Sports & Societies – The Orbital

11Oct

By Jeyda HasipNo Comments

Sports & Socs

A Chat With Cheer

Cheerleading is a sport that is often associated with American High Schools, PomPoms and the 'Mean Girls' type Popularity. In order to break that stereotype and reveal the truth about what it takes to be a cheerleader, I spoke to Becca Stewart, President of Cheerleading at Royal Holloway and gained insight into what the sport really entails. It is no doubt that cheerleading is one of the fiercest sports on campus, but fierce often gets confused with bitchy. What would you say to any freshers wanting to try out that might feel a little intimidated by the sport’s reputation? I want to assure all freshers that being a part of our club is like joining a family. Whilst we are fierce and fiery on the mat, as soon as we come off we are straight back to being so supportive and friendly, alwa...

10Oct

By Jeyda HasipNo Comments

Sports & Socs

A Talk With Men’s Football

Men's Football is one of the largest clubs on campus and one of the biggest sports in the world. With the World Cup just finishing and England doing so well, I spoke to Royal Holloway's President of Men's Football, Remy Henry, to see what he had to say about the sport that is so close to all of our hearts. As someone who has played on the 1st team for two years, what aspired you to want to take it to the next level and run for President? My passion for Football is one of the main reasons why I decided to run for President. This ties into wanting to run for Men's Football to ensure that all of the members can benefit from being a part of the club, as well as ensuring that Men's Football is a club that is welcoming to everyone. You joined the 1st team as a fresher and will finish yo...

13Nov

By Louisa WicksNo Comments

Sports & Socs

You Feel?

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, one of the biggest and most successful social awareness campaigns. Breast cancer can affect each and every one of us, and groups such as Royal Holloway’s Uni Boob Team are working hard to make sure that people know about the risks. When I spoke to the society’s president, Francesca Mills, I found out what their plans and goals are for this year. First of all, can you explain what your key aims are as a society? We work with Coppafeel!, a breast cancer awareness society which works to stamp out the late detection of breast cancer in young men and women. So many young people don’t realise that they are at risk of breast cancer, and as a result they don’t feel the need to check themselves! We want to get as many people as possible regularly chec...

23Mar

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Sports & Socs

Raise Up Your Talents

Michele Theil reviews the Raise-And-Give Talent Show, an event raising money for three excellent charities. The Raise-And-Give society’s charity event, aptly named ‘Royal Holloway’s Got Talent’ was hosted in the SU Main Hall and allowed students and parents to see a wide variety of talents and acts. The show aimed to raise money for Action Against Hunger, Meningitis Now and The White Lodge Centre. Action Against Hunger is “a global charity committed to saving the lives of malnourished children in over 40 countries”. Meningitis Now is a global charity that researches for and supports sufferers of Meningitis and The White Lodge Centre is dedicated to “supporting disabled people of all ages”. Each charity supports extremely worthwhile causes that RAG is dedicated to raising money for. T...

Women’s Football – Still Walking on Water

26Nov

By No Comments

Sports & Socs

Women’s Football – Still Walking on Water

Currently undefeated and top of their BUCS league, Women’s Football’s first team faced Portsmouth in the first round of the South Eastern Conference Cup this Bears day, and were keen to maintain their winning streak! There was no question it would be a fast paced game, with right midfielder Alicia Lyne making some impressive runs down the wing, and setting up a beautiful cross for striker Flora Green making it 1-0 to Holloway in the 22nd minute! Krissie Glover set up Portsmouth’s subsequent own goal from an on point corner and went on to assist yet another Holloway goal placed neatly in the back of the net by Michelle Iversen Badiane in the second half! With Portsmouth having lost one of their best players to injury, as well as their keeper, who casually popped her shoulder back into pl...

26Nov

By No Comments

Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- Rowing? Paddle-happy winners!

The rowing club, over the last few months, has had a great start to the academic year, and we are all really excited to show our potential at BUCS too. We’ve had a brilliant intake of freshers, and it’s great to see the team spirit continue from last year. We are aiming to maintain the high levels of enthusiasm as well through the frosty winter mornings we all love so much! We have been taking on more opportunities to train, work out and improve our standards. In October the senior squad competed at Cambridge Autumn Head. Both the Men's 8+ IM3 and the Women's 4+ IM3 won their category, whilst the other boats competing on the day (two more women's and one more men's boat) were able to gain very respectable times providing us with a lot of confidence for the rest of the year. Lastly, we ha...

26Nov

By No Comments

Sports & Socs

In Your Socs- Drama Society’s Poetic Charity

On Thursday the 6th of November, the Drama Society provided the opportunity to take part in a Poetry Workshop run by their chosen charity, Safe Ground. Safe Ground works to decrease the stigma faced by families of people in prison, and strives to promote a social change by connecting communities and rehabilitating the prisoners’ relationships with their families through the use of drama, dialogue and debate. The workshop took place at the South Bank University and was run by the writer and performance poet, Dean Atta. I found the workshop particularly engaging because I was familiar with his work. However, Atta made it clear that a keen interest in poetry was not required, as he successfully involved each participant in a captivating three-hour session. All the exercises were conduct...

26Nov

By No Comments

Sports & Socs

In Your Socs- Rocking the Games

The Lyell Geoscience Society hosted our first sports event of the year 'The Rock Games'. The tournament featured games such as football, rounders, handball, touch rugby and tug-of-war, where post-grads and lecturers were up against under-grads. A total of 8 teams attended the event, which was held on Sunday 19th October on Founders Field. Throughout the day cakes were being sold at the Kayleigh Sugar Fund Cake Sale. On top of cake sales, half of the sign-up costs for the teams were donated to the Kayleigh Sugar Fund. A total of £47.50 was raised for charity. The event was a huge success. UCL’s Dr Fabio Crameri presented the second lecture in the Lyell Geoscience Society’s Lecture Series on Thursday 23rd October. The title of his presentation was 'Numerical Modeling of Global Mantle Convec...

26Nov

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Sports & Socs

In Your Socs – Say a Little Prayer for Gospel

Gospel Choir is a group of roughly forty people who all come together on Monday and Thursday evenings to sing popular, well-known songs with a gospel spin. The first two songs that we learnt this year were “Lean on Me” and “I Say A Little Prayer”. Rehearsals start with a number of warm-ups including breathing techniques (which turn into competitions) and singing short extracts from songs in three to five part harmonies. After this, Katie and Michelle sing the soprano, alto and tenor parts one by one so that we can all learn our parts; then comes the slightly terrifying part where we put all the parts together. Nine times out of ten this goes to plan and sounds incredible; however, when it goes wrong, we all have a laugh about it, go through our parts separately and then try again. We...

18Nov

By No Comments

Sports & Socs

#BearsDay- An update from Swimming

RHUL Swimming is a friendly club that welcomes all competitive and leisure swimmers. As a club we are constantly growing, having increased membership by 40% since last year. Our 1st competition this year happened 2 weeks ago at Surrey Sports Park against Surrey! This was our first intercollegiate competition ever, winning 4/15 races including some fun races! Here is a cheeky race video: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=384347561722051&pnref=story Last weekend swimming were in Sheffield competing at the BUCS Short Course (25m), and two weekends after that we will be in Norwich at the BUCS Team Champs competition. CIYK last month was a great success with many of the new members initiated! Recently we have acquired two sponsorships with the Monkey’s Forehead and Medicine, ...