» Issue 1: Autumn 2004

Union faces up to latest challenges

Shrenik Patel, previously President of City & Guilds’ Student Union, recalls the last academic year

CITY & GUILDS’ UNION (or ICESU as it’s also called) continues to prosper, despite the fair share of challenges that have been faced this year.

The Union’s welfare programme, the Buddies Scheme, was run successfully across all the departments of the Faculty for the first time. Bioengineering was the latest addition to the scheme, welcoming its second intake of undergraduate freshers since its inception.

The aim of the scheme is to pair up continuing students with new arrivals, enabling them to adjust to college life more easily. Most of the buddies and freshers met each other at specially organised Buddies Lunches (or dinner in one case). To ensure regular contact between freshers and buddies, a number of continuity events were organised throughout the year.

The second week saw C&GCU’s biggest ever Freshers’ Ball, attracting over 400 students. The evening started with a black tie dinner, followed by entertainments featuring live bands, a casino, two dance floors and a bouncy castle. This unfortunately succumbed after it was swamped by too many merry students!

The Union once again entered the Lord Mayor’s Show, celebrating its close ties to the Corporation of London and the livery companies which founded the former City & Guilds College. Unfortunately, due to sponsorship problems, the float was constructed on a shoestring budget using recycled material from previous shows. It was constructed in record time.

The Internship Centre has continued to perform extremely well. The statistics are impressive yet again: approximately 5,000 visits from nearly 1,500 students. A new programme of careers’ talks was unveiled at the beginning of the year where speakers from different industries attracted large numbers of students.

This year also saw the introduction of international internships through our alumni associations. The Centre now offers placements in cities like New York and San José with further expansion in Europe and Asia being planned.

The inter-departmental football tournament was as popular as ever, attracting teams from all departments, ICU societies and even some research groups. The Annual Egg Race took place in March and was largely successful. It involves the design and construction of an aircraft that can carry an egg from the Queen’s Tower without it breaking. There were some excellent entries and, as a contrast to last year, the C&G executive committee team managed to produce a contraption that flew the furthest to clinch the title for an unprecedented first time. Some were unlucky, managing to turn around and fly back. Others plummeted, smashing their eggs.

Rag Week saw the return of the notorious hit squad with cans of whipped cream and supersoakers targeting students for donations. Despite being banned from the buildings, they managed to raise a substantial amount. The Barbershop Quartet sang across the whole college and, during Valentine’s day, managed to serenade the Rector and the ICU sabbaticals. The slave auction was a huge success with Union celebrities offering themselves for sale.

Elections were held during spring and turnout increased compared to the previous year, despite the ICU elections descending into a farce once again!

The Union also took the opportunity to invite Professor John Perkins, the outgoing Faculty Principal, and bestowed honorary life membership in recognition of the great amount of support he has given.

The Union’s new structure continues to work very well for both departmental society committees and academic representation and there has been increased communication with the Royal School of Mines’ Clubs’ and Societies’ Committee. This year also saw the launch of the Engineering Chapter.

The Union is thrilled to be a key stakeholder in this initiative and looks forward to working with both alumni associations and the Engineering Faculty for the benefit of the students.

The Union also launched the Sabbatical Appeal this year after recognising that maintaining our current level of activity is becoming increasingly difficult. The workload taken on by our officers is extraordinary - many of whom are dedicating five to 10 hours a day to keep the Union running as well as pursuing a full-time engineering degree. The response has been encouraging and we would like to thank all our alumni for their donations. More information about the Sabbatical Appeal can be found at http://www.cgcu.net/sabbatical/.

You can also keep up-to-date by reading our online publication, Live! Updated practically every day, it’s the most widely read student publication in the University of London. See http://live.cgcu.net.