Hello again folks,
The law of dietdom states, that for every diet, one must better themselves at the gym to assist with said weightloss. Jessica and I started this law today as we both joined Pure Gym. After this, we went to the local Chinese shop to find that students have been flytipping outside of the shop (to said students, don't be dicks. The man does fantastic sweet chilli sauce).
So now as I sit in my bed on a Saturday night, sober. I think about DMU's current drink culture and how we need to prepare for the changes to come.
For me, the culture began when I was a mere freshling 4 years ago. Before I came to Uni, I only ever got drunk once on my 18th. Clubbing wasn't really my thing (to be fair, Melton didn't have the best clubbing options) and I'd be quite content with a glass of bucks fizz at Christmas.
When I first started University, you were seen as weird if you didn't drink. Shows like The Secret Life of Fresher's would depict Fresher's week as a colder and wetter version of Magaluf where people got drunk and slept with every person on the dancefloor. Now I can credit DMU, in that from what I saw, there wasn't that much desperation, just the slight grinding in InJunction, however I can remember spending a good £100 on beverages and I was one of the 'tight-arses'.
Sports socials were times where you dressed like a twat on Wednesday, downed drinks, played games and if you somehow remained upright, would stagger into the SU before collapsing in Pizza King.
What is interesting now, however, is that we are starting to see a shift. Take SCUBA for example, we have about a 50/50 split when it comes to members who drink and members who are sober. Therefore having us drink every week, whilst easier to plan, wouldn't logistically work because we'd be alienating 50% of the membership. So we alternate between drinking socials and sober ones (for example, this term was have raft building and laser-tag planned) so that we can cater to everybody.
However I still feel that there is a little bit of an issue that we do need to work on when it comes to socials as a whole since a large majority of clubs still adopt the 'drink until ban' motto, which whilst good for someone like me who likes to down pitchers and play drinking games, doesn't always work best for my best friend who's also on the spectrum.
However we cannot as it stands expect clubs to go cold turkey, or at the very least adopt the rules that SCUBA have set. Why? Well there's multiple reasons for this so allow me to break them down.
The law of dietdom states, that for every diet, one must better themselves at the gym to assist with said weightloss. Jessica and I started this law today as we both joined Pure Gym. After this, we went to the local Chinese shop to find that students have been flytipping outside of the shop (to said students, don't be dicks. The man does fantastic sweet chilli sauce).
So now as I sit in my bed on a Saturday night, sober. I think about DMU's current drink culture and how we need to prepare for the changes to come.
For me, the culture began when I was a mere freshling 4 years ago. Before I came to Uni, I only ever got drunk once on my 18th. Clubbing wasn't really my thing (to be fair, Melton didn't have the best clubbing options) and I'd be quite content with a glass of bucks fizz at Christmas.
When I first started University, you were seen as weird if you didn't drink. Shows like The Secret Life of Fresher's would depict Fresher's week as a colder and wetter version of Magaluf where people got drunk and slept with every person on the dancefloor. Now I can credit DMU, in that from what I saw, there wasn't that much desperation, just the slight grinding in InJunction, however I can remember spending a good £100 on beverages and I was one of the 'tight-arses'.
Sports socials were times where you dressed like a twat on Wednesday, downed drinks, played games and if you somehow remained upright, would stagger into the SU before collapsing in Pizza King.
What is interesting now, however, is that we are starting to see a shift. Take SCUBA for example, we have about a 50/50 split when it comes to members who drink and members who are sober. Therefore having us drink every week, whilst easier to plan, wouldn't logistically work because we'd be alienating 50% of the membership. So we alternate between drinking socials and sober ones (for example, this term was have raft building and laser-tag planned) so that we can cater to everybody.
However I still feel that there is a little bit of an issue that we do need to work on when it comes to socials as a whole since a large majority of clubs still adopt the 'drink until ban' motto, which whilst good for someone like me who likes to down pitchers and play drinking games, doesn't always work best for my best friend who's also on the spectrum.
However we cannot as it stands expect clubs to go cold turkey, or at the very least adopt the rules that SCUBA have set. Why? Well there's multiple reasons for this so allow me to break them down.
What do clubs have to gain from not drinking?
Many clubs and societies have sponsorships from the bars in question. The more bevs you buy, the more dollar you get. Some clubs get over £3000 per term thanks to their deals on socials, so if you do the alternative model, that money is essentially slashed in half. For many clubs, that money is the difference between a competition or not competing, kit or no kit, etc. So unless there's plans to reward the club's financially for adopting the model, they're not going to buy it.
2. The SU loses money.
As long as people are drunk on a Wednesday, people will go to InJunction. At the moment, this is our only night at the SU as we piloted another night on Saturday and it didn't take off. So if we tell clubs to go, one week on/one week off then the income from InJunction gets slashed in half which means the union has less to spend on things like the development fund.
3. Some students just like to get drunk every week.
Here's the thing. Some students, just like to drink and chances are, that if they aren't going to do it at social, they'll do it elsewhere. At least on a social, they're getting drunk with people who (in theory) know where they're going in Leicester, contact details for taxis and can keep them safe.
It's the same reason why I'm pro-tour. If I'm going to get smashed in a brand new place, I want to do it with people I know and who are going to make sure that I get back to the hotel safe. As for my parents, they would rather me go abroad on a tour that is fully planned and risk assessed (such as Sportsvest, I love Tour or Global) and with people I already know as opposed to me just wondering the world alone like a lemon.
Not to mention, if something (god forbid) goes wrong on a tour/social, there are ways the student can report it and more importantly, there are ways the SU and DMU can deal with it.
So what do you do?
If we truly want to start making socials more welcoming to sober students and talk about things like Drinkaware. I personally believe that we should start by looking at the following.
- Starting to get links with local attractions, restaurants and cafes to provide more financial incentives for students to host sober socials there.
- Starting to expand on nightly entertainment at the SU which means that we could afford a slight blow if clubs went to fortnightly drinking socials. Things that come to mind include visiting acts such as local bands/drag queens/performance groups/etc. , a repeat of Derrick's Cultural showcase, nerd nights with gaming/anime music and games on a projector screen, pool tournaments, the possibilities are endless.
- Work with clubs/societies and tour providers to ensure that there's things for sober people to do on tour. For example when SCUBA went to Lanzarote, we had 2 nights of 'drinking ban' as half of the group were diving the next day, so we had meals out, table tennis tournaments and card games on those nights and then those who wanted to get smashed, went out another night.
- Allow more flexibility with the sponsorship contract to allow for 2-week/monthly vists/etc. as the one contract fits all approach doesn't work for all societies/sports clubs.
- Speak to sober students to ensure that the drinking culture is what is truly stopping them from joining the club/society. It's all well and good a student group going cold turkey to 'be inclusive' but if there's other barriers that are stopping a student from joining, then we might need to solve these first to ensure a club is able to support themselves financially.
This list might seem long and somewhat complex and realistically, it's not something that can be done during the next academic year, however if we make a start now, then one day, we'll be ready to reduce the pisshead pandemic.
Comments
Post a Comment