You ran so many events and collaborations this month! Could you tell us a bit more about them?
I really pushed HARD for fresher's, having events basically every day, and even after it ended still having multiple a week. My sleep schedule did not thank me, and I was hit by the worst case of fresher's flu I've experienced in my LIFE, but it was worth it! We had mario kart tournaments, fighting game tournaments, socials, collaborations with other societies, et cetera, and I think it paid off!
How did they go? would you say they were a success within your community? Did anything in particular stand out?
Almost everything went well! I did say almost, however LMAO. One of our many events we wanted to put on was a LAN with various games such as overwatch, marvel rivals, or valorant, but the it department didn't cooperate in time. But luckily, we were still able to hold customs to make up for it, to great success I've been told! All of our events have helped build up our community (and the larger member number on the committee dashboard shows it ;)) leading to more attendance and interaction with game nights and other events, thus leading to more events. Recently we launched our gamesoc members only Minecraft server, and may I just say that I didn't realise how popular that would be until it was all anyone talked about XD. I think the community fostered through the many events lead to its popularity! Anyway. My favourite moment from an event we held was when I ran a tournament for guilty gear strive because it's my favourite fighting game and got all the way to grand finals because the favourite to win had controller malfunctions against me and only me. Sadly he figured out the problem and whooped me. Dumb luck can only get you so far!
When it comes to collaborations, would you recommend other societies try the same? Do you think collabing with other university societies or even local sponsors helps build a stronger community?
As I said before (I am very bad at keeping on topic lol), events are probably the main reason why gamesoc is still pulling numbers week after week, and collaborations are one of the best ways of doing that. One of my friends who has been going to gamesoc for the last 5 years said to me that the boardgamesoc Collaboration was the busiest he had EVER seen game night. That's the highest honour I've ever received as president! The best part is, though, is that people KEEP. COMING. BACK. If you've got a good committee behind you (and I cannot praise my committee enough, especially our social secretary who has coordinated most of the socials and collaborations!) you should absolutely put the work in, because it's really worth the community that will form around just the general more small scale stuff.
What are your goals for the rest of the term? Any big events, projects, or plans we should keep an eye out for?
Kind of finishing off the last question here, but we have lots on the horizon! A big thing we've been hyping up (and our members keep hounding me over LMAO) is our gamesoc membership card, which not only looks snazzy, it also entitles you to some discounts and deals with local businesses around Nottingham. They've been ordered, and are going to be rolled out soon! I promise!!!! Other events we have are collaborations with other societies, tournaments and competitions in various games (clash royale league coming soon!!), and more socials than you can swing a comically sized key at. It's a good time to be a university of Nottingham gamesoc member!!!
