UoL Modern Languages Society

A University of Leicester Modern Language Society Film event and committee meeting.
November 2012

At the end of the last academic year I was elected by my peers on to the University of Leicester Modern Languages Society committee as a Social Secretary. I applied as I wanted to make a difference within a society that I was already part of and had a passion for. After adjusting to the role and its pressures, I feel that it has become a very worthwhile part of my experience at university and it has provided me with. 

The role, as it suggests, involves mainly creating and overseeing events for this academic society, as well as supporting the society in other aspects and helping it to grow and mature. Therefore in the first semester of year 2, I took on the task to create an event with the aim to have it centre around our academic field.

 At first this proved difficult as the university department already provides many resources and puts on events outside of classes, such as debates or talks. Due to this, I had to come up with a fresh idea that would fit into the academic category and yet also still attract students to take time out of their busy schedule to go along. The idea that I came up with was to hold a foreign film evening, with food.

The first obstacle was the venue. In order to make the event more appealing to members, it needed to grab people’s attention and the way that I went about this was to add the added incentive of a meal as well as the film. This meant that the film viewing had to be at a suitable venue, either with kitchen facilities or nearby to them. After some research the best venue seemed to be the local arts cinema, The phoenix arts centre. http://phoenix.org.uk/

As it is a cinema purpose built for world films, and art exhibitions, complete with a cafe/restaurant, it ticked all of the boxes. Furthermore the organisation was a start up business that was looking to make more connections with the university of Leicester. 

In order to make the event a success, I met with both the manager and the restaurant manager to discuss the film options, food options and discounted tickets and drinks. As the society is funded by the students’ union to conduct academic events such as this, I was able to make the decision to discount the tickets even further for our members as the society could pay for the difference. Finally the event was publicised through word of mouth, social media, posters and the students’ union. 

At certain points in the process of setting up this event and afterwards I presented my research and results to the committee. This was invaluable as it aided the progression of the organisation and also provided time to brainstorm with other members, to get feedback and new perspectives. Furthermore it aided with my time management, as each week leading up to the event I would organise a different part of the event.

Ultimately, the result was a successful evening for all. Over 30 students from all years came to the event to watch the french film De rouille et d’os, (Rust and Bone) and enjoyed a meal. I feel that organising this event broadened my mind, as I networked and made contacts at the phoenix centre, I learnt about professionalism when meeting to discuss the event and it built my confidence, showing that I was capable of organising a sucessful event such as this. There have already been plans to create an event similar to this, building on its success.