HOW TO START A STUDENT SOCIETY

STARTING a student soci­ety can be a great way to meet new people, have some fun and boost your CV. However, you can’t start one just like that. You’ve got to go through the right motions and tick the right boxes first.

Here’s our guide to starting a stu­dent society. We hope it helps!

STEP ONE: GET AN IDEA…

Ok, this may sound a bit obvious, but it’s essential that your society is fresh, origi­nal and unique. You can’t just start another football society if one already exists. You’ll need to decide on the society’s name, its purpose, its main initiatives and the events and activities that you intend to provide.

One thing to remember when you’re developing your idea is that your soci­ety proposal must be approved by your university’s student union. Therefore, a society known as the Bunghole Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Society might not get accepted!

STEP TWO: PLAN EVERYTHING METICULOUSLY…

Like anything, if you’re going to succeed, you can’t just go storming into this like an absolute nutcase; you need to plan your society in great detail. You need a mission statement, an organisational structure and plan of action. Sit down, brainstorm all your ideas and then work them all into an initial scope document.

STEP THREE: FIND SOME DISCIPLES…

To get your society off the ground, you need to garner a decent amount of sup­port from your fellow students. Some students affairs sections/ SRCs won’t let you even think about starting your society without a minimum number of members. You might need at least 20 or 30 people that are willing to become a member.

Make some calls, chat to your friends, start talking to random students at the canteen, start a Facebook group and ba­sically do whatever you can to promote your idea and get other people excited about your society. Once you’ve got a bunch of like-minded people express­ing an interest, you need to get all their names, student numbers, contact details and signatures onto a piece of paper.

STEP FOUR: WRITE A CONSTITUTION…

This is where you’ll get all your ideas, objectives, plans, values and protocols down on paper. Keep it simple, concise and all-encompassing. Ideally, everyone and everyone should have the right to join your society. Get together with your other members to discuss the constitution. This should be a collaborative process and the final document should reflect the beliefs and motivations of all your members.

STEP FIVE: APPOINT YOUR DREAM TEAM…

Choose a bunch of your members to take on important roles as part of your society’s committee. You could do this through a nomination and election pro­cess, or you could just take the lead and ask the people that you think will be the most effective and enthusiastic.

STEP SIX: REGISTER WITH THE STU­DENT’S AFFAIRS SECTION/SRC

Once you’ve got your list of mem­bers, your constitution and your committee, it’s time to submit your application for registration to your uni­versity’s student affairs section/ SRC.

You might get your proposal approved straight away or you might have to at­tend an interview, where you’ll be asked searching questions about your soci­ety and your future plans. Once you’ve passed the test, you will be granted status as an official student society.

STEP SEVEN: GET A STALL AT THE CLUBS EXPO…

Now you’ve got approval, you need to get more members. The more members you have, probably the more funding you will get from the student union. It can also be pretty satisfying to get a multi­tude of excitable and enthusiastic mem­bers flocking to your humble society.

The best place to start is the Freshers’ Fair. Get yourself a stall and try to attract as many impressionable first years as pos­sible; offer free sweets, hand out free condoms, pump some big tunes out of a hifi or get a busty lady and a six-packed lothario to stand near your table (ok, maybe not this last one!). Get their email addresses and start messaging them about your upcoming events and activities.

STEP EIGHT: CARRY ON THE HARD WORK…

When you’ve got a dedicated army of followers, you can’t just sit back and re­lax. You need to start organising events, meetings and social activities. People will have joined up for a reason, so you need to give them what they want. You should also keep your promotional efforts go­ing; use social media, posters. You could even pull some one-off marketing stunts.

STEP NINE: TO INFINITY & BEYOND…

Once your society is established, just keep doing what you’re doing. Running your own society is a lot of hard work, but it’s def­initely worth it! It can look great to poten­tial employers and can give you immense personal satisfaction. Hopefully, when you eventually leave university, somebody else will continue to run the society and carry on the legacy that you have left be­hind!- adapted from allaboutcareers.com | cover image: Alicia D Weaver.

IGNORANCE: A NEW THREAT TO OUR HERITAGE

by Sineke Sibanda| @sinekesibanda image credit:awhf.net

“A person without knowledge of their history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”

Over the years, the continuous cycle of inscribing and delisting heritage sites has been gradually ongoing and has become a core part of our tradition. We all just have an idea that we have been inscribed as a world heritage site today and years later we will be fighting hard to save that site from being registered in the endangered list of sites. Mostly this of course owes to a vast changing climate we probably all believe we have little control over, on the other hand, it is the competing needs to balance development on the sites without disturbing their natural beauty.

As much as these sites have been so integral in our lives and that of our history, there is another factor which has tentatively threatened increasing their vulnerability. I have been coerced to believe that every heritage site is at risk, risk of losing its universal outstanding value, owing to the vast ignorance the prospective future citizens has about these cultural and natural landscapes.

 

In basic terms, outstanding universal value (OUV) in heritage generally refers to the meaning that our heritage whether tangible or intangible, cultural or natural has. That which makes it unique to all of us. For a place like Great Zimbabwe, the OUV is that it is a self-sustaining rock structure with no mortar or clay that has intactly existed since about 1100AD. For a place like the Robben Island, its OUV would be its location and being the symbol of the triumph of the human spirit against adversity. The unique reason which makes a heritage entity what it is.

A lack of awareness is a growing threat to heritage sites in most African countries. I was privileged enough to attend the first African World Heritage Youth Forum held in Cape Town, South Africa from the 28^th  of April to the 5^th of May 2016. During the forum, sponsored by UNESCO and the African World Heritage Fund, it was revealed that a lack of awareness on the meaning of heritage in all the 23 countries represented was prevalent and this posed a risk that this lack of appreciation of heritage would run most sites into shadows of irrelevance and extinction.

image cred:sirenconsultingfirm.com

It is sad today that to most young people in Zimbabwe, the Great Zimbabwe are just rocks, a few young people understand the significance, the roots and the identity that site has for any Zimbabwean. In one of my conversations after the forum with one of the most esteemed Zimbabwean ‘heritagist’, Pathisa Nyathi, a lack of appreciation was cited. He brought to context the Matobo Hills which were inscribed by UNESCO as a world heritage site in 2003 saying that the hills are under threat from local young boys who normally do cattle herding and in cold weather sometimes make fire in the bushmen caves where some rock paintings are found. This meant that the paintings are slowly becoming covered by smoke. He insisted that it was not their fault that such is happening because they do not even know what heritage is, let alone its importance and relevance to their daily living.

The future deserves all the opportunities we have had too. It is also our mandate to read about heritage, share stories about it. In essence, it is our collective responsibility to ensure our participation in key decisions that affect our heritage, because besides being just sites or traditional practices, our heritage bears our roots and identity. I would love to close off by quoting one South African lady I met during the forum. She writes: “A person without knowledge of their history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. As I walk away from ignorance.” (Mmapule. P.  Maluleke, 2016).

(The word ‘heritagist’ is the author’s colloquial creation to explain a heritage expert.)

WHAT ADVICE? I AM AT UNIVERSITY!

 

By Crispen Rateiwa| @ndakangwarisa

It was a long day in class. The lecturer, Mrs Dube, threw jokes here and there to illicit attention from us. I had the shock of my life when she announced her decision to divide the class along gender lines.

“I want to have an exclusive boys’ session. I want a little time with you boys during the break time,” she said.

“What session? What is it that we can trade for our dear break?” murmured all the boys in my class.

“Get a life! What stuff do you have? I’m an adult. I know how to take care of myself. You will learn a lesson today. Kudzidza hakuperi. Talk the obvious and I will walk away,” I said to myself.

“It’s rare to get advice these days, isn’t it? In life don’t make experiments! Don’t be players!” Mrs Dube said.

I thought I was an adult. What advice would she give me about social life? I was wrong. As I realised my boys nodding, taking in her message, I lent her my ears.

Image credits:http://chs.unobi.ac.ke

“Make a statement! Attract the one that you want. Show maturity. You can’t dress like you are in high school, dropping pants.”

“Guys wash your stockings. Shave your armpits. That’s where sweat accumulates and you don’t want to smell bad. Buy roll-on and if you can’t afford go for bicarbonate soda,” she said.

Who could argue with her? Mrs Dube acted like an aunt and looked like a mother. She recommended around ten years difference in love.

When she was growing up, a woman married an older man. Her generation experienced less divorces.

“HIV/AIDS patients are taking pills and you can’t detect. So protect yourself. Get tested early and receive treatment if infected. You can live long. Some go for voluntary male circumcision (VMC). It’s a positive development. Others use the A.B.C model- abstain, be faithful or condomise. Choose what works for you,” Mrs Dube said.

As Mrs Dube continued with her advice session, I began to ponder on some issues affecting my peers.

Cohabitation of male and female students is rampant in tertiary institutions. Some students engage in transactional sex to raise money for rent, food, make up and other necessities. These activities expose students to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.

It is incumbent that the government, charity organisations and the private sector take measures in dealing with such issues. Student loans and support in start-ups are some of the possible solutions required to ease college life hardships.

Organisations that raise awareness on HIV should also come on board and help student with sexual reproductive health information. This would help to prevent decimation of the country’s human capital.

Crispen Rateiwa is a publishing studies student at NUST. He is the chairperson of College Youth Art Club (CYAC) and president of Democratic Alliance for Academics (DAA). The views that he shares here are his own. Contact him on crisrateiwa@gmail.com; Facebook, Crispen Rateiwa; and Twitter @ndakangwarisa. Visite his blog: ayaasite.wordpress.com. 

 

 

 

 

THE BATTLE IS IN THE KITCHEN

“to gain muscle you
need to supply your
body with a suitable
amount of calories..”

by Lance Chigodo – Great Zimbabwe University

Most of the people believe loading extraordinary weighs in workouts and sweating your guts out in the gym is the real challenge and the right track to obtain “super duper” muscle gains or a cute bikini sexy body for summer but the real deal is way beyond that. It is so unbelievable and yet so true that one can get good results with less training or lose that pot- belly with less training. The secret is fighting the real battle which is right under our nose, in the kitchen.

During my experience in the different gyms I have been in most people train hard but they do not give a damn about nutrition. The time one spends in the working can possibly go down the drain when nutrition is ignored. I do not behold the best gains nor do I look very fabulously ripped but after noting that about 80 % of gains are in the kitchen I changed my attitude towards monitoring my nutrition. As a body builder to gain muscle you need to supply your body with a suit- able amount of calories.

The amount of calories you supply your body with should more than the amount of calories you use when working out. Portion sizes at meal time should be well controlled aiming to get 40-60 grams of protein and 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrates depending with your body size. This is meant to avoid fat storage pro- cesses in the body and dietary fats should be as low as possible despite healthy fats such as olive oil, fatty fish and nuts. The main trick here is to gain clean mass and get rid of dirty useless weight. Clean weight also enhances your performance at the gym or in your sporting discipline.

Image Credit : http://www.pinterest.com

The essentials in obtaining the body of your dream is adding essential protein supplying foods to your grocery, fruit/vegetables to supply you with vitamins to recover the dam- ages done to the body during training and water should be your best friend. “to gain muscle you need to supply your body with a suitable amount of calories..” Diet control may seem too boring or ex- pensive but it happens to be the real battle to consider fighting. Suitable diet can be obtained without using expensive supplements or protein shakes but adding more healthy food to your menu. An increase of egg whites, white meat, low fat milk, beans/ legumes, lean red meat, brown rice, whole wheat bread, nuts, bananas, apples, oranges and sugar free fruit juice could help you gain enormous gains with- out killing yourself with so much hard , exercises and heavy weights. With a protein to fat ratio of 60:1, egg whites are unquestionably one of the purest forms of protein in the world.

This magnificent muscle-building food also possesses an extremely high biological value. White meats such as chicken and turkey breasts should be a staple in every bodybuilder’s diet. Aside from providing an excellent source of high quality protein, they are also extremely low in saturated and transfats. Fish has an added advantage of essential fatty acids such as omega-3 to help support the muscle-building process. If you are serious about building muscle, you cannot ignore the power of beans and legumes. When people typically think of bodybuilding foods, they immediately refer to various lean meats, but what they do not realize is that the bean is a delicious and highly nutritious source of protein and fiber.

Lean ground beef and cuts of red meat are excellent mass building food sources rich in protein, iron, zinc and B vitamins. Red meats have a high calorie per serving ratio, making it an excellent choice for hard gainers looking to pack on some serious size. You also need a good source of slow-burning carbohydrates to fuel and sustain your muscles. Slow-acting carbohydrates found in foods such as oatmeal and sweet potatoes make the best pre-workout snack. When it comes to muscle builders, the first thing to come to mind is meat but water is essential to everyone. 70% of a human body is water and muscle, tissue cells and ligaments all contain water and most importantly, your life force – blood – is made up substantially of water.

 

Of stinking opinions ‘Why you mustn’t marry any Zim woman who is 25 years older’

Vimbaimandiri

I am not yet 25. I will be 25 soon. I don’t foresee marriage on the table by the time I’m 25. I’m not a seer, I just prefer to get married later than 25, if I get married before 25 it will be a good thing. If I get married after 25 or way after 25 it should still be a good thing.

Now, when I read the article about why one must not marry a woman who is 25 years or older I laughed. I laughed because I thought the author was really funny and had a ‘sweetish’ imagination. In my laughter I was offended, offended because I am a woman. Offended because of the way this author chose to depict a woman’s worth. But then, it was just an opinion-like armpits we all have them-yet some stink.

His opinion ignited a heated debate in the NUST library…

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HOW TO ACTIVATE VOICE CALLING ON WHATSAPP

VOICE calling,the most anticipated feature of WhatsApp has been finally launched on Android. The feature is available in the app’s latest version, but you’ll need another user’s help to activate it. First, you’ll first need the latest version of the Android app, which, at the time of writing is 2.11.561. Then you’ll have to ask a user who has the feature to call you. Once you’ve received the call, answer it for at least 2 seconds and you should be activated. Close the app and reopen it. You should now see a new screen with three columns, including one for calls. You can then call any of your WhatsApp contacts over VoIP through the app. You may not be able to reach people running older versions of the app. It’s certainly not the most efficient way of rolling out a feature, but that may be the point. There’s no word yet on whether the company will charge for calls in the future. Note that from that point you have a limit on the number of people you will be able to activate. If you want CampusMoments to call you,inbox us via twitter, facebook or email.We will need your student ID, and email address to verify that you’re NUST student. ARE MOBILE PHONE NETWORKS THREATENED BY WhatsApp CALLING? ECONET SAYS IT IS NOT! TechZim got in touch with Econet to establish their position on the new WhatsApp calls and the company’s response is that they’re not worried at all. That VoIP apps would come and move the cheese is something they saw long back he says and that they are already well on their way to a reengineered core not reliant on voice revenue. “Econet does not see such new technology as a threat” Econet Zimbabwe Corporate Communications Manager, Rangarirai Mberi told us today in an email. He explained: “We in fact see it as an opportunity to offer new possibilities for our customers. As we have said before, there was already a trend away from traditional income streams such as voice, which Econet had long anticipated. We then took a strategic decision to invest in new income streams, such as data services and many other overlay services. This strategy is already bearing fruit.” In the past couple of years Econet Zimbabwe has successfully introduced services like EcoCash (and a slew products atop it) Broadband bundles, Education products and Insurance amoung other products. How much fruit this has bore to date is ofcourse difficult to measure right now, and will only be clear when the company announces its annual results due weeks from now. However, Britain’s mobile operators are preparing a lobbying attack on internet companies such as WhatsApp, owned by Facebook as part of a major review of communications regulations, amid growing international tensions between telecoms companies and high tech start-up businesses . The mobile operators argue that “over-the-top” internet-based calling and messaging apps such as Whatsapp, Viber and Skype should be subject to the same regulations as their own more traditional telecoms services.Furthermore, they allege that they face unfair competition from internet-based communications services that do not face expensive regulatory hurdles yet rely on their network infrastructure to operate.||| Illustrations from http://thenextweb.com/