Happy Movember!!!!!??? Keep your WhatsApp notifications on because we may be cooking a madness this month. If anyone is eager to engage in Movember, we have a top secret mission on Wednesday, the 30th of November that we could use some help with- please message us on Instagram!

If you are interested in designing some super cosy society merch, please reach out also! We also have a new Tiktok (@mhsmaynooth) set-up for future shenanigans ? As always, check out our LinkTree for resources and check in on yourself and your loved ones.

Kick off Headspace Week on Monday (14th Nov) with a paper flower-making workshop with Arts, Crafts and Design Society. You don’t need to bring anything, just your wonderful self to Silken Thomas Yew (upstairs of the MSU Info Centre) from 12:00-14:00 [2PM]. ?

Also on Monday (14th Nov), we skip the small talk again but this time, in collaboration with Maynooth’s Student Union! Come to the MSU Main Venue from 19:00 [7PM] - 21:00 [9PM] for Speed-Friending. ?? We’re making art and laughing with strangers so don’t miss out!

On Tuesday (15th Nov), we’re bringing back Journalling and Poetry with Creative Writing Society. This month’s theme is ‘Turning Points’?? We’ve moved to the Psychology Department’s Teaching Room on the second floor of John Hume to get away from the noise of campus. See you at 16:00 [4PM] - 18:00 [6PM] and like every event, stay for as long as you’d like!

On Thursday (17th Nov), the Student Services and Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Interculturalism Committee (EDIC) are celebrating International Men’s Day with a series of Men’s Mental Health talks. Come to the library foyer anytime from 11:00 [AM] - 13:00 [1PM] to hear from Aware, RADTF, Men’s Aid and Men’s Sheds. ?

On Wednesday, we have a guest speaker Stacey Sayers delivering a talk about spirituality, specifically witchcraft, and mental health! Stacey will discuss crystals, tarot readings, and what the New Moon phase (starting Tuesday) brings ?Come along on the 26th Oct from 3-4pm in Silken Thomas Yew/ Meeting Room 3-4 (Upstairs MSU Info Centre)! We will put up a poster to share tonight ???

I also want to highlight these amazing initiatives and workshops which we are not facilitating but I think you will find fabulous anyways:

-       Chaplaincy and Clubs&Socs office do a food cloud (delicious loaves of bread, fruits, tea, coffee, chocolates and sweets) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 10am at the POP Café, Arts Building. Come get free food and chat with the amazing Marys and Ciaran. 

-       Meditation, Mindfulness, Yoga and Chats at An Tobar (Student Services building) all throughout next week delivered by the phenomenal counselling team. More info is attached. If you need help locating An Tobar, shoot us a message on WhatsApp. 

The Student Levy March at 11am on Tuesday 25th Oct from John Hume to Riverstown. This can be a very empowering experience and in the long run, is pivotal to mental health, so come scream your hearts out! #wheresmylevy

Finally, I just wanted to take a moment to say it’s nearly study week and no problem is ever too big or too small to talk about. Please reach out to whoever you feel most comfortable with, if you ever need to. You have a lot more silent supporters than you realise. You’ve got this!

Come 'Colour & Chill' at 2-4pm in MSU Info Centre with Arts, Crafts, and Design Society. Music and colouring supplies provided. Research shows that music, colouring and chatting with others helps destress. As academic life starts to speed up, we hope you can come wind down with us! 

Our weekly 'Mindfulness Mondays' walk was successful again with the sun coming out just in time. Mindfulness Mondays is 1pm from the Library, in collaboration with Geography and Environmental society. 

Have a fabulous week!

On Wednesday 9th March we are holding a 12 hour event marathon for our own Mental Health Day! All the activities provide a chance to meet other people and take some time to destress during the busy college day. There’s an event and time to suit everyone so be sure to pop along! You can see each event in more detail in the events section of mulife and on our Instagram!

Hey everyone! Hope you're all keeping well. We are looking at planning our first ever retreat for the Easter break in April! We would be going on a trip for Tuesday - Thursday of the Easter break somewhere in Ireland to relax and do some fun activities.

We'd be really grateful if you could fill in this survey to see who is interested - it's not a commitment, just an idea of what people might like to do!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QLSZTP3

Thank you!

Our second week of Movember was underway this week and we were very busy! We kicked the week off with a movie night on Monday where we watched The Holiday to begin getting us in the Christmas spirit (arguably a bit too early for some!!) This was a really cute event and everyone had a great time. 

On Wednesday we hosted our regular Walk and Talk with a Movember theme to make everyone a little more aware of the importance of Men's Mental Health. We love the regular chats at these events are are already looking forward to next week.

On Thursday evening, Shauna, our President, and Mark, one of our PROs, appeared on Mars.fm for a live interview about Movember on Youtube. We had a great chat about why Men's Mental Health matters and how you can support our campaign. You can check it out on http://youtu.be/5Ta4f4oo0jl now!

Don't forget that if you want to support our Movember campaign you can donate through this link https://movember.com/t/movember-maynooth-2021?mc=1 

Have a great week!

This year we are back for Movember, this time with Cancer Soc, to raise funds and awareness for men's health. Globally, 10.8M men are facing a prostate cancer diagnosis, testicular cancer is the most common cancer among young men, and one man dies every minute of every day by suicide. Men's health is in crisis, and Movember funds over 1250 projects globally to help combat this. The link to donate is movember.com/t/movember-maynooth-2021?mc and can be found in our social media bios! You can get involved in lots of ways, not just by growing a mo', but you can mo your own way with a fundraiser of your own too! Let us know and send us on any pictures of any Movember challenges you decide to undertake!

MHS are back for the new college year and we are finally back on campus!

On Monday we held our AGM and elected our new committee. We had a great evening and are so happy with our new committee! We can't wait to get planning events for everyone and have loads of ideas.

Our first event took place on Wednesday on South Campus. World Mental Health Day had taken place on Sunday so we celebrated on Wednesday with a chill and mindful walk around the back of South Campus. It's a great place to escape the hustle and bustle of college and chill out. If anyone is ever looking for it, you can just turn up to the right by the spot where the library cat sleeps and continue up the path which will take you all around the back of Pugin Hall through some lovely forest walks. 

We had a great turnout at both events and we can't wait to see more of you next week for some more great events!

Make sure you send us a message if there's anything you want to ask about or any ideas you have!

See you soon!

It's the last week before Christmas! As we wound down this week we began looking to the future as committee and we have so many exciting plans for the next year. It's been a difficult term, but we've gotten through it, and things only look brighter from here. We wish all our members the best in their exams and assignments and can't wait to see you all in 2021!

We are drawing closer and closer to Christmas! Even though assignment deadlines are looming, we have a few events to keep you chilled out and relaxed.

On Tuesday, we worked with Pride Soc to run a Self-Care workshop. Self-care is so important this time of year and it's something we really want to emphasise as a society, so there will be plenty more where this came from!

MSU also hosted their clubs and Socs Quiz in aid of MS Ireland, their chosen charity for the year. This was one of many charity events MSU hosted during charity week and will be hosting through the year.

On Thursday, Shauna and Kate returned with another workshop, this time focusing on goal setting. We hope everyone enjoyed.

And Roisin and Rebecca kept the festive cheer up again on Friday with another live stream, this time talking about all our Christmas traditions while they got some cards written and wrapping done!

As Movember came to a close, it was another very busy week for MHS! This week was MSU's Mind Yourself Week, and we collaborated with them on a number of events, as well as hosting our usual ones!

On Monday, we held a movie night with Disney Society where we watched Up, a Disney favourite of ours! As Movember was coming to a close, we felt this movie was a great choice as it depicts the issues around both men's mental health and the mental health of older people very well. 

Later than evening, we also held a candle vigil on instagram live to mark the close of Movember. This was a very special ceremony with contributions from Jessie, Roisin and Rebecca. Our Movember campaign raised over 5000 euro and we could not be prouder of everyone who contributed!

This week we also ran a discussion panel on mental health within the black community. We ran a smaller initial panel as a teaser on Monday, which can be found on our Youtube channel, and joined MSU in a live webinar on Wednesday where former MSU president Leon Diop led the discussion. These were really important discussions and highlighted a lot of inconsistencies in Irish society when it comes to equality and mental health.

On Thursday, Shauna and Kate hosted a workshop on journaling, as part of a series of workshops focused on improving mental wellbeing over the winter! This was a very successful workshop with lots of tips and advice.

Finally on Friday, Roisin and Rebecca began getting us in the festive mood with a Christmas live stream on instagram. They discussed some of our favourite and least favourite aspects of Christmas and our plans for next year. We can't wait!

Over the weekend, we also hosted a very important collaboration with Tacthub, who worked with a group of 20 students on potential ideas which could be used both in Maynooth and internationally to improve mental health. We are very excited about the outcome of this work and can't wait to update you on it!

It is the last week of November! And of course, we had to go out with a bang!

On Monday, we joined forces with both Lit and Deb and Creative Writing to bring you a poetry evening centred around men's mental health. With many touching, heart felt and brave contributions, it was a really special event. We were also joined by The Poet Geoff, who made the evening extra special!

On Tuesday, we held our weekly Remo catch up. This week we were joined by Tea Soc, and it was great to see some new faces as well as catching up with our regulars! Thanks to Tea Soc for joining us!

On Thursday we held a very important event for Movember, a discussion panel on Men's Mental Health. David Mulligan, David Lyons, Gavin Fanning, Gary Rock and our special guest, footballer Aaron Connolly. This was a really informative and also entertaining discussion highlighting the importance of men's mental health. Thank you to all our panelists for joining us!

As always this month, proceeds from these events went towards our Movember fund. The fund raised an amazing total of 5428 euro. Thank you all for your donations and support, and we can't wait to run more campaigns like this in the future!

Welcome to week 3 of Movember! This was a big week for us with some of our most exciting events!

We kicked off with our Remo meet up on Tuesday, where we had a lot of fun with some of Remo's features like the whiteboard which we are still discovering. Thank you everyone for coming!

On Wednesday, we ran another virtual workshop which we have been wanting to run for a very long time: an Irish Sign Language workshop. Ran by two of our members Abigail and Leonie, it had a great turnout and was really interesting to learn. Sign Language is such a great skill to have and we really encourage everyone to learn at least a few phrases!

On Thursday we ran one of our most anticipated Movember events, The Clubs and Socs Quiz. The quiz was run through Kahoot with a few bonus rounds at the end and was a big success all round. We hope everyone had fun and maybe learned a few things too!

Proceeds from these events went into our Movember fund!

It's week 2 of Movember and after a very successful first week we couldn't wait to get stuck in to this week's events!

On Monday, Jessie went live on instagram to chat to David Lyons, a former MHS committee member, about men's mental health and how David is raising funds for Movember this year. It was great to hear from David and we are always very grateful for all his support!

On Tuesday we ran two events! First up was Men's Mental Health Tri Gaeilge with Cuallacht na Gael, which was a really interesting event. Super accessible for beginners and an interesting chat for those with a bit more experience with Irish, this was a great event! 

On Tuesday evening, we joining Lit and Deb to debate Mental Health and Social Bubbles in Lockdown. This was a very topical and important debate and both sides had a lot of interesting points and information to offer. We hope everyone who attended learned a lot because we certainly did!

On Wednesday, Karate joined us to deliver a virtual self defence class! This is something we have wanted to do as a society for a long time and we were so happy to finally get the opportunity to do it. Big thanks to Karate for making the event so accessible and fun!

And finally to round off the week, we had another collaboration with Cuallacht as they were doing Gaeilge 24! This time, it was a workshop on Mental Health vocab, which was a great opportunity for anyone new to Irish to pick up a few words and for more fluent speakers to extend their vocab. Thanks to Cuallacht for being so welcoming and showing such an interest in mental health!

As always this month, all proceeds from our events went towards our Movember fund! 

This week we kicked off our Movember campaign! With so many collaborations and events planned, we couldn't wait to start this busy month! All our events were promoted on both our usual instagram page and our dedication @movembermaynooth page.

Our usual meet-up on Remo took place on Tuesday evening and had great attendance! Thank you everyone for coming and joining us in some games of Among Us.

On Wednesday Mars FM interviewed our President Jessie and Movember Ambassador David Mulligan about our plans for the month and the importance of men's mental health. It was a great interview.

On Thursday evening we joined forces with Dance Soc to run a virtual Dance Workshop. This was a great success and we can't wait to work with Dance Soc again, even if we aren't the most skilled dancers ourselves!

On Friday Jessie went live on instagram with Gavin Fanning to do a sponsored beard shaving! All proceeds from this event and all the other events this month went to our Movember fund!

It's finally study week! Our WhatsApp group chats were definitely hopping this week with all our members sharing what they were up to over the week. 

We also began our penpal inititative which had great uptake to help our members make friends in college through exchanging emails. This was a great success!

We also ran a Virtual Escape Room on Halloween night which was super fun! Our team escaped eventually but it was definitely a challenge!

Next week begins Movember and we can't wait to share all our events with you!

Another busy week for MHS! It's Week 4 and we're getting lots planned for the rest of the year.

On Tuesday we had another panel discussion with STAND, this time focusing on climate migrant. With 5 fantastic speakers, it was wonderful event. 

We also got to work setting up WhatsApp Groups and Spotify playlists for our members to enjoy. It was really important for us to incorporate as much remote interaction as possible and these were great ways to get people interacting with us and sharing common interests with each other. 

This was a big week for MHS, as we had our 2020 AGM! Things were of course a little different this year as our AGM took place online, but we still had a great time on Teams and got to meet lots of members. Positions of Treasurer, Secretary, PRO, Events Officer, Information Officer, Baby Elephants co-ordinator and Rep positions were all up for grabs and were filled. We met as a committee and are all so excited to work together this year!

We also collaborated with STAND on a panel discussion on eco-grief on Friday which was a really informative event! 

We are excited to collaborate with Tea Soc for our Social Session on 24th November! More info on our social sessions can be found under our activities, and we are really excited to have our friends at Tea Soc join us on Remo on the 24th at 7pm. See you all there!

Hey everyone!

For the month of November, we at MHS will be participating in Movember, fundraising and raising awareness for Men's Mental Health. We will be running over 22 events and collaborations for this important cause. We will also be completing a 60km run as a society for the cause throughout the month of November.

Keep up with our progress on our special Movember Instagram account, @movembermaynooth and donate through movember.com/m/14313777?mc

If you'd like to be involved in anyway or run a Movember fundraiser/collaboration don't be afraid to reach out!  

Missing all MHS's workshops, information and discussions during quarantine? Don't worry - we'll be bringing all these and more to you through our social media platforms over the next few months! Through a mixture of videos, stories, posts and podcasts, we'll be bringing you all our usual content and more for you to tune into whenever you like. And the best thing - you no longer have to worry about these workshops clashing with your timetable - they will be available to you any time you like!

From quick tutorials to interviews to vlogs, we'll have something for everyone. Keep an eye on our Instagram (@mhsmaynooth) and Facebook (MU Mental Health Society) for all the updates! 

Just because face-to-face teacher has had to end for this semester, doesn't mean our weekly meet-ups have to! Instead, we'll be taking our weekly Creative Coffee online through Zoom!

Each Wednesday afternoon from 1 - 2pm, we will be running Creative Coffee through a Zoom call, so you can chill out and get creative from the comfort and safety of your own home for the rest of the semester. Check out our social media or message/email us for the link, as it will be changing every week. 

We will be providing creative prompts and a space to get creative, have a break from online lectures and assignments and see some of your college friends! All you need to do is get your phone or laptop, pencils and some paper and a cup of tea or coffee. You can download Zoom free from the App Store or Google Play or log in online for free. 

This is a challenging time for everyone and it is so important to keep looking after your mental health! We will be available as always and will be trying our best to continue to provide you with our usual activities and information during these strange times. Keep following our social media to stay up to date with us and we hope to see you at some of our online events!

Unfortunately, to ensure the health and safety of all our members, MHS have had to make the difficult decision to postpone our Retreat to Ovoca that was due to take place over the Easter break. We will, however, be working to make this retreat happen in the future and will be working really hard over the summer to make sure this retreat is even better than our original plans! Due to the nature of our situation, it is impossible for us to give a possible date for the postponed retreat, but we will be sure to let you all know as soon as we do!

Thank you so much the enthusiasm and excitement you showed about the retreat - it really helps us to stay motivated in planning it despite the disappointing circumstances! We hope that you and all your loved ones are safe and well during this time and that you are all taking the time to care for yourself and your mental health. We will be running events online for the remainder of the semester so stay tuned!

Maynooth University Mental Health Society have proudly helped to launch a new initiative aimed at increasing Mental Health resilience among students. The Young Mentality Movement branding may be taken up by students on any campus to run events or campaigns which promote creative arts and community as tools to empower students in caring for their own mental health.

The YMM Festival included workshops on comedy, poetry, performance, campaign design, self-care, LGBT+ Mental Health, Circus Skills; as well as live performances in the evening, free massages, and free yoga classes with live music. This was probably the most ambitious event of its kind ever held on an Irish University campus but we hope that it is just the beginning in terms of empowering student mental health and putting this issue on the map

On the 3rd of September we took part in a panel discussion at the launch of a groundbreaking report on Student Mental Health by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) in Trinity College Dublin. I was asked to give a student response to be included in the report which was as follows

"This research lays out clearly much of what we knew anecdotally. Namely that students are an at-risk group and are relying consistently upon the on-campus counselling service. Unfortunately, it is also clear that there is an inconsistency in the quality of assistance available. What we can see is that on-campus counselling services have the potential to make a huge difference nationally to the success of a group which suffers from staggeringly high rates of anxiety. The qualitative reports ring true to me as to what has been working and what is needed. Waiting lists are having a negative impact but on the positive we can see how effective a diverse team can be which includes an occupational therapist and an option for CBT. Crucially, students have highlighted the need for psychiatrists on staff so more serious concerns can be handled within the service we are most likely to use. I’m personally feeling very positive about this report and how it reflects our experiences."

You can read more about the report and future steps in supporting Student Mental Health here: https://www.stand.ie/student-mental-health-report/

We hope you will campaign with us for adequate services and to reduce stigma!

Today we attended the launch of the USI's amazing new Mental Health campaign in UCC which calls on students to do little things to support their mental health and to check in with themselves on how they're doing. Expect loads of goodies and super useful materials to go along with this! An app called +Connections was released alongside. This has a map of services for each campus, useful advice, and a student lead mental health blog! We seriously encourage all students to keep this app on their phones. Also, if you're interested in featuring on the blog we'd love to hear from you mhs@msu.ie

What. A. Weekend.

We here at MHS have just successfully hosted the very first Mental Health Conference for 3rd Level Students in Ireland! We had a huge range of wonderful speakers with us and I would like to thank all of them for taking time out to attend; Aoife Ní Shúilleabháin (Irish Second Level Students Union), Cameron Keighron (TENI), Treasa Hanniffy (Please Talk), Cian Power and Síona Cahill (USI), Pauline Cahillane (Pieta Hosue), Michael Noble (Mental Health Ireland), Naoise Kavanagh (Reach Out), and Nightline. We also had some fabulous Maynoothians speaking; Richard Roche (Psychology Professor), Karen Kane (MSU VP Welfare and Equality), Chris Gueret (Pastoral Care Co-ordinator) and Fran Russel (Past Chairperson of MHS).

On behalf of the MHS committee I would like to extend a huge thank you to absolutely everyone involved. Whether you came, organised, spoke, or shared the event online, we are eternally grateful because it was a massive success.

A shout out to Please Talk UCD and the GMIT Mental Health Society who came to show support as well as to our very own ever wonderful Brian who took fab photos all weekend for us that will be up on out Facebook page ASAP. 

Thank you thank you thank you to absolutely everyone. You guys are the reason we do this and the reason we are able to continue doing this. We loved having you and hope you got something out of the experience.

All I can say now is, roll on next year!