Social Secretaries

Essentially, Social Secretaries seem to have the easiest job in the world – having a great time with all their mates. Organisation is however a key skill, make sure the socials are well organised and fun, and you will be a great social sec!

As social secretaries you are in charge of picking the dates for socials, planning the night, making sure everyone knows what’s going on and gets involved, and most importantly MAKING SURE EVERYONE IS HAVING FUN

From this base of basic responsibilities you can do whatever you want with it, but here’s a run-down of what we did (or tried to do):

A basic template:

Over the Summer:

You’ll need to sort out some kind of sponsorship for free food after training, if possible, as soon as possible. This year we used The Tron which has been fantastic, but if you want to shop around the Three Sisters, Room at 34 and Vodka Revs are options that we’d looked at before as they sponsor other sports clubs. Make sure that you get all the details and make sure that they know what kind of thing we’re offering in return.

If possible it’s also great to get some kind of sponsorship thing going with a club. We’ve had a deal with The Hive in recent years. The guy we contact for that is Mike Nisbet (mike@clubhive.co.uk), he is pretty easy to contact through facebook or by email. We usually get a guestlist until midnight or so with 1 or 2 quid off entry depending on what night / how many people we’re bringing. Every little helps. Don’t be afraid to ask for a bit of money from The Hive, a couple of years they gave us £100, although make sure that you know what is expected of the club in exchange for them giving you this money! In the 2014/15 season, they were sometimes a bit slow replying to emails so you may need to go in person.

Freshers’ Social:

We usually run a social in the first couple of weeks to try and bond the club with the newbies, or freshers. This is usually done in the form of Tied to a Korfer which has worked really well in past years. Go with whatever theme you want however, if you want to try something new go for it, if not then Tied to a Korfer has worked well the last couple of years so stick with that!

Beer and Skittles:

A couple of years ago we started off with the macho nacho challenge at the Auld Hoose pub (just up the road from CSE), which does HUGE plates of nachos for very cheap (plus 10% student discount). Then we booked taxis for everyone to the Sheep’s Heid pub, which is round the back of Arthur’s Seat. You can book it on 01316617974. This year it was £2 per person so its not bad value for money! Make sure you have some games and competitions planned, as people will only enjoy a couple of rounds of ‘proper’ skittles before they want to make each other vomit with silly time trials. Be warned that this social can be over pretty quickly so have a destination planned for once people grow bored of spinning around bowling pins! In the 2014/15 season we started with the nachos at Auld Hoose, did skittle-related games, and then headed out to Hive, which worked really well in terms of pacing the night.

Flat golf:

Like pub golf, but with flats! Make sure you plan early as you need to get people to commit to offering their flats up for this social. Once you have flats willing to host, plan a route, find out numbers attending, decide what to charge people for all the things you will then buy, and plan games for each flat (minefield, bag-o, beer pong, flip cup, punch etc.). Collect cash, bulk buy the things , and distribute it between flats. In some years there have been exceptionally high numbers of people at the flat crawl, which made it really fun but also difficult to play games like beer pong and flip cup. If this happens to you, just go with the flow, play other games. Be creative! Make sure that all hosts know what is happening in their flats beforehand so that they can set it up before the crawl begins, things will run smoothly then!

Pub golf

Plan a route through a number of pubs (holes) and find out drinks deals in advance so you can tell everyone what they have to drink in each pub. Often worth ringing the pubs beforehand to let them know you’re coming as some pubs can be funny about pub golf. Get everyone to dress in golfing gear, create a score card, pair people up and see who wins/remembers the end of the night! You can occasionally convince pubs to give you reserved seating or drinks deals, so it’s worth asking about that beforehand (Tron and Revs have been really good for seating in the past).

Korfball Karaoke:

Karaoke is available for free at a bunch of bars in Edinburgh. Espionage and Opium both have karaoke on different nights of the week run by a really cracking dude who loves EUKray-Z. This year we went to Supercube (although Electric Circus is anther banger) which is absolutely wicked as you get your own private room so you can do Pass Out and Ignition as many times as you want and for those people who are a bit shy it helps that it’s only other korfers there! Contact them and tell them you’re from Ed Uni and they’ll give you good deal. They give good student discount and they have a bunch of different sized rooms to suit how many people are going. Karaoke is always a strange social as some people really hate karaoke so don’t be disheartened if not everyone attends, but organise it well and people will come! If you’re running for social sec you’re clearly well keen for karaoke so you’ll make it work! In the past we have gone to Hive and had a great night! Judge what’s the best night for people and karaoke will work! Electric Circus will randomly offer free karaoke throughout the year so it’s worth checking their facebook page for that info.

Korfmas:

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, its’ Korfmas. EUKC does Christmas at the traditional time (St Andrew’s Day), in the traditional way (with a meal then a ceilidh). This is usually on St Andrew’s Day to coincide with EUSA’s ceilidh in Teviot which is only £3 a head. Collect money from people and buy tickets way, waaaay in advance. The EusaLive website should let you book them, or you can book them in person in Teviot (this is the best way). Meal-wise, the club previously used the Filling Station and Vodka Rev and last year we did it at 56 North. VR was actually really good food at a good price but this year we got EUSA’s catering service Honours Catering who gave us the meal in Teviot and not only was the food amazing, they made the room look really nice and the meal was really special! It cost (only slightly) more than revs but everyone agreed that the meal was a lot nicer than previously and it was nice to be in the same building as the ceilidh. I recommend going for honours catering again, but shop around for a good price and meal! You’ll usually need to pay a deposit, but you can collect that back off the total price in cash on the night. You’ll need to get a menu from the venue and do a form online for the club to collect people’s orders. SurveyMonkey is great for quick surveys and very easy to use.

Korfscars:

A full get-up, black tie event! The Korfscars were new for the end of 2009/2010 and should be played with as much as possible. The first one was run in Teviot by 2010/2011’s social secretaries, although it was really meant to be a hand-over event with the previous year’s socials helping out the new ones, but it’s perfectly easy to run by yourselves. The basic concept is similar to the Oscars, but better, as it’s about korfball. Get awards for players of the season from team coaches and most improved, get coaches to make speeches about their teams, get the outgoing and incoming presidents to make speeches. Give a social round-up of the year and a look forward to next year. We set up forms using SurveyMonkey to get the club to nominate various awards, ‘coach of the year’, etc. Be imaginative, ask the masses to nominate both awards and people for them! Plan a night out afterwards, but most will probably want to go to the pub for a misty-eyed night of nostalgia. Each to their own. Last year we went out for food at Red Fort, had the awards in Teviot and then moved onto Potterrow which worked really well. I’ll let you in on a little secret, Potterrow actually has a guest list! If Korfscars is held at Teviot, you can get on the guest list, which ended up being exceedingly useful as it was the last Big Cheese of the year meaning a queue jump was priceless. For the 2013/14 season we couldn’t book Teviot, but it is highly recommended that you try and book Teviot as it’s much cheaper than comparable venues and is a good focal point for the night out. We went to Three Sisters, which was fine, but make sure you book plenty of food in advance, as they were really stingy with the buffet.

The Big Ones:

The biggest responsibility of the social secretaries is to run an outstanding Pre-Tournament social and an unbelievable Tournament Social for the Edinburgh International Korfball Tournament.
Pre-Tournament social is pretty easy to organise – get part or all of a bar booked and get all the teams to mingle with each other. Simples. This year we used 3 Sisters which actually worked incredibly well as we got a big room in the back reserved for us which had its own bar and a load of space to hand out goody bags and for clubs to mingle. 3 Sisters uses the SR Card/App which also makes it easier for teams to have a good time! Shop around for a good venue with space but also good drinks deal and a good atmosphere.

The Tournament social, however, is slightly more difficult. You need a venue first, for about 250 people. Teviot is ideal, but Dancebase is a good backup. Teviot’s Debating Hall and the Loft Bar are about £100 for the evening, Dancebase is about £650. Teviot is open for longer and the drinks are a bit cheaper, plus we get kickback from the bar for the club. Teviot is better, if you can get it. Pester EUSA. Do whatever it takes to get that Saturday night in January/February, as it will make your life so much easier. The tournament is the weekend of Burn’s night, meaning that you need to get in early to ensure you get the booking. They now use a computer to handle their bookings, meaning that it can be booked early. Also, if you get Teviot, see if they can switch the radiators off for the whole day before the social, it’s always a zillion degrees in there!

We however were not able to do the celiedh in Teviot so we just found a church hall to hire, this was cheaper but not as easy to organise. Although I think the byob was very successful! The venue for the night is definitely the hardest part of organising this event so make sure your thinking about it early!

Once you have a venue, book a band. The past 2 years we have used the Maths Ceilidh band which are a very talented and experience ceilidh band and did it for £200. If you want to head down this route, the man to contact is Alastair Gilllespie on t.a.gillespie@ed.ac.uk.

Sell tickets at the tournament on the Saturday, we usually sell wristbands, which you can get from ebay dirt cheap, which are then required for entry. If you’re at Dancebase you need to do the door yourselves. Teviot have bouncers but you’ll need to check wristbands at the top of the stairs. Usually the tickets are about £6 although if you want to go for something over the top, you might risk asking for a bit more for tickets. Don’t risk too much overhead though, as numbers aren’t assured due to team drop outs. This year we managed to bring in a load of profit for the club from the social which helped pay for minibuses to nationals and let us have karaoke for free. Make sure to badger people for tickets at the tournament so you don’t have to sell a load on the door.

Tips and Tricks:

Use Facebook, it’s great for organising, and pestering, people. In a 2014/15 sec’s experience, everyone in the club uses Facebook (as far as I know), but the email list is really useful to pester and remind people.
Announce socials at training sessions, it allows people to ask you questions.
Plan in advance and let people know about stuff in advance, even as early as September and January for the whole semester, if possible.
Related to this, make sure you make the Facebook events well in advance. There’s really no excuse, and the earlier you make the events, the more people show up.
Ring up your sponsor pub and book food at least 24 hours in advance, every week. They need to know early and you need to know that they remember you. Grovel if no-one turns up, it annoys them if we’re a no-show. It annoys the club if there’s no food. Either way, it’s your responsibility.
Write down stuff that happens at socials so that you remember it at the end of the year for a Scandal Mag. If possible, try to write Social Match Reports and get them on the website. Ditto photos. Take lots, especially incriminating ones.
Book everything you need to book early, especially EUSA venues.
Keep checking that they have your booking once you think you’ve made it.
Get everything from venues in writing, and don’t trust it unless it’s in writing.
Tequila Time is a tradition for a reason.
Book the Debating Hall in October, for January/February.
Make sure you get scorecards from Pub Golf back from everyone asap so you can announce a winner. 2010-2013 winners are still steeped in mystery and controversy.
Don’t take any rubbish. People will try to get you to change social dates to suit them, but if you think a social is on a date that is good for the silent majority, stick with it.
Similarly, if a social is going to bomb due to no-one being in town, be flexible with it.
Don’t buy ASDA Smart Price Lager. It’s bad.
Do lots of fancy dress, it gets people in the mood.
Salt, Tequila, Lime.
A Maltby Special is only available from RUSH and you have to be adamant that they’ve sold you it before and it won’t result in you puking on the foosball table. It’s in a pint glass and has a shot of tequila and a shot of gin [the economy version only has 1 shot and may be a little more safe] plus a blue WKD and a yellow WKD stuck in the top. The wonderful magic of physics keeps the drinks in the glass, unless you do something stupid (we’ve all been there) like pulling one of the bottles out. Don’t do that.
Have a good time. When people see you having a good time, they do too, especially freshers. Even if they’re laughing at you, they’re still laughing.