Hi everyone!
Wow! Half-way through November already? This term has been going by so quickly, but the cool events are not slowing down. We’ve had some great feedback on our Arts events, such as finger painting and perler beads, and from counselling services saying they are glad we are running so many small de-stressing events, so we’ll do our best to keep things like that going for you guys. We also have a couple of bigger events coming up still, like Semi-Formal on the 19th at Turret Night Club. Time to get fancy with your friends and take pictures with the Tool! If you’re looking for laughs and some drama, EngPlay is also coming up in the last week of November from the 26th-28th, so don’t miss out on seeing some of your fellow engineers perform!
Licensing and the Engineering Society
The last event I would like to discuss is the last Coffee House this term. It will take place in POETS following the last EngSoc meeting of the term, which will be licensed. The reason I would like to highlight this one is that part of my platform was to try and cater to all students, including both first years and upper years, and to bring the fun back to the Engineering Society. Part of this initiative was to begin to license POETS for at least a few low key events, like board game nights and coffee houses, to try and encourage students to come to some of these events. This does not mean that we are promoting that alcohol is required to have fun or that it is the only way to get students involved, because it’s not. However, if the past couple of terms have showed us anything, there is a correlation between licensing some events and participation.
Back in the day, when we still ran three term parties in POETS, they would be licensed and so many people would come out to them that there was a line out the door and WATcards had to be checked to make sure you were in engineering. Then a policy was passed by the university that required that “high risk events” could be licensed, but had to be zoned to separate the alcohol from people who are underage. Trying to avoid segregating first years from everyone else, the Engineering Society Executives decided to stop licensing events so that first years could feel included. On top of that, whenever EngSoc licenses POETS, there is a mandatory minimum we have to sell. When we do not meet that minimum, EngSoc must pay the difference to bar services. POETS used to be licensed every Friday afternoon, but because we were not meeting the minimum very often, EngSoc was losing a lot of money to this and had to stop the weekly licensing.
So why is Coffee House being licensed this term? Well, the policy that requires zoning for “high risk” events does not require zoning for “low risk” events. This means that we are able to license events that are low key without segregating those who can drink from those who can’t. Things like coffee houses and talent shows and chill low-key events are low risk, whereas things like dance parties are high risk. In terms of POETS, the easiest way to differentiate is to look at the couches: if it’s an event where you’d leave all the couches out cause people are expected to sit and relax, that’s low risk. If your event requires you to move all the couches out of the way, like to make space for dancing, that would be a high risk event.
If anyone has any questions, comments or complaints, please feel free to contact me at vpinternal.b@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca or any of the other exec as well. We are also trying to be in the Orifice as much as we can, so feel free to come see us there as well ☺
Scheduling and Events
You may have noticed there were just so many events this term. There was always something going on, which was great, but also overwhelming! We introduced a lot of new events this term to try and test the waters and see what people were interested in. This included things like new Arts events, hardware skills workshops, Dungeons and Dragons, and more mental health related discussion events. As the term is coming to a close, the results are in, and we will be going through them and weeding out the events with low attendance for the spring term, so we can just focus on running the awesome events you all loved and making room for new events you guys want to see!
All in all, this has been a great term so far and I hope to see students applying to be directors and commissioners for the spring term so we can make the spring term even better.
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