Poynting Physical Society - November 2014

Hello everyone! My name is Thomas Dack and I’d like to introduce myself as the new President of Poynting Physical Society (PPS). It’s been great start to our 131^st year for the University of Birmingham’s Physics departmental society. Fresh from the summer break and a highly successful spring ball at the end of the last academic year, it has been incredible seeing the effort the new committee has put into making our first few events the best they could be.

PPS has enjoyed a record breaking year so far. With new memberships up since this time last year it gave us just the boon we needed in order to pull two amazing events within the last month. Our first event of the year was our annual freshers’ bar crawl, this year named the Higgs Booze-On. Over 200 physicists, both 1^st years and upper years alike, turned out in force to grace the finest pubs Selly Oak has to offer, with 175 proceeding to the new nightclub Snobs where physicists were everywhere you looked. The whole event was the perfect way for 1^st years to get to know each other and meet others they hadn't yet met, as well as giving other years the chance to interact with 1^st years. It's believed this is the biggest event PPS has held for many years with the exception of the Spring Ball. Subsequently, three new 1^st year reps were elected to cater for demand, plus two new 2^nd and one new 4^th year rep.

To follow that up we then had our first PPS quiz of the term. A classic staple of the PPS calendar where records were again broken with the Bridge Study Room maxed out to capacity resulting in a huge 140 people competing. A crack team of lecturers and PhD students were beaten into 2^nd place – again a first!

Thanks to the demand in the first half of the term, we are planning on taking advantage by putting on a film night in conjunction with the School's charity day, raising money for a charity voted for by students. Other events in production include bowling, the Christmas meal and a Physics vs. Maths style paintball event as we look to continue the successful start to the year!