University of Leicester Student Awards

Recently I attended the university's annual student award event, that gives recognition to both individual students and student led societies that have been successful or had achievements over the course of the academic year. I attended due to the fact that the Modern Languages society had been nominated for Academic society of the year.
Being part of the committee as a social secretary has been both rewarding and good fun, which is in part, the reason for the success that we have had this year. I primarily chose to become part of this committee in order to try my hand at organising events in a society of which I already enjoyed being a part of. Furthermore I knew that it would be an ideal chance to enhance my team working skills.  I have worked alongside like-minded hard-working committee members and under the leadership of a dedicated president. Our common goal was to create enjoyable academic and social events for our members, in particular a formal Summer Ball, so that we could be nominated for a Society award.

In order to achieve this goal we each worked on projects or certain aspects of an event independently to utilise our time well. However we also came together to work as a team, offering a wide variety of knowledge and mutual support to each other. For example when we planned the Summer Ball together, we each had certain tasks to organise and then we would report back to the committee to make a final decision. I researched venues, pricing and menus, collecting together a selection of possibilities to put to the committee vote. This meant that everyone was involved and it was voted on fairly. We also worked together on table decorations, selling tickets and preparing the venue on the day. Working in a team did not mean that there was always somebody to rely upon should somebody not be pulling their weight, but rather that everything ran more efficiently because everybody was ready to work together.

As well as being able to balance independent and team work, this developed my awareness of  balancing planning and organisation with flexibility; often certain things could not be planned for (such as numbers of people attending events or in the case of the Ball, last minute drop outs) and therefore I would have to be ready to adapt to the situation to ensure it still ran smoothly.

I believe I have since been able to call upon these honed team work sills in my part time job, as I now have a better knowledge of when independent work or supporting a colleague may be necessary. Being part of the UoL Modern Languages committee has been an experience that I have gained an awful lot from and I learnt that by enjoying what I was doing meant that I got a lot more out of it that if I didn't.

All of our work paid off as we won the award, the second time in the society's short 4 year history. I am proud to say that I was part of such a wonderful society.

(From left to right) Me, a publicity secretary, the president and the vice president with the award.

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.