Written by Rohan Hornsby, CivSoc President 2020/21, and Freya Buchan, CivSoc President 2019/20
This has been an exciting year for CivSoc – we’ve organised a range of socials, industrial events to help our members with their careers and competed in a multitude of sporting events too! More recently, we held our annual general meeting (AGM) where we voted in our new committee ready for the next academic year. The new committee will be responsible for the running of all aspects of the society ensuring our members get the most they can out of their time studying Civil Engineering at Birmingham!
As the committee starts preparations for the year ahead, we thought it would be nice to review the year, looking back fondly at some of our successful events and collaborations!
The Spring Term saw us partake in Pub Golf down the Bristol Road in Selly Oak; our annual tradition for members dress up in their golfing attire and take part in a bar crawl like no other! Towards the end of term we introduced another small gathering in the form of a night out at Circo Clubroom, providing everyone a night off from thinking about end of term deadlines.
After our AGM, we went to our student’s union (which is known as the Guild of Students here) to eat at Joe’s Bar and take part in their weekly quiz. Sad to say we didn’t win this time out.
We are hoping to continue these events next year, and hopefully organise some new ones too!
There are 39 societies in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPS), and we’re proud to say we have have collaborated with many of them for events such as the annual Engineering Spring Ball, a Pub Quiz, and an Engineering night out known as “Stamina”. We also competed in the EPS Trophy, a one-day sporting event with a range of EPS societies...More about this later!
We collaborated with RailSoc (the society for any train enthusiasts), Aerospace (for students studying aerospace engineering), and Cameroon Catalyst for whom which we raised £132 via a new charity pub quiz. Competition was steep as prizes included custom UoB t-shirts, UoB gym vouchers, and a range of smaller goodies in the raffle!
Cameroon Catalyst is an international development charity which brings together students, engineers and specialists who lend their expertise to help facilitate sustainable development in villages in Cameroon, so we knew the money we raised was going to a good cause!
Our final joint event with other societies was the Spring Ball at the Burlington Hotel. The night saw members of the Civil, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Societies get their best suits and dresses out to celebrate the end of the spring semester together. It was really great to see students from different years, societies and social groups getting on so well and enjoying the Ball!
I think it’s safe to say that 2019/20 was one of our most successful years in the sporting world. Our Sports Rep organised a second staff vs students football tournament. It was great to see the staff getting stuck in as well as the students, although it was not enough to stop the student team continuing their winning streak as they triumphed over the staff for a second time! We’re sure the lecturers will challenge us to another game next year!
This year saw a successful CivSoc Football Team develop, finishing in the top 4 of one of the University’s 6-a-side campus football leagues, winning a massive 10 winning games! They also won an11-a-side game against our bitter (friendly!) rivals MechSoc with a close final score of 6-5 to CivSoc. We’ve built real team spirit with curries and awards nights, with accolades like “most improved”, “top goal scorer” and “one to watch”! Hopefully we will be able to continue this good run of form into next year.
Our Netball Teams hosted a few friendly matches across the semester, notably one against the EPS Netball team in which a few of the cohort played for the first time!
We also competed in one day events such as football and netball, plus the EPS Trophy. The EPS Trophy had events in netball, football and touch rugby as well as the new addition of rounders which was great fun. We’re excited to announce we finished 3rd in the overall tournament rankings!
The RESPECT Scheme went well once again, providing students with the opportunity to apply for summer and yearlong industrial placements with a large range of employers. Many students were successful in this process and will be starting their placements this summer. More about RESPECT can be found at https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/engineering/civil-engineering/undergraduate/industry.aspx.
At the start of term CivSoc ran an interview preparation talk to help prospective students have the best chance of succeeding in the interview stage of the Scheme. We worked closely with the School of Engineering to provide workshops to allow our members to feel as confident as they could ahead of their interviews.
We then held events with accrediting bodies such as ICE (Institution of Civil Engineers) and IStructE (Institution of Structural Engineers), who gave an interactive talks on the different types of civil engineering and ran a “Make and Break” event on modular construction respectively.
CivSoc advertised site visits of the soon to be completed new School of Engineering Building in which teaching, research and offices will be moving into next year. These site visits were organised by 3rd year civil engineers as part their “Group Project Management” module giving students from all years a chance to experience a real life operating construction site.
Finally, we would just like to introduce our committee for next year who will be aiming to continue the good work of last year’s committee…
Top Row left to right: Joseph Horsey (Treasurer), Tim Jena (Industrial Liaison), Sara Elboushy (International Rep), Rohan Hornsby (President), Poppy Pinkerton (Vice-President), Gianluca Abbate (Social Sec), William Fall (Social Sec).
Bottom Row left to right: Oliver O’Dell (Secretary), Gareth Proctor (Sports Sec).
From all of us at CivSoc, have a great summer and stay safe.
See you next year!
To find out more about CivSoc, visit their website www.birmingham.ac.uk/eps/civsoc.