Fresher’s Fair Frustration

During the Union's annual Welcome Week Fresher's Fair this Tuesday – hosted around the outdoor space of South Kensington campus – the rainy weather drenched visitors and club members alike for hours in 16°C temperature. Unprepared, student clubs quickly found creative ways to keep their valuable items and merchandise dry, all while staying warm.

For security reasons, all the CSP stalls  had to be sectioned off outside under tents, hence no society was spared an inside stall. Clubs with tables placed between tents experienced the brunt of the rain, dripping between tent flaps, only saved by the ingenuity and aid of supporting students taping plastic bags between flaps to redirect the rain away from the important paper QR codes. Unfortunately for every society, the rain fell heavily from 11am till 5pm, with only an hour of light rain to slightly lighten the burden.

Prior to the event, societies were instructed per email to arrive at at Exhibition Road at 9:30 am to sign in. At 9:40, the queue reached the science museum. Early attendees waited in line for thirty minutes before moving up to the desk to announce their arrival, only to learn their lanyards were in a different location for pickup, one dedicated to their category.

Tables were tightly packed back to back, side to side in each section, forcing students to squeeze behind every other society to reach their table, if placed in the middle of their row. Each table was supplied a trashbag, two chairs and enough space for two members, however many societies found the space limiting.

Contrastingly to last year's Freshers Fair, there was a strong presence of security staff hired to enforce the one-way movement of the crowd. Gates, organised due to security requirements, were placed around the entire fair, with a single entrance to the public.

The sleek, informative map, shared only digitally in support of sustainability efforts and provided to societies the morning of, showed the one-way flow, the entrance and exit as the Exhibition Road and City and Guilds Building entrance respectively. Fortunately, the Fair was not seperated from rest of South Kensington's campus, with students easily able to take a lunch break or rush to the library to print more flyers.

At the fair, each CSP presented their purpose via posters, members dressed in artistic or athletic costumes, and various items chosen to grab the attention of people passing by. For example, Felix's Editor-in-Chief Mohammad frequently wore the large cat costume head, attracting noticeable attention. Otherwise, the K-Pop Society brought various lightsticks, the Drama Society brought posters of their last shows and, if possible, sport teams brought their athletic equipment to parade.

In spirit of the rivalry between Imperial College (IC) and Imperial College School of Medicine  (ICSM), sport societies drew up posters making claims about whose team beat their counterpart in the opposing school. One girl walked around in the rain with a poster reading "We beat IC 8-0". Students unaware of the new categorisation of all CSPs may have noticed that ICSM and IC sports societies were no longer in the same section. ICSM students were granted their own student union section, named ICSM Student Union (ICSMSU) earlier this term.

As always, CSPs provided arrays of QR codes linked to websites, WhatsApp groupchats, Instagram pages, newsletter forms, and membership signups, hoping to establish immediate relationships with prospective students. Fortunately for every society, a new Imperial student could easily be identified by their newly designed bright red lanyard.

Deputy President Christian Cooper held up the spirit by positing various interviews with society members on IC Union's Instagram @icunion. Other staff helped students find their stalls, provided cloths to soak up the rain, and plastic bags and tape rolls for students to bind tents closer together to keep water from dripping onto students.

Despite the offical ending of the Fair at 5pm, many societies began packing up close to 4pm, mostly due to the decrease number of visitors and the increasing pour of rain. Wet posters and papers were thrown into bins, as stickers, and memorabilia were packed securely into any available bags. Many students waited beneath the tents, shoes soaked, before rushing to the closest building.  As groups left their stalls, tables and chairs left folded on the floor, lanyards were returned to the staff and coverage was sought by every student.

Despite the terrible weather, every student was part of the Fair; if not pitching, then listening  to their counterpart.

After Fresher's Fair, the real work of introducing new students into societies begins; highlighting that the fair — while incredibly useful — is only a small aid in growing and maintaining a successful society. Now CSPs need to guide every interested fresher step-by-step to avoid loosing them to another CSP.

With the end of Welcome Week approaching, we at Felix hope everyone had a wonderful week and can avoid the follow up to Fresher's Fair: Fresher's Flu.