Greetings! My name is Joe Martin and it is my honour to introduce myself as the recently elected President of Poynting Physical Society for the 2017/2018 term. This Spring Term has been one of the strongest in the history of PPS, with some of the most original and memorable events we’ve ever hosted.
We started the term on a high with our second academic quiz of the year that attracted a massive 150 turnout. I have found that with each successive quiz we host, the rounds become quirkier and more exciting. This time’s highlights included a “wacky music cover song” round and the dreaded “orders of magnitude” round that returned for a third haunting.
Off the back of this success, we unveiled our concept for the most innovative bar crawl we believe ever to be hosted at the University… the PPS Photocrawl. The idea for the event: teams of students are each given a disposable camera and a list of challenges that they have to capture during the course of the night, then recover and develop the photos the next morning. The best snaps are then judged by the PPS committee to be crowned winners of the Photocrawl. Some of the challenges included replicating a famous classical painting, creating a movie poster for any film and to get a photo with the nightclub DJ. The photos came out great and we hope to host this event again in the future as it was one of the most fun nights we have ever put on.
We then hosted a free educational trip to visit the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, home of the Joint European Torus. This lucky coachload of keen physicists received a tour of the centre and the opportunity to look at and discuss the exciting technologies being pioneered at the facility.
Following the recent opening of the trampoline park in Kings Norton last year, we decided to host a trip for everyone to try it out. We were all really impressed by the park’s facilities and spent the night playing dodgeball, whacking each other with huge sticks off a balance beam into a foam pit, practicing tricks and tumbles and even trying out our (pretty poor) skills on a Ninja Warrior assault course. Everyone had a great time and were all shattered by the end of the session - the trampolines certainly work up a sweat!
Finally came the time for our biggest and most important event of the calendar: the PPS Spring Ball. This year we hosted the night in our most beautiful venue to date, the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Over 320 tickets were sold making the event one of the largest ever hosted by PPS! This year’s theme was ‘Versailles’, in-part inspired by the grandeur of the Garden Suite which we were in. As such we decked out the venue to make it look fit for royalty with large candelabras, hand-crafted floral centrepieces and giant ornate frames and mirrors. A great live band and DJ entertained everyone late into the night, and we also had the opportunity to explore the various glasshouses and grounds. It was a fantastic night and will last in the memories for a long time to come. What a great way to end the year!
I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate Adam Butcher for the fantastic work he has done leading PPS as President this last year and to everyone else on the committee for their persistent hard work.
We’re currently building up to the annual EPS Societies’ Awards and need your help! If you’re a past, current or potential future member of PPS and have been impressed by what you’ve read please nominate us for an award or two. We’ve had an amazing year and would love to walk away with a trophy!
Looking to the future, I hope to build on the success of everything we have achieved with this society so far and to create the best line-up of events and opportunities possible for our members. Stay tuned for what we get up to!
All the best,
Joe Martin
President of the Poynting Physical Society 2017-18
