Hello Everyone!

This is our first newsletter of the new academic year and I hope you look forward to many more! As with all things with the society, feel free to send us feedback so we can constantly strive for improvement.

Hello we're cool

Yes indeed, you heard that right, we are a cool society who do fun things and have cool people. But if you're reading this, then you're almost certainly already a member, which makes you a cool person too.

"What fun things do we do?" you might ask, and I am sure glad you did. In short, we do:

• Academic Talks
• Friday night Gaming
• Pub trips
• LAN parties
• Inter-society laser tag
• And much more!

Here's our exec and what they do

• Hi, I’m Ryan. As the president of the society, I'm in charge of mediating discussion in our exec meetings, and acting as an ambassador to both the Computer Science department and Student's Union. My goal for the year is to get the society more involved with offering academic assistance for students. I'm also around to help in all of our events both academic and social. I'm always happy to discuss the society or the CS course with other students, and you can reach me easily via our Discord (username @Andromeda#8509) or via email (president@uwcs.co.uk).
  

• Hi, I’m Dan, the Academic Coordinator for this year. I’m going to be organising all of the academic talks and other such events this year, hopefully they’ll be both useful for you and fun to attend! If you have any ideas of something we could totally be doing, feel free to send me a DM on Discord (@DCatcher#3027) or email (academic-coordinator@uwcs.co.uk)!
  

• Hi, I’m John! As the Gaming Coordinator this year, my role encompasses organising our gaming events such as Friday Night Gaming and LAN (or WAN) parties. I’m a third-year Maths with Physics student with an interest in data science and functional programming. My exec email address is <gaming-coordinator@uwcs.co.uk>. You can catch me on our Discord server (@Jlobblet#0621) if you want to chat!
  

• Hi, I’m Toby. Secretary this year, I write the newsletter you’re probably reading right now and take minutes at the exec meetings. I used to be Tech Officer, so if Thomas isn’t available I’m usually available to help or pass the message onto him. You can reach me on Discord (Nightingale33#2285) or via secretary@uwcs.co.uk
  

• Hi, I’m Amelie.
  
  P.S. I’m the treasurer of the society, which mostly concerns the internal handling of our budget and sponsors. More relevantly to most of you I am often active in our Discord and at our gaming events, and I’ll also be a teaching assistant for those of you taking cs118 (Programming for Computer Scientists). You can reach me on Discord (@distributive law#5486) or by email (treasurer@uwcs.co.uk)!
  

• Hallo, I’m Thomas, and I’m embarking upon my fourth year studying computer science. I’m this year’s Tech Officer, which means I’m your first port of call for any issues or questions about the technical services we provide. I manage our cluster of servers, look after our gaming and LAN hardware as well as maintain our website and other software tools. If you need anything changed about your website, or have any questions about anything technical, please do get in touch.
  

• Hi, I'm Daisy and I'm the Women's Officer. I just want to make sure that everyone feels comfortable and welcome in the society. So, if you think there's anything more we could be doing to make you feel more included, don't hesitate to contact me and send me your suggestions by email (womens-officer@uwcs.co.uk), on Discord (@Aik#0923) or on Facebook (if you can find me - Daisy Kennedy). Also, if you're feeling nervous about coming to any of our events or just have any concerns about university life in general, just drop me a message and hopefully I can help calm your mind :)
  

• Hi, I’m Scott! I'll be running any non gaming socials this year as your social sec. Although things are a bit weird in the current climate if you have any ideas for socials please contact me on discord (Cyantist#0402) and we'll see if we can make them a reality.

Gaming on Friday

Even in these looks outside dark and troubled times, the beacon of hope that is "Friday Night Gaming" continues to shine. Currently we're running games over Discord, we survey people's interests in games a little ahead of time and then everyone dives into the many available voice channels to play various games together, from casually chaotic TTT and the enigmatic Mysterium, to the inevitable "shoot for the moon, get stuck in a tree" Valorant group.

When the good times return, we'll be returning to CS003 and breaking out all the consoles, playing all the same great games, and many more, including the ever popular Rockband setup (with custom songs) and never-ending stream of Smash on the Switch.

Gaming

Because Friday Night Gaming could never just be enough to sate some of our member's appetites, we run LAN parties (read WAN (Wide Area Network) parties for the time being) and a nice "casual Tuesday" light game session, also on Discord. This one is a little quieter and more relaxed, often with more social games like Jackbox, and board games like Mysterium and Boggle, if you're free on a Tuesday evening, hop onto the Discord and you'll find friends to chat and join in with for sure.

LAN parties are truly a masterwork of the society's many great events. Normally we book LIB2 for the weekend (Just next to library cafe) and setup a gigabit Ethernet connection plus one of the ever-beloved music servers. Then it's 48 hours of non-stop* gaming.

Due to the obvious problems with packing as many of us into a single room for a weekend right now, we came up with the ingenious solution of running the same event remotely, sure we can't run a gigabit ethernet connection to you. But your bed is now likely less than 10m away. So join us for a Week 3 WAN and 48 hours of non-stop* gaming, more details to come soon I promise!

*Please go sleep if you're tired, your health comes first

Talks

We love putting on talks. They're fun, interesting and informative. We run two kinds of talks for the most part; external speakers from one of our wonderful sponsors, sharing their wisdom and experience, and internal speakers, members of the society, members of other societies such as Game Design.

Git Good

We're running a Git Good talk this Wednesday at 3pm, hosted online and presented by our former President Sam Coy. This talk covers the many wonderful uses of git, powerful version control software you'll use throughout your degree and career, and is well worth tuning in on.

If you want to come along, the (shortened) Teams link is: https://bit.ly/3liEhl5 (if you cannot attend at the time, the recording should be available at the same link afterwards!)

Schedule

Other notices

There will be some scheduled downtime of the CompSoc servers for updates on Wednesday 14th. If you have any questions about how this will affect you, please contact tech@uwcs.co.uk

That's all from me for now, but do not fear, I shall return;

Toby

If you would like to keep in touch, join our Discord Server, or information can be found on our Facebook Group, or on our Twitter.

And now, a word from our sponsors

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