Hello everyone! Welcome back, we hope you had a great break. We would like to inform you that our weekly walk and study group will resume from Monday the 13th. 

This is the weekly Mindfulness Mondays walk from 1-2pm every Monday beginning outside the Library, and the Group Study Sesh from 2-4pm every Wednesday in the Waddington Tutorial room (a.k.a. the geography tutorial room in Rhetoric House. 

We have many more events in the works for this semester and we cant wait to share them with you. 

Feel free to follow and message us on twitter, Instagram or tiktok, @mugeogsoc

Lots of Lava, 

MU GeogSoc 

Congratulations Sophie for winning our Fairs Day Competition!!! We hope you enjoy your new earbuds!

Thanks again for First Derivative for sponsoring this prize, and to everyone who visited our stall on fairs day! 

We are also delighted to say that we have officially broken our all time membership record!!! Thank you to all our members, we can’t wait to see what semester two holds!

Welcome back everyone - Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday period and did well in their exams!

Aikido classes will be running again in the PE Hall every Tuesday and Thursday from 6pm till 8:00pm.

All our welcome :))

We've been hopping from room to room last semester but this is the end of the confusion, we are back in CB8 PERMANANTLY, if you're looking for our weekly meeting at 7pm on a Thursday it will always be in CB8 from now on. 

It’s time for our biggest event of the year; Relay for Life! We are very fortunate to bring this event back as it’s the first one back after the pandemic! We are excited to raise money in aid of the Irish Cancer Society! The event takes place in the Main Sports Hall in the Phoenix from 4pm on February 7th till 4pm on February 8th. This event is held to represent the ongoing fight in which cancer patients and their families face constantly. We have a large array of societies and clubs from Maynooth University showcasing different activities in separate hours ranging from dancing and arts and crafts to learning about different cultures and playing sports, so there’s something for everyone! Looking forward to seeing and connecting with everyone for this lovely cause!

Head over to our Instagram (@mucancersoc) and sign up using the link in our LinkTree or use the link below! Click here for the Signup Link for Relay for Life!

- Elle (Events Officer)

Come along to room 0.27 in the TSI Building on Wednesday February 1st to talk to our committee! This will be your chance to ask any questions you may have about joining the society or to simply get to know our committee! We hope to see you all there!

Willkommen zurück to all our wonderful members! 

All of us here at MU Deutsch hope all of our wonderful members had a lovely Christmas and New Year, and enjoyed the break. We will be back with our events this Thursday (February 2nd) at 7pm, however we have changed venue, this semester all of our events will be in JHL7 (the last lecture hall on the left, upstairs in the John Hume Building)! Please keep an eye on your emails for more details on our weekly events! We can't wait to see everyone back again! 

Tschüss und liebe Grüße!!

To all our wonderful members! 

The MU Deutsch Committee would like to say a big Frohe Weihnachten to all of our wonderful members! We hope everyone has an amazing Christmas and New Year! Thank you all for your support over the last semester, we hope you had as much fun in the society as we did and we cannot wait to share our upcoming plans for the society with you next semester! But until then we hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and New Year and that you enjoy the break from college! 

Best of luck as well with exams and assignments, we know you will all do amazingly!

Liebe Grüße,

The MU Deutsch Committee <3

Thank you to all our lovely members who came on our trip to Galway! We hope you all had as much fun as we did!

Join us for our Christmas Party in CB8 in the Callan Building - Thursday December 15th at 7pm! 

We will have a Christmas Jumper Competition as well as a raffle - €3 for one line or €5 for 3 lines - all proceeds going to the SU Charity of the Year which is Threashold. 

We will also be playing some Christmas themed games including Christmas Bingo and Kahoot! Then we will go onto the SU! 

We hope to see everyone there! 

The grading for all of our Judo members is happening tonight at 6pm in the Phenix PE Hall, where we would regularly have training. Hope everyone can make it. Fee is 10 Euro.

Hey Everyone! 

The Afro-Soc committee just want to use this opportunity to thank everyone for all the support we've received this semester! The turnout for each event this semester has been crazy! Here are some great milestones from semester 1:

1. We had the maximum possible turn out for every event! Every seat was filled! The Afro Soc members came through every single time! 

2. We have our very own careers officer! This makes us the first African society in Ireland to implement a careers officer into the committee. You guys all kept our careers officer busy this semester! 

3. We have partnered 23 black-Irish businesses! They've kindly decided to offer our Afro - Soc members free and discounted products and services! 

4. Our NEW TikTok account reached over 600 followers, 18.2k Likes and just under 80,000 views!! (Click here to view our TikTok)

5. Our Afro - Soc dance team won Maynooth's best dance crew! (Featured image is our dance crew in their amazing fits!)

We have so much planned for next semester so keep your eyes peeled. Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support that was shown this semester. Next semester will be BIGGER AND BETTER!

We are so excited to be expanding our fundraising to Cancer Societies across Ireland as well as our main fundraiser, The Irish Cancer Society. We in fact raised money for Breakthrough Cancer Research who are a research based facility in Cork. Breakthrough Cancer Research helps to fund research in the hopes to create new treatments for all cancers as well as benefiting those diagnosed with terminal illnesses to help them improve their quality of life. 

In October, we were raising money for Breakthrough Cancer Research. The members of the society were told about this and were all gathered in Maynooth town and were all provided with bibs. We proceeded to do a bucket collection from 10am-2pm as this was an amazing opportunity to engage with the community and bring awareness to the topics. In total, we raised a whopping €670 which were are so ecstatic about as we are so happy to raise money and awareness for any and all Cancer Societies across Ireland! We plan on continuing with our fundraising for more cancer societies next semester! Stay tuned for more.

Luckily, this semester we have been so fortunate to have the lovely tea society to hold a series of collabs with this semester. We held tea collabs on October 18th, November 17th & December 6th. After a long busy week, we all look forward to a relaxing cup of tea alongside with snacks and chats with friends. It’s always a Tea-rific time collaborating with them as it’s never a dull time and a perfect time to de-stress. In October, we brought Irish Cancer Society pins to each event helping us raise 165 euro for the Irish Cancer Society! We cannot wait to collaborate with them next semester too and make sure to join the Tea Society for a friendly and warm cuppa in a relaxing and friendly atmosphere!

Hi everyone!

Reminder that this Tuesday (13th December) will be out last meet-up before Christmas!

We would like to encourage all members to wear Christmas Jumpers or their most festive outfits! 

Friday, 9 December we have a clothing drive from 9am to 3pm at the MSU venue. This event is with ESN (Erasmus Student Network) for anyone who would like to donate unwanted/ unused or used clothes. 

The clothes SVP gets will be given out in Dublin during our Street Outreach in Dublin. We are also accepting hats, gloves and scarves. 

Well done to the prize winners of our Let’s Get Quizzical Event!!

First Place: Elife

Second Place: Tim

Third Place: Julia

Runner Up: Anastasia 

Spot Prize: Rufus (not pictured)

Maynooth University last night clinched their first ever senior division one title against UCD with a last minute point from Darragh Warnock. A curling pointed effort in the 64th minute brought the Ryan cup home to Maynooth on a perfect November night for football in DCU. Congratulations to team and management on a great achievement.

Both varsity teams are undefeated going into the Christmas break! The girls are 2-0 picking up two convincing wins against RCSI and ATU Donegal. The lads made it 3-0 after beating ATU Sligo on Tuesday. Both teams are ready for the second semester and are hoping to keep the winning streak alive!

Thanks so much to everyone who came along to our Street Outreach Training on Monday 21st of November with our SVP College Support Officer Niamh! 

Those who attended are now fully trained in working with children and vulnerable adults and can join the team in heading to Dublin City centre and handing out supplies and conversation to people who need them. 

Keep an eye out on our Instagram and mulife for more volunteering opportunities and ways to get involved!!

Hi Everyone! We've finally been able to restart and to have shows recorded in the studio! That means we're officially looking for any shows or podcasts that would like to feature on MARS FM and record via our studio. Please send us an email with the details of your show and I'll reply to you with an available time slot to meet and show you around the studio. I look forward to working with you all this year!

Join us in the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin as we celebrate our One-Acts Festival 2022! With performances on Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th, be sure not to miss out on our three fabulous one-act plays. This year's theme is "Connections", and our actors, writers and directors have been working hard for the last few weeks to bring this show to the stage. Student tickets are €5 per person. See you all there xx

Well, everyone, it is approaching the end of term and we would want to celebrate this with you tramps!!! What a better way to do so than ice skating and kris kindle!! €10 limit all you have to do is press the link. We will be going ice skating in Blanchardstown on 7th December and going to Wetherspoons afterward and exhange gifts!  It is make your own way and buy your tickets for ice skating at 7:20 pm!! We will be meeting inside the ice rink at 7 pm as they want us there early. Join the trampy Christmas kris kindle at this link Secret Santa 

We had a collab with ESN on the 17th of November, last Thursday. There was a céilí in the small sports hall in Phoenix and the Trad society also joined us and played a few tunes for us to dance to. It was a very successful night of dancing!!

Hey all,

Reminder that our third weekly meeting takes place tomorrow (Tuesday 22nd Nov) at 6pm in Callan 9 (North Campus across from the SU, upstairs)!

We got on great last week with our workshop on beatmatching and EQ blending, with all our beginners flying through the lesson and proving that anyone can mix!

This week, we'll be looking at using loops and understanding song structures and phrasing - this is very important knowledge for any DJ so make sure you get down to it.

If you've missed the meetings so far don't worry - we can facilitate complete beginners as long as you communicate and let us know what you've missed or want to do some extra work on! We are introducing a third set of decks this week so one will be completely dedicated to any previous lessons or workshops you might want to catch up on and go over. 

As ever, bring your USB along if you have one and if you have any other questions about DJing make sure and ask us here or in person so we can help you out! 

Reminder that our meetings are strictly alcohol free - we've stuck to this so far and still managed to have fun (I think).

All are welcome, not just members so make sure you bring any friends down that are interested.

Keep an eye on your emails and WhatsApp in the event of any changes, and see you tomorrow!

Dear Kings & Queens,  

Welcome back for yet another week, hope your weekends were filled with productivity and rest. Fortunately, this week we have another event for you guys to look forward to.  

When you think of Maynooth students many words come to mind but the most important is Switch and with that the infamous Switch tournament is back! 

It is 5-euro entry, with set rules and a Big Cash Prize €?€?€?. So, make sure to practice and perfect your game. 

There will be No Spectators at this event so come ready to drop 5 and pick up 2 ?  

Date: Thursday 24th November 

Time: Tournament start 6:30pm SHARP (doors open at 6pm) 

Location: TSI 210 

Make sure to follow us on all our socials and feel free to drop any questions and queries you may have. 

Instagram: @muafrosoc 

TikTok: @muafrosoc1 

Twitter: @maynoothAcs 

Snapchat: @acs_mu 

Enjoy your week and we can't wait to see your best game on Thursday - Africa Society 

This year's Debutantes Festival has arrived! Join us in the Aula Maxima and support all our lovely newcomers as they make their stage debut with our society. The show includes 7 original short plays written and directed by MU Drama members. The performances are Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24th of November. Doors open at 7pm and tickets are €5 per person (available at the door - cash or card).

On Wednesday, 16th of November, the Law. Society held a bake sale in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland. This is the second charity that we have fundraiser for as part of our Fifteen Year Celebrations. The charity was chosen as it is one many of us hold close to our hearts. They provide dementia specific supports across the country and advocate for the rights of those living with dementia, their families and their carers. 

In 2021 the charity received €3.4 million in fundraising monies and 90.6% of all of the charity’s income is invested into direct care provisions, such as respite care, day care and advisory services. Remaining funds are invested into governance and research.

We are so proud to have fundraiser for such an amazing charity and we are delighted with the generosity of Maynooth staff and students for helping us raise funds for the Alzheimer’s Society. 

Hey all,

Reminder that our second weekly meeting takes place tomorrow at 6pm in Callan 9 (North Campus across from the SU, upstairs)!

Last week's meeting was a solid start and we've got some changes to our approach that we think will make it even more enjoyable for everyone. This week we'll be covering the basics of the decks again with the aim of getting us all doing some simple beatmatching and EQ mixing.

As ever, bring your USB along if you have one and if you have any other questions about DJing make sure and ask us here or in person so we can help you out! 

All are welcome, not just non-members so make sure you bring any friends down that are interested.

Reminder again that our meetings are strictly alcohol free - please don't bring any with you but feel free to join the committee in the SU bar afterwards to get to know us even better!

Please get in touch via email if you have not yet joined our WhatsApp group so you can be kept up to date.

Hi everyone!

I hope you’re all doing great! Just an update on our events this week:

Our Gaymes night is taking place as usual in JHT2 on Tuesday, from 6.30 to 9pm. We’ll be taking a break from Jackbox for the week to play UNO and Cards Against Humanity together. We’ll have a few different groups set up in the room with different games ?

Our coffee morning as usual will take place in the Info Centre in the SU from 10-12. However, during our coffee morning this week we will be collaborating with Arts and Crafts soc to have a poster making session for the Trans and Intersex protest that takes place on this Saturday 19th November. (Just a note about the protest itself- our Trans and Nonbinary officer Lee wants to arrange a meeting point for those going on Saturday in case anyone feels cautious about attending alone. This will probably be arranged in the WhatsApp group closer to the date, so keep an eye on that if you’re interested!)

On Thursday we will be continuing with our Queer Book Club. We’re in SE009 this week, instead of TSI. We had a ready great turnout last week and we hope to see as many there this week! For anyone who is unaware, we are reading Loveless by Alice Oseman.

Also, a note on something important:

The Open Closet, which is a pop-up charity shop organised by MSU and Pride Society is being held on the 23rd and 24th of November. This isn’t until next week, but we are taking donations up until Tuesday next week, so if you have some clothes that you don’t wear and think could have a better home with some one else, drop it in to us at the Info Centre!

We’ve also finally set up our Discord server! Link is attached below. I’ll be hoping to start up the weekly Gaybates on there sometime this week, so keep an eye on that!

That’s all for this week, hope to see you around!

Our final mixed audition will be held on Tuesday, the 15th of November from 7-8 in the small sports hall in Phoenix. This is your last chance to be on an intervarsity team this year! The style is Ballet and point shoes are welcome:)

Best of luck to everyone auditioning xxx

It's official! We have been accepted as a recognized Maynooth University Society. 

Stay tuned for our upcoming events and activities!

Don't forget to register and to spread the word! :)

Hi everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well! I hope everyone’s Halloween was fab and you had a good rest over reading week. As we’re back on campus this week our events will be resuming, so just a quick note about those:

GAYMES and Coffee Morning

Today (Tuesday), we will be continuing on with our collab with Games Soc on “Gaymes Night.” There will be a slight change to the times from now on: we will be starting at 6:30pm instead of 6pm and will finish up around 9pm. It will take place in JHT2, same as last time, however there was some confusion about where exactly that is in John Hume (its actually not signposted at all which is really weird but anyway.) When you go up the main stairs in JH and get to the top, follow the hallway around the right, go past the entrance to JH1 and around the corner, and it’s the first door on the left. Much like last week, there is no pressure to stay with us all evening, you can pop in and out of the other Games Soc rooms ?

On Wednesday, as per, we’ll be having our coffee morning in the info center in the SU from 10am to 12pm. Reminder again for anyone who has a reusable coffee cup to bring it if you can.

Pride Book Club

For some exciting news, we’re happy to announce the launch of our book club this Thursday! Over reading week, you all voted on Instagram to have your say in what book you wanted to read and discuss with us. The winning book was Loveless by Alice Oseman. Loveless has great asexual and aromantic rep, so be sure to come along! The way we’re running this book club is we will get together and read, rather than expecting you to read by yourself like other book clubs. Loveless is available in the Maynooth University bookshop in John Hume, who are kindly giving members a discount when buying. We are yet to get confirmation on a venue for this event, but I will follow up in another email whenever I get news on that. 

Pink Training

In other news, we also have an announcement about “Pink Training”. “Pink Training” is Europe’s largest LGBT+ Conference, which sees over 300 delegates attend a weekend of residential training. With talks, workshops and plenary sessions, Pink Training is about all things LGBT+, as well as activism, mental health, campaigning, leadership, and the diversity of our community. 

“Pink Training” takes place in NUIG on the weekend of the 18th to the 20th of November, and costs 100 euro to attend. This covers your accommodation in Galway, your meals and the workshops and entertainment taking place for the weekend. This is a wonderful event for anyone interested in learning more about these topics. We have an expression of interest form, so let us know if you’d like to attend: https://forms.gle/YCAZpC4m5dBtneAU8

That’s all for this week, I hope to see you around at our events this week. Best of luck for everyone with assignments due this week and next! (Apologies on the delay for the email everyone.)

Hi everyone! 

I hope you're all enjoying the time off from college this week, and everyone has a good Halloween tonight (or Samhain if you celebrate!) Brief note to stay safe tonight, I know we're old enough, but accidents still happen so please be responsible tonight if you're celebrating- that goes for alcohol, drugs, fireworks, anything that could be a hazard tonight. 

Thanks

Quick note to say thank you for everyone who supported our Halloween event "Gay Christmas". With your help we've raised over 300 euro to go towards Purple Training, so a big thank you is owed. 

Book Club

Obviously as we're on reading week, we don't have any events planned, but I'm coming to you with an update on the book club:

One of Pride Soc's initiatives this year is to establish a queer book club to offer members a chance to engage with queer literature, both fiction and non-fiction in an inclusive and accessible way. You're not an avid reader? You have too much reading to do for college and don't feel like you can commit to reading another book? Well, this book club is designed to be for you. Instead of expecting you to read beforehand, we plan on convening once a week and reading together so that nobody feels left out. We're planning to host our first meeting on Thursday November 10th in conjunction with the Literary and Debating Society and to meet every Thursday thereafter. However, in advance of our launch we need to decide on the first book! We've put together a short list of 8 books which we are asking you our pride soc members to vote on.

The list is as follows:

Queer Sex - Juno Roche; In this frank, funny and poignant book, transgender activist Juno Roche discusses sex, desire and dating with leading figures from the trans and non-binary community. Calling out prejudices and inspiring readers to explore their own concepts of intimacy and sexuality, the first-hand accounts celebrate the wonder and potential of trans bodies and push at the boundaries of how society views gender, sexuality and relationships. Empowering and necessary, this collection shows all trans people deserve to feel brave, beautiful and sexy.

Bad Gays - Huw Lemy & Ben Miller; Part revisionist history, part historical biography and based on the hugely popular podcast series, Bad Gays subverts the notion of gay icons and queer heroes and asks what we can learn about LGBTQ history, sexuality and identity through its villains and baddies. From the Emperor Hadrian to notorious gangster Ronnie Kray, the authors excavate the buried history of queer lives. This includes fascist thugs, famous artists, austere puritans and debauched bon viveurs, imperialists, G-men and architects.

The Gender Games - Juno Dawson; Featuring insights from well-known gender, feminist and trans activists including Rebecca Root, Laura Bates, Gemma Cairney, Anthony Anaxagorou, Hannah Witton, Alaska Thunderfuck and many more, The Gender Games is a frank, witty and powerful manifesto for a world in which everyone can truly be themselves.

Gender: A Graphic Guide - Meg-John Barker; The book looks at how gender has been ‘done’ differently – from patriarchal societies to trans communities – and how it has been viewed differently – from biological arguments for sex difference to cultural arguments about received gender norms. It dives into complex and shifting ideas about masculinity and femininity, look at non-binary, trans and fluid genders, and examines the intersection of experiences of gender with people’s race, sexuality, class, disability and more.

Black Flamingo- Dean Atta; A boy comes to terms with his identity as a mixed-race gay teen - then at university he finds his wings as a drag artist, The Black Flamingo. A bold story about the power of embracing your uniqueness. Sometimes, we need to take charge, to stand up wearing pink feathers - to show ourselves to the world in bold colour.

Loveless - Alice Oseman; This wise, warm and witty story of identity and self-acceptance sees Alice Oseman on towering form as Georgia and her friends discover that true love isn’t limited to romance.

Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel - Julian K. Jarboe; In this debut collection of body-horror fairy tales and mid-apocalyptic Catholic cyberpunk, memory and myth, loss and age, these are the tools of storyteller Jarboe, a talent in the field of queer fabulism. Bodily autonomy and transformation, the importance of negative emotions, unhealthy relationships, and bad situations amidst the staggering and urgent question of how build and nurture meaning, love, and safety in a larger world/society that might not be "fixable."

Finna - Nino cipri; Nino Cipri's Finna is a rambunctious, touching story that blends all the horrors the multiverse has to offer with the everyday awfulness of low-wage work. It explores queer relationships and queer feelings, capitalism and accountability, labor and love, all with a bouncing sense of humor and a commitment to the strange.

Voting will be taking place over the next 3 days on our Instagram story so head on over there to have your say. The first 4 are non-fiction, and the latter 4 are fiction. Head on over to instagram (link below) if you're interested in reading any of these! Enjoy the rest of your week, and we'll see you all back next week!

Dear Kings & Queens,  

Welcome Back! Hope everyone had a wonderful and productive reading week ? We are kicking off the first week back with another amazing event.  

Back Your Chat Vol.2  

Come ready to discuss current topics, trends and issues. Whether it's an unpopular opinion or something that may get you cancelled for, don’t be afraid to Back Your Chat!!!  

This is a Free event for everyone so make sure to tell a friend to tell a friend ?  

If you are a Maynooth student, please Register Online on MU Life to be an Africa Society Member. Students that have registered online are and will be prioritised at future events. 

Date: Thursday 10th November  

Time: 6:30pm to 8pm (Doors open at 6pm) 

Location: CB9

We also want to apologies to everyone who unfortunately could not enter our last event due to room size and overcrowding. We aim to learn from our mistakes and book bigger and better spaces for future events.  

 Also make sure to follow us on all our socials and feel free to drop any questions and queries you may have. 

Instagram: @muafrosoc 

TikTok: @muafrosoc1 

Twitter: @maynoothAcs 

Snapchat: @acs_mu 

We can't wait to see you all on Thursday - Africa Society 

On Thursday, 10th of November, the Law Society will be hosting a movie night in collaboration with FilmSoc! This is our first non-law collaboration of the year and we are greatly looking forward to welcoming everyone along for the evening. 

Before the movie begins we will be informing students about our chosen charity of the evening, SAOIRSE. SAOIRSE is a non-profit charity that iams to protect women and children escaping from domestic violence in Ireland. We hope that through small donations from attendees that we can donate supermarket voucheers to the charity to allow the women using SAOIRSE's services to regain even the smallest piece of independence.