It has been an exciting semester for the University’s Civil Engineering Society, CivSoc! The beginning of March saw our new committee for next year being elected with Tim Metcalfe as Vice President, Alex Hoyle as Treasurer, Phillip Morgan as Industrial Liaison, Ekaterina Kuznetsova as Secretary, Sarah Jackson and Joshua Fletcher as Social Secretaries, David Thomas as Sports Secretary and me (Beth McGoff) taking the reigns as President. We said goodbye to some former committee members including Patrick Gittings, James O’Neill, James Macdonald, Connor Bedford, Sarah Jones and Jake Rennie, who we wish well in their future endeavours.

CivSoc 2016 new committee

As stated in the Autumn Term update, it was CivSoc’s intention to organise a variety of opportunities for our members. This semester saw the return of our widely popular Pub Golf bar crawl which was also well attended once again by our Mechanical Engineering friends, for the first time this event was also opened up to civil engineering alumni, whilst still in its early stage this is something we will look to promote further next year. Watch this space!

Our outgoing Industrial Liaison, James O’Neill, ran a civil engineering Careers Fair in February which aimed to help students find summer or year-long placements, or graduate jobs. This event was well received by the students and companies that attended and will be on the list to develop further next year.

CivSoc has launched some new and exciting socials including a trip to the Lucozade football arena to play Bubble Football, or Zorball, which was very well attended and enjoyed by all. Our new Social Secs also ran a bowling social in the last week of term, helping students to have fun and socialise amongst all year groups in civil engineering. This year also saw the introduction of a CivSoc netball team which has proved a big success with many members taking part in training and matches against mechanical engineering and geography. There was also much success for the CivSoc football team too with landslide victories against mechanical engineering and Carillion, the construction firm currently working on the University’s new library.

CivSoc 2016 zorballing

Civsoc has been working very closely with the electrical and mechanical engineering societies, EESE Soc and JUGS along with staff support to launch a new way of creating social events with all three societies, coinciding with the launch of the new combined School of Engineering. Whilst the societies aspect is still in its developmental stage it is sure to prove a valuable addition to the University life of students joining the School this September, as well as the current students returning next year. We’ll provide more updates on this project and how you could get involved later in the year.

We are now counting down to the end of term and annual EPS Societies’ Awards. With the exciting year we’ve had we’re hoping to get on our hands on one of the prestigious Awards on offer. If you are or have been part of CivSoc, or have enjoyed reading about our activities this year please nominate us!

Best wishes,

Beth McGoff

Secretary 2015-16 and incoming President 2016-17