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Winter 2014

The University of Manchester

Peer Support Newsletter Winter Edition

Welcome Note 1

Peer Support Activity 2

- Ask Me Thank You Event 2

- Peer Support Socials 2

- National Leader Conference

Edinburgh

3

Faculty Highlights 4

- Engineering and

Physical Sciences

4

- Medical and Human

Sciences

5

- Life Sciences 6

- Humanities 7

End Note 8

- Additional Opportunities 8

- Social Media 8

- Next Time 8

Welcome

Its been a very busy Semester in Peer Support and we have seen so many fantastic activities

and events across the University. The holidays are now upon us, and we would like to take this

opportunity to thank you all for your hard work and dedication throughout the Semester and to

wish you a happy winter break!

So put your feet up, relax and have a read through your Peer Support Newsletter, and discover

all the fantastic things you have been up to.

See you all in Semester 2!

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Peer Support Activity

Winter 2014

Ask Me Thank You Event

On the 20th of October we held a thank you party for all the Student Coordinators who

participated in the ‘Ask Me’ campaign this year. The campaign, which took place in the first few

weeks of the Semester, saw PASS Leaders and Peer Mentors wearing ‘Ask Me’ badges around

campus to assist our new students with the transition into University life. The Thank You event

was held at the Aardvark Café where students shared food and discussed how the campaign

went, with some party game feedback including question pong, PASS the parcel, and spin the

bottle. Pete Morris from Student Communications hosted a focus group on the new branding for

Peer Support that we hope to be seeing soon! There was also a surprise guest speaker Mumtaz

Bashir who has managed projects

including the organisation of the 2012

Olympics and developed a volunteering

programme for the 2002 Commonwealth

Games. She explained how impressive it is

to see higher year students committed to

welcoming and supporting our new

students to University. Prize winners:

Chemistry won the award for highest

returned badges, with a massive 100% of

badges handed out collected, which saw

them win £100 for their scheme. Meanwhile Chemical Engineering won the photo competition.

(Above: Students enjoying the Ask Me Thank You Event)

Peer Support Socials

Peer Support have hosted some excellent monthly socials this semester giving students the opportunity to network and share event ideas. October’s social took the form of a Halloween fancy dress social, with students dressed in a diverse range of outfits from Despicable Me characters to Doctor Who through the ages. Sabbatical Interns planned activities to encourage cross-scheme communication, these included the ‘Wicked Web of connections’ (See photo

Courtesy of Perfocal)! Another successful social was held at Kro Bar in November where the Selfie with a Sabbatical competition was continued, the aim of which is to raise awareness of the Sabbatical Intern role and help schemes understand the support they can offer to them. The Winter social was Christmas themed, students and Peer Support staff took a trip down to Spinning fields and went Ice-skating. They enjoyed discussing their Peer Support highlights of the semester, celebrating their successes whilst getting their skates on. In the new year the Socials team look forward to working more closely with students from the Peer Support community to plan events for next semester!

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Winter 2014

National Leader Conference 2014 Edinburgh

Every year, as the National Centre for

PASS, the University of Manchester co-hosts a

National Leader Conference for PASS and PAL

Leaders from across the UK. The location of

this year’s conference was the historical city of

Edinburgh. We held a pre-conference hosting a

number of PASS Leaders in Manchester from

near and far; Germany, South Africa and Ameri-

ca. The Peer Support team put on a host of activities including a city tour and PASS

observations. On Thursday 6th November two

Sabbatical Interns, six University of Manchester

PASS Leaders, and four International Leaders

were on their way to Edinburgh for a fun filled

weekend of PASS activities! Three team

challenges were created for the Conference. The

first challenge was to create an innovative team

name and to adorn the “Shield of PASS” with the

skills and talents that the Leaders all shared.

Challenge two was to “Recruit your Troops” where

the teams made a one minute video to promote

PASS/ PAL highlighting the benefits to the

students, Leaders and their institutions. These are

available to view online at EUSA Peer Support You

Tube channel. The final challenge “Arm Yourself”

allowed the students to reflect on the great

activities they had partaken in at the conference,

and to think about what they will be taking back

with them. In completing these

(Manchester’s poster entry into the Conference

competition)

challenges and working together

throughout the conference the teams were

awarded points. At the end, the team with

the highest points were given a PASS/

PALS goody bag which contained

“ingredients” to use in PASS Sessions (ping

pong balls/cards/dominoes etc.) alongside

a PASS/PALS cook book on how to create

a fun and interactive session. Students

worked hard, socialised and created a

network to enable them to develop Peer

Support at their respective institutions. (Edinburgh Conference complete with Sabbatical Interns Knights

Maz and David)

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Winter 2014

Highlights

Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences

EEE PASS

During week 8 of the semester, the EEE PASS team held a 3 hour crash course session with PASS Leaders on hand to help first year students with their Oscilloscope coursework from their Measurements and Analytical Software module. The sixty plus students in attendance were given exercises which had been crafted by the higher year students. By completing these exercises, the students became familiarized with core concepts of programming, and this in turn helped to alleviate their Oscilloscope problems. The positive attitude of the students in the face of a daunting task, such as programming without any prior experience,

should be seen as an inspiration to all future EEE applicants!

Camran Ahmed (PASS Student Coordinator)

MACE

Over the last few weeks of term, Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering have held a Christmas revision PASS! The three individual schemes gave the first years the option to work in groups on course specific activities at the University campus, or head to the Christmas Markets with other groups where they could meet new students and get to know their Leaders. Overall it was very successful, the first years were able to mingle with a variety of Leaders and other first years, whilst the ones at University were able to engage with some interesting activities to help facilitate their revision.

Material Science PASS

Material Science held their Annual Hunger Games revision scheme activity in week 11. Here is the event summary Hunger Games style.

“Each year, a male and female student is chosen as tribute from each district( PASS Group) to compete in a battle of physical and intellectual skill to become the year’s victor. Twelve tributes were selected from six districts to fight (Complete course based questions) for their districts honours. The tributes were interviewed to try to win the favour of the Peacekeepers (Dr. Blanford, Prof. Prangnell, Dr. Haigh, Dr. Hall, Dr. Warren, Student

Coordinator Becky Hartwell, and PASS Leader Jason Wild) who marked the answer and were able to provide help during the game. District members worked together and united to find a way to send hints to their tributes, as well as wheel barrowing to the supplying corner and back before the timer runs out. The victors were District 5 using their enthusiasm, wits and unbelievable team spirit they truly deserve the joys of the peri-peri chicken reward.” Faiz Farik (PASS Student Coordinator)

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Highlights

Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences

Winter 2014

The Busy Bee’s of SLT The Speech and Language Therapy Peer Mentoring scheme has had a very busy and productive few weeks. Following on from their Peer Mentor social they held in the Zochonis cafe, where they had a very large turnout and lots of delicious treats for everyone, the Student Coordinators tried out a new idea for the scheme: evaluation forms. Not only did they receive productive feedback, but they also managed to increase engagement with first year students by holding a very successful social. The Coordinators have been keen working hard setting up an SLT society and putting it into motion, recruiting students to jump on board to help with the summer ball. This proved to be a huge success last year, raising a considerable amount of money for the Stroke Association, and they hope they will raise even more this year. The scheme has also been recruiting volunteers to help run the Giving Voice Campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the Speech and Language Therapy profession and communication difficulties. This year Giving Voice is raising awareness of Dementia, and the scheme have therefore been in contact with The Alzheimer’s Society and are hoping to be involved in some events run by them this year. A great academic session was also held in December! This event van 'World Cafe' style, with many different tables to focus on different topics relevant to the SLT degree. This helped set the students up perfectly before the Christmas period, and was an opportunity for the SLT Mentors to provide the excellent standard of support they pride themselves in ahead of what is always a stressful time of year for any student!

(Above: SLT PASS playing University Challenge for their Fluency and Voice module)

SLT PASS

In addition to a fantastic and highly supportive team of Mentors, SLT second year students are lucky to have a fantastic PASS scheme in Semester one. These Leaders have been exceptionally busy over the past few weeks with activities such as course wide Christmas themed quiz and a Fluency and Voice event, where visitors with voice and fluency disorders came to speak to the students about their disorder, their journey and any advice they had. The event was a huge success and feedback from students and guest speakers was positive. SLT PASS are hoping to build on this strong foundation and organise further events next semester. This Semester we say goodbye to SLT second year PASS, however in Semester two we welcome SLT first year PASS!

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Winter 2014

Highlights

Faculty of Life Sciences

Pretty Awesome Super Spectacular Gameshow Extravaganza

FLS Coordinators recently organised their first PASS social event of the year, the Pretty

Awesome Super Spectacular Gameshow Extravaganza! The event was a great success with an

awesome turnout. The Gameshow included various rounds which included, guess the celebrity,

general knowledge, music round, logo game, science quiz and a cryptic clue round. PASS

Leaders along with their students battled it out against the other PASS groups for the winning

title. Of course, there is no Gameshow without pizza, which was very quickly eaten! The

enthusiasm was great and once again congratulations to the winners.

Industrial Placement Mentoring Pub Quiz

On 2nd

December, Placement Mentoring held a Pub Quiz upstairs in Kro Bar. It was an opportunity for Mentees to ask any questions they had about the Placement year to their Mentors before the Christmas Break! Well done to the winner, who received a £30 Bar Tab. Thank you to all that came along!

(Left: The quiz in action)

Optometry PASS Revision Master Session!

In Week 10, the Optometry PASS Leaders organised and led a Revision Circuits session for all first year students. There were 4 different stations covering different aspects of the course so far, in preparation for their exams in January. It was really well attended, and congratulations to the Leaders for their commitment and enthusiasm for the event!

(Right: The poster used to advertise the session)

(Above: Students enjoying the Gameshow Extravaganza)

Ameenah Zeglam (Life Sciences PASS Coordinator)

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Highlights

Faculty of Humanities

Winter 2014

Archaeology Artefacts Handling

Session

The Archaeology PASS Leaders worked together to create one super PASS session for their attendees. The session was an opportunity for the students to work closely with different artefacts linked to a core module Introduction to World Archaeology. Not only was this a really innovative way to allow the students to put their theory into practice, but it was also a great opportunity for the students to get to know each other as they were mixed into new groups.

SOSS Events Committee

To improve school wide collaboration, students from the school of social sciences have set up

a SoSS events committee. Peer Support is well represented, with a number of coordinators also

having positions on the committee. The masquerade Winter Ball was the first of the school wide

events with Leaders and Mentors from Economics, Econometrics, and Politics and International

Relations in attendance. The night was a great success and we look forward to more cross

scheme socials.

La Nuit Gourmande meaning Foodie’s Night, saw the French Peer Mentors, the Francophone

society, and many first and second year

French students enjoy a wonderful evening of

culture and cuisine. A soundtrack of French

jazz played under the flowing (sometimes

French!) conversation, and there were plenty

of dishes, mostly homemade, to wet every

palate. The dish of the evening, crafted by

Peer Mentor Lauren Elwin, was a stack of

incredible Profiteroles, with perfect choux and

delicious ganache to boot! Alex Beveridge

provided a fantastic and fresh Niçoise baguette sandwich, which was gone within seconds, and

going for a Moroccan favourite, Grace McAleer cooked up a storm with her giant couscous salad,

which was wonderful given that it was her first time! There, of course, was plenty more food to go

around, and the selections of brioche, cheeses, and, of course, vin rouge, were nirvana for the

French-speaking foodies who attended! Friends were made, which was the aim of the evening,

so for the Peer Mentors in French Studies, the evening was a complete success! Another one is

already in the works! - Grace McAleer (French Studies Peer Mentoring Student Coordinator)

La Nuit Gourmande

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Winter 2014

End Note

Social Media

We share all our best Peer Support activities along

with exiting news about socials, competitions and

additional opportunities on our various forms of social

media. So make sure you are following us!

Spring Edition

- My Future Fest

- Charleston Visit

Thank you to all students that

contributed articles to this Edition.

If you would like to contribute to the

Spring Edition please send an

article to your Sabbatical Intern.

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