JUGS have started the first term of 2015/16 with a passionate committee, most of whom are continuing from the previous year in their duties. Natasha Fell and Emma Howsham have joined Matthew Saunders as Sports Reps to expand on last year's events and Frank Fang has become the International Ambassador for the Society to help us to further engage with the School’s students. Mark Alston, Catherine Whitehouse and George De Bolla remain as Treasurer, Secretary and Social Secretary respectively, whilst Alex Cossey takes the presidential role and Chris Davey joins George on the social team.
Engineering hockey and rugby are both still thriving, with healthy numbers at both. Hockey won their league last year and look to maintain their profile this season. Expanding JUGS sport has been the main focus in the initial weeks. Chris has established social squash as a weekly occurrence and football continues to excel with 40 to 50 members attending every week. The standard of play on the pitch has risen dramatically with a growing interest from all years. However, our opening 11-a-side match in the eternal rivalry with Civil Engineering resulted in a shock 4-1 loss. After some comfortable wins in the previous season, complacency got the better of us but rest assured we will have revenge – hopefully by the end of the term!
Thanks to Natasha Fell and Emma Howsham a netball team is also starting to take shape, with a narrow loss in our inaugural fixture against KINVIG, the Geography society. Having established the rules, our natural problem solving brains ensured a comfortable win in our second match against Civil Engineering with a score of 12-6. Special mention goes to Mark Brocklebank and Chris Davey for some precision shooting under pressure.
On the social side, the welcome drinks hosted by Mark, George and Catherine on the first weekend of term were a great event as usual. The night followed the traditional trend of pizza and socialising, ending with a three-legged race to Fab in the Guild.
The pub quiz at The Lounge in Selly Oak was once again successful with the lecturers, led by Richard Hood, bringing their 'A' game and for once, the students (Alex Cossey) bringing the questions. Sadly for the lecturers however, their greater experience wasn't enough and the night was won by the freshers team.
November has also seen us go bowling with the Poynting Physical Society and enjoy a night out at Stamina, an ever popular bar crawl. This year’s theme was Disney, so we took it upon ourselves to be The Incredibles - hopefully the tight red leggings won’t become an everyday affair!
Natasha also planned a dodgeball tournament, with entries coming from all years. No players had any major experience so the competition was wide open but with names like 'Thermododgenamics', 'The mild carbon steelers' and 'Xu's Angels', the quality of names matched the play and it was a fantastic tournament to watch!
The first term has been a blast and as we near the end of the year we will hopefully have a few more big fixtures to look forward to, as well as a Christmas meal to celebrate the semester.