Integrating Engineers: the way to reviving the CGCU brand

Geeky punnery aside, the City and Guilds College Union (better known as the CGCU) has bounced back this year - having spent a good while in relative “CGC-who?” obscurity. With a fresh-faced committee in place working towards a unified theme - “integrating engineers” - the year ahead promises to be a good one.

Mascotry, Slave Auctions et al One of the key priorities for the Guilds committee was a large-scale revival of some of the forgotten Guilds traditions, and an early violation of our rival’s mascot - RCSU’s Theta (after 40 years!) - provided us with just the platform to kick-start that. Whilst final negotiations are still underway, we’ve used this as an opportunity to bring back the Slave Auction (and have the RCSU President participate in it) in order to raise funds for CGCU RAG; something which has not been done since 2009⁄2010. This’ll take place in the Spring term during RAG week - so keep your eyes/ears peeled, and ideas for embarrassing things for President Saha to do handy (so long as you’re willing to pay for charity!)

Having also revived the tradition of pieing our own committee last year as a homage to the Hit Squad - which has its roots and old ownership in CGCU - we’re keeping up the tradition and have agreed to have our bearers “take the cream”; again, for RA. In addition, the Mech Eng building was renamed the City and Guilds building this year - a significant moment that harks back to one of Imperial’s older milestones, back when the City and Guilds College came together with the other constituent colleges to form Imperial College London.

CGCU Welcome Dinner Just this Tuesday we hosted the CGCU’s flagship Welcome Dinner and Afterparty, held at Cafe de Paris after having been absent for a year. Dinner tickets sold out a week in advance, resulting in a bit of a frenzy for It was a great chance for newbies (and not-so-fresh students) to mingle and have a posh three-course meal in a swanky setting, and to build a sense of community amongst the engineers. With a bevy of freshers present alongside some distinguished guests from the City and Guilds College Association (CGCA) - the alumni association for engineers - it was a perfect mix of both old and new, and certainly ties back to the whole theme for this year. For want of a better phrase to describe proceedings: everyone ate, drank, and was merry.

CGCU/CGCA Alumni Careers Lecture Speaking about our alumni (and more clichés!)…the saying “old is gold” certainly has some truth in it. The committee have worked tirelessly on getting further involvement from the alumni of said association, The Imperial College of their days may not be identical to the Imperial of now, but that doesn’t stop them from being a valuable mine of information when it comes to careers/life advice. As such, there’ll be an upcoming CGCA Careers lecture on the 3rd of Dec which will be a great chance to trade thoughts and ideas with our alumni - we’re taking the impersonal feel out of bog-standard networking events.

CGCU Office Hours/Welfare But of course, Guilds is more than just funny traditions or social/careers events for the engineering community - even though there’s definitely more to look forward to on the calendar, such as bar nights and club nights! We’re here to look after your welfare, and there’s our weekly Office Hours - a dedicated initiative from our Academic Affairs Officer (James Murphy) and Welfare Officer (Juliet Kernohan.) It’s simple: we post times up on our Facebook page (they tend to be every Friday), and you just swing by the City and Guilds Office in room 340 if you want to get something off your chest/wish to find out more about getting involved/managed to get your hands on the Medics’ Phoenix head (we jest.) The team will also be hosting our own Welfare Week for engineers in the Spring (who says only scientists get to have one?), and there’s lots lined up including cookery and self-defense classes. All in all, plenty to be excited about!

That said, there’s only so much that the committee can do in terms of organizing events for you guys and publicizing. Really, we owe much of our success to every Guildsman (and Guildswoman) getting out there and playing your part. It’s thanks to you guys spreading the good word, attending our events and engaging with us that we’ve gotten off to a great start so far - we hope to see more involvement in the months to come, whether it’s just participating as an attendee or even throwing us a suggestion for improvement. May the rest of the year be even better for us, and for you too!

City and Guilds College Union www.cgcu.net