0 I realised the odds were against our committee when at the handover meeting the former President ever so casually mentioned the £3000 of debt that we’d be inheriting, and a quick glance around all of my new committee buddies confirmed that this was in fact Brand New Information™.
It was not a great start, but, with a good bit of graft, and absolutely literally NO expenditure all year (cry) we pulled it back.
I held the role of Vice President, the description for which was the extremely non-committal ‘support the President in their role’. Vague and unhelpful? Definitely. But because of this, I was able to be involved with the society in exactly the way I wanted (and, no, I don’t mean by shirking off and letting the CV gains flow). I helped to arrange socials, coordinated stash sales (although by this I definitely mean sat drinking Camper Coffee with the President in front of a spreadsheet to give the illusion of productivity), handled the administrative side of the society, played netball for the intramural team; lots of fingers, lots of pies, basically.
Excel spreadsheets haunted my dreams
That’s absolutely not to say that I got to cherry-pick my responsibilities because my goodness I ended up doing some ridiculous stuff. The best/worst thing I did was work to organise the winter and summer balls, which was fabulous and rewarding in the end, but also, at the time, Excel spreadsheets haunted my dreams. You do not know stress until you’re trying to sort out dietary requirements, and are drinking your complementary wine purely to overcome the anxiety that someone might be allergic to the raspberries in the last-minute change of pudding and poison themselves right there and then at your event, and oh my gosh, then you’d actually have to do some paperwork.
Maybe I was lucky with my committee, or maybe it was the pretty flexible nature of my role, but the experience I had was much more than a tactical manoeuvre to boost my CV – it became one of the best parts of my second year.
Committee confessions
I realised the odds were against our committee when at the handover meeting the former President ever so casually mentioned the £3000 of debt that we’d be inheriting, and a quick glance around all of my new committee buddies confirmed that this was in fact Brand New Information™.
It was not a great start, but, with a good bit of graft, and absolutely literally NO expenditure all year (cry) we pulled it back.
I held the role of Vice President, the description for which was the extremely non-committal ‘support the President in their role’. Vague and unhelpful? Definitely. But because of this, I was able to be involved with the society in exactly the way I wanted (and, no, I don’t mean by shirking off and letting the CV gains flow). I helped to arrange socials, coordinated stash sales (although by this I definitely mean sat drinking Camper Coffee with the President in front of a spreadsheet to give the illusion of productivity), handled the administrative side of the society, played netball for the intramural team; lots of fingers, lots of pies, basically.
That’s absolutely not to say that I got to cherry-pick my responsibilities because my goodness I ended up doing some ridiculous stuff. The best/worst thing I did was work to organise the winter and summer balls, which was fabulous and rewarding in the end, but also, at the time, Excel spreadsheets haunted my dreams. You do not know stress until you’re trying to sort out dietary requirements, and are drinking your complementary wine purely to overcome the anxiety that someone might be allergic to the raspberries in the last-minute change of pudding and poison themselves right there and then at your event, and oh my gosh, then you’d actually have to do some paperwork.
Maybe I was lucky with my committee, or maybe it was the pretty flexible nature of my role, but the experience I had was much more than a tactical manoeuvre to boost my CV – it became one of the best parts of my second year.
Hannah Stevenson
Exeposé Online News Editor
Exeter City U’23 battling against the odds
To Lent or not to Lent
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