, but that’s a topic for another post. 

Once the rounds were handed out, the Vice-Chair was given charge of getting us to our first canvassing round in Grangetown (slightly worryingly given his legendary map-reading skills). However despite the occasional panics and almost heading off down completely the wrong street, we managed to locate our rounds and were ready to meet some voters (whether the voters were happy about this is another issue). 

Canvassing is the act of bothering voters about which way they are thinking of voting. If you’ve never done it before it can be enjoyable, horribly awkward or a weird mixture of the two. But it is one of the main things political parties do locally to keep in touch with the people they’re supposed to represent. It’s not fun sometimes, but there’s always a great team spirit. 

We had a really positive response from the people that we spoke to and we contacted people from all walks of life, young, old, professional, retired. That in itself is a great experience. Towards the end of our last round we received reinforcements led by Welsh Young Labour Organiser Lauren Allpress. With their help we finished the round, but barely paused to catch our breath before being whisked off to join the Right Honourable Alun Michael MP and our candidate Mr Stephen Doughty in Butetown, which was a great opportunity to talk to the current and hopefully soon-to-be Labour MPs for the area. 


By the end of the day we’d made such great progress we’d not just run out of energy and leaflets but were almost out of voters. Staggering into the Westgate we met up with the rest of our comrades and decided to call it a day. With that we headed out to enjoy Cardiff for an evening and take a hard earned break in the City Centre. A great day was followed by a great night out where we rounded off our star studded day by running into Joe Calzaghe in a bar on St Mary’s Street!

None of this would have been possible though without the hard work of the Welsh Young Labour Team, so hats off for them for a great day in the ‘Diff! We’ll be back… 

Matt
Vice-Chair
mdb12@aber.ac.uk