Postgrad Committee Meeting 14.00 Brooks Bar
1. Apologies & Absences
Apologies: None
Absences: MT (SC never used to miss things…)
2. Social (O? & E?)
Christmas Meal booked at Ask – three options
– 5th december
– Table booked for 20, can give him the exact number next week
– A set menu
Halloween movie night
– not that we’ll attended but good to have an event like that on
– got a few people down
– nice to set a precedent for film events throughout the year
Inter MCR formal (March)
– worth starting to consider this now
Refreshers
– first weekend back in Epiphany
– one drinking event, one sober
– potentially make it an inter MCR event
– keep the PGs involved, check deadlines
– have a combined JCR closing event on Saturday
Christmas formal for international, pgs, and mature
– Tuesday 9th Dec
– An informal formal
3. Academic (John)
Research forum
– went well, another tomorrow
Reading group
– 7 or 8 people
– run it on a weekday evening in future to attract more scr members (last year’s were in the evening and got better attendance)
– Monday or Tuesday – people feel more productive
– Next topic – Push something to do with women in academia
– Ollie will source the reading
No more events this term after this week
JW will find out if there are any other academic  talks or events in college and promote these
AW – Monday 24th talk on micro inequities with the Feminist Society
4. General (JW)
Walk to Finchal postponed
– Would have had about 20 people coming
– Rearranged for 30th, will rebook tables
– 1 1/2 hours each way, plus wandering and eating
5. Other Business & Event Ideas
(Re)engaging PGs
Postgrad refreshers pack encouraging involvement of sports and societies, research fora info etc
Still getting quite low attendance at formal sign ups, not as successful last year which was counter intuitive to the welcome week idea – they’ve all made friends already and don’t feel they need to come?
During welcome week – didn’t get the chance to meet existing postgrads? Very few turned up, they were invited
No sense of continuity – only PhDs that stay on but masters students that get involved – no institutional memory
Hard to identify who to look after and target – don’t know who has payed their levy
Has over 150 postgrads but never see more than 60 – always the same faces
Challenge for the year – how to engage
Are we overloading people with information? Want to make sure the message gets across, otherwise people forget about things
Some people just don’t want to come to stuff
Events
Next Postgrad formal – offer sign up in groups
Increasing forum attendance – want more postgrads than undergrads
Academia is always a hard sell to people who spend their days in academia
Pose it more as a support for your friends speaking
Wine tasting – went well last time
As a refresher event – John’s and Cuth’s
Christmas drinks evening in the last week – mulled wine and mince pies
International students might be interested – traditional British culture
Postgrad mulled wine reception before the Christmas formal
Chinese new year
Hill bar crawl
Winter congregation – 8th December drinks for graduands