With the madness of Freshers’ Week still fresh in students’ minds, it’s a good time to reflect on the ups and downs of the week. Natalie Garces-Bovett was a Welcome Team volunteer and has shared two extracts about her experience of being one of the heroes dressed in pink…
Image credit: Nik Rahmel
Day 1 – Monday. Outside Timepiece. 3:00am
First proper day of freshers’ week and…tonight was full of sick.
You get given a pair of see-through plastic gloves during welcome team training, but you kind of hope you’ll never need them but I think you could describe tonight as “messy”.
It started quietly enough, but the night advanced rapidly as one of the many sports clubs descended upon us for one of the first socials of term, and before we knew it there were plenty of happy folk keeping us company. Somewhat predictably, some of those happy people definitely overstepped their limits.
Having palmed off a vomit-tinged student to a waiting taxi, I was asked, for the gazillionth time “why are you doing this?”
It’s not all that obvious, but the people in pink are actually volunteers, and not paid employees – but despite the bin bags, tissues and projectile vomit, it was a fun night. You get to hang out with new people, enjoy the buzz and give back to a system which supported us so well through our own freshers’ weeks. So yeah, whilst it was a “sick night” it was also a sick night!
Day 2 – Tuesday, Human signposting outside the Forum, 11:00 am
As crowds congregate in the forum and piazza, the pink-shirts are out in force!
Despite the rain, working for Welcome Team during the day is a lot easier than working during the night, partly due to the milder temperature but also because it can be weirdly rewarding to deal with sober requests.
There is a palpable satisfaction to be had from being helpful, which in its basest form is fairly selfish, but it’s nice to be able to answer the odd query about the location of Santander, the freshers’ fair or the location of the mysterious room in Amory. But on the flip side…there is also the inevitable guilt when you accidently send someone in the wrong direction to get to Washington Singer. (The pink-shirt in question would like to apologise profusely)
I also discovered one of the more unexpected side effects of wearing a pink t-shirt today – a severe lack of shame. I found myself perfectly happy to boogie along to Xpression’s outside broadcast, displaying my cheesiest dance moves to all, and making a right fool of myself. But this lack of shame also means that its so much easier to go and chat to people you’ve never met simply because you’re on ‘team’ which is a really nice feeling.
Day 3 – Wednesday, Arena queue 2:30 am
A distant rumble… a halloo in the wind…
And what seemed like the entirety of Exeter University AFC rounded the corner, chanting and leading a charge on the entrance to Arena. It looked terrifying until they all halted and formed an orderly queue, holding out their wristbands out for inspection.
Another day, another night shift. The late nights, at this point, are starting to get to me a little since no matter how much you lie in, your body is convinced you’re missing a lot of sleep. Still, tonight was a good one – it wasn’t nearly as cold as the weekend, and there is something remarkably refreshing about being hopped up on energy drinks whilst walking home drunk students. It’s very interesting to see people’s reactions to being walked home. The second and third years can get very snappish and defensive but the overriding response from everyone is apologetic – to which I say – it’s what we’re here for. We’re not just for first years, but to help make sure everyone has a good night and gets home safe.
That being said, it’s difficult not to have a bit of fun with a ‘walk-home.’ After having the same conversation for the third time in a row, we started rocking a mysterious variety of accents… If you’re from Lafrowda and you were walked home by an Australian… I’m really sorry.
Day 4 – Outside Mosaic, 12 midnight
The Lemmy was wild tonight apparently, but since we had much less of a crush in town, I got sent home early – which was fantastic since I was flagging pretty badly. But whilst the night was still young, I got to know the bouncers a little bit and amused the locals when a few of us burst into spontaneous Chicago renditions, with increasingly cracked voices. Late night madness…
Day 5 – Dinner, 7:00 pm
At this point, Freshers’ week is pretty much over for me. For some of us there is the final night shift to get through but I’m pretty glad I’ve got the night off – I’m getting crotchety!!
I had a peek round the door of the “tired team zone” earlier and saw exactly how crowded it was, so I don’t imagine I’m the only one. There were two tired team zones during the week – one in Belmont Church for the nights out (run by church volunteers and offering noodles, soup and tasty tasty cupcakes!) and the other on the top floor of Devonshire House and packed out with donated pink squishy things to lie on – most notably a humongous giant pig called Wilfred. But for all the comfort, I’m definitely looking forward to sleeping more – but that can wait ‘til Sunday…
One of the biggest perks to Welcome Team is the free entry to the Lemmy on Saturday night for the ‘pink party’ and competition between the Halls’ Teams for the best costumes is fierce. The Holland Hall and Mardon Welcome Teams have spent most of the week in serious contemplation of fancy dress themes; I think we’ll be going in nothing at this rate, but at least none of our ideas are as bad as the Sabbs’ ones! Last year the Sabbatical Officers came along to the party as S-Abba, so the heat was on to try and replicate their beautiful pun success. However, since the best we could all think of was “S-CRabbs” (amid gales of laughter) I doubt they will be quite so magnificent this year.
After dinner there is just time for some brief contemplation on the week just passed, and a great deal of quietly sentimental guff, which made us all miss each other already. But it was just nice to finish on a high – fish and chips at Holland Hall dining room, looking out over the sunset, with some excellent company. The end of a highly satisfying week.
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