Uncle's and Aunties 2007

[Sana :)]

Salaam,

A little while back most of the sisters turned up to an online meeting where we spent several hours discussing upcoming events including this one, and we made some decisions as to how we would like it done for the sisters. I understand that not many sisters were able to come to the meeting yesterday, but thankfully most of the girls gave their views at the online meeting, and those views should be taken into account and not ignored. If the girls who attended that meeting can please let us know here what you think of this new plan, as it seems to have replaced our old one.

Personally, I think it could be good, but equally i think having a mixed event will be a 'great' way for the incoming freshers to 'check out' their fellow muslims be it of the same or opposite sex. I would prefer personally to have a more informal gathering where we could actually 'let our hair loose' (no pun intended ) -- and by that i mean where we can be ourselves and talk freely without being conscious that there are boys with cooties nearby.

those are just my thoughts anyways. Solution? What if we booked two rooms, for example old refec for the bros and the haldane room for the girls, and for the 'talk' about how the coming months will shape their lives, we can join the bros, and then go back to our own room to chill out and have fun. Alternatively we can do the talk ourselves if you give us an outline of what needs to be said. it will definately be a more personal session then, where people can feel free to ask questions etc

Let me know what everyone thinks, especially the girls. if most are in favour of the new plan than that is fine too. My only concern is that your opinions should count

Jzk ws

[Ayeshah]

Sana - isnt the new plan very similar 2 ours? Weren't we thinking of pizza in prayer hut or sumink?

[RUMS ISoc]

Posted by Sana::

I can also do Team leader for Uncle's and Aunties, unless somebody else wants to do it.

[RUMS ISoc]

Posted from Meeting minutes:

Uncles and Aunties Night

1. On Sunday the 23rd of September at 6.30pm

2. We need to have as many brothers and sisters turning up this year -- very few turned up last year and we have reports from muslim freshers looking out for us but not finding anyone and thus following the crowd on to huntley etc..

3. We must have the RUMS ISoc T-shirts made by this time

4. Iftar should be aroudn 7pm at this time, so we NEED to book a LARGE Room for Iftar for the freshers

5. We need to make an advert / flyer that we can provide the freshers with in the Quad that gives them information on where the meeting point will be e.g. on the portico and where the iftar will be provided e.g. in the garden room

6. We will have a short talk given to the freshers before/after iftar about the importance of the next two weeks in determining the path they walk along the rest of their lives and what type of a person they become..we can also inform them about Charity week and show them the CW videos just to get them a bit psyched..

7. We want this iftar to also be a sort of reunion iftar for all the brothers and sisters already at RUMS who haven't seen each other due to the long summer holidays etc..this will also show the freshers of the strong community and brother/sisterhood present inshAllah...

8. With regards to funding We need to contact the UCLU ISoc and ask them for funding iA as this year they will only be providing for 2 weeks iftar, maybe we could get some money from them for this iftar..in any case - for iftar we were planning -- drinks, snacks etc from sainsburys and iftar food from maybe goodge street masjid or regents park mosque etc...I don't expect over 50 people to attend, so iA it shouldn't be too expensive a deal..
I mean if it is possible for every 'mum or dad' to go buy their 'son or daughter' a pint of beer at huntleys, then surely it is just as possible for every 'uncle or auntie' to buy their 'nephew or neice' a box of food for iftar! Plus we'll get the reward for feeding them their iftari.

9. After the short talk and after iftar, we plan to take the freshers on a mini tour of ucl = showing them all the areas they will need to know about e.g. the Wudu areas, the Prayer Hut, The prayer corridor, the Jummuah prayer room (i.e. the Bloomsbury conference room), Halal food places etc etc etc..

10. Another Idea was to get down the name and numbers of the freshers we meet at uncles and aunties and allocate them to an older year, so if they need any help through out the year they can contact their respective 'relative'...sort of like a buddy scheme

11. We need someone to contact the people in charge of Mums and Dads at RUMS and ask them to change the RUMS ISoc paragraph that is included in the RUMS freshers booklet to mention that we will be providing iftar too..and we also need to get them to promote the Iftar. Why would they do this? Because we are providing a service for the muslim students who will be fasting during ramadan. Many muslim students are put off events like mums and dads because they will be fasting etc.. if they know we are providing iftar, they are more likely to come and take part, and so in essence we are encouraging people to take part!


Summary of things to be done for Uncles and Aunties:
1. Get room chosen and booked - Also book AV equipment
2. Contact organisers of mums and dads and notify them about iftar and ask them to promote it
3. Get funding for Iftar if possible
4. Contact Goodge street mosque for catering for the day
5. Make advert/flyers to hand to the muslim students on the day
6. Find a company that will make T-shirts for us with the logo stitched on, at a cost of £5-£7 each and that will produce them for us in time for the day.

[Ayeshah]

Salam - will there only be 1 large room booked? I think some sisters (and even brothers) would prefer 2 halls so that we can have some segragation.
When we have the small talk etc or whatever then the sisters can sit at the back or something.

Also....what flyer etc are we going to give out on the day? Surely everything we want to say will be included in the Frsher books which they will get in the next few dayz anyway.

[mrakhtar]

Wasalaam,

no there should be two rooms booked I agree. To be honest from past experiences, I don't expect a huge turn out at Uncles and Aunties, and we are probably going to end up with maybe 5-6 muslim freshers with usually a 50-50 split in terms of brothers and sisters.. Thats why I don't really think it should be too much of a problem in general and that yeah it would probably make more sense to have the informal talk given to them as one group, and after/before the talk the sisters can go to their own allocated room to chill out, have iftar, pray etc etc...

In terms of flyers to be given, I was thinking more in terms of just a small leaflet (size of a business card perhaps) which would just have the factual details regarding where we were going to meet, and what the plan is...i.e. so we can give it to a muslim fresher in the quad..the fresher can then go roam around/mingle and meet us at a specific time and place..

So the leaflet would read:

Freshers Iftar and Meet 'n' Greet
Meet outside Quad/ UCL main gates at 6.20pm
Iftar will be served in Rockefeller room 123 at 6.40pm

Btw the times and the rooms are just examples and not really fixed/booked for that matter..

What rooms should we book for these? and what about iftar? whose going to contact caterers/goodge street mosque etc..

Also maybe we should get down list of volunteers of who is actually going to turn up on the day?

InshAllah I should be able to turn up..

Keep posting people! WHERE IS EVERYONE ??
ws
rashid

[mrakhtar]

Salaam,

We must have the POSTER & FLYER for Uncles and Aunties 2007 ready by the 13th of August, so that we can put it up on the EVENTS section on the main website..It is very likely that freshers shall be checking out our website after they get their grades on the 16th of August...so we should be prepared.

[Sana :)]

Salam

Here is a run-down of what needs to be done. Please input as much as you can jzk

1. Get room chosen and booked - Also book AV equipment

I checked out the rooms, So far suitable rooms look like
-Old refec . nice but has portraits of people everywhere. maybe we cud book the cloisters as well and pray there? it will be late and quite empty by that time, or we can go to the hut
-Haldane room. Nice and cosy. Same problem with portraits, but again we cud always pray just outside as its right there next to the quad. i think the room overlooks the quad so we cud even put a sign in the window saying IFTAR etc etc, for when the freshers meet
-rooms in rockefeller


What do you guys think? check them out on www.ucl.ac.uk/efd/roombooking/all-rooms/

-also president or treasurer needs to book this room plus AV , although, i checked online and i'm not sure if you can book this far in advance...?

2. Contact organisers of mums and dads and notify them about iftar and ask them to promote it

Who are we supposed to contact? I went onto the RUMS website and found the following deatils for the RUMS sabbatical officer at UCL Union (perhaps?). Can't think of anything else...

Eleanor Fletcher
[e-mail]

25 Gordon St
London
WC1H 0AY
0207 679 7949

THIS IS majorly important, and probably we are too late to get this done. its worth a shot anyways but please advise me on what to do

3. Get funding for Iftar if possible

can't we afford it ourselves? its not like they have loads of money to spend. theyre relying on donations. at most we should ask the mosque to donate some boxes.

4. Contact Goodge street mosque for catering for the day

[e-mail] <[e-mail]>
Tel: [phone]

Im not in the country so it would be helpful if someone there can ring them or stop by.

5. Make advert/flyers to hand to the muslim students on the day

could nihad or rashid email me the old poster so i can amend it. if i dont get it by tomorrow 6pm then i will make my own. we can print them black and white, 6 to a page.

I do think we should also have a few neon posters which will catch attention, or t-shirts will do as well. however for the t-shirts to get done in time, we need to get cracking iA. what is the progress on t-shirts?

6. sisters side

ilhan can you make it? if so, it would be nice if you could introduce yourself and give a short welcome. also please bring cushions if you have them, as we will probably be sitting on the floor. we can use the tablecloth from the hut and set that on the floor to eat on. any further ideas please post them here jzk
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OK thats all for now. Start posting people! we want this to be good inshaAllah.

[Ilhan]

AA to all,

Jus thought I'd say wrt rooms, if we are expecting a small turnout wouldn't the old refec, and haldane room be too big and thus emphasising the small turnout? What about one of the cruciform foyer seminar rooms? It would be a chance to introduce them to their new home 4 the next 2yrs. Or the Wilkins garden room?
But if we are having the talk altogether maybe it would make sense to book a large room as suggested and maybe then for the sisters to move to a room nearby.
Has the room been booked yet or is it too soon?

IA I should be able to make it to uncles and aunties but will confirm defo in a couple of weeks. Oh and has anyone contacted Goodge Street Mosque yet cos if not I can give them a ring.

[mrakhtar]

I quite like the idea of having it in the cruciform, in one of the Cruciform Seminar rooms like Seminar room 1 where we can have the joint talk together, and then after the talk we can move the barrier out thereby splitting Seminar room 1 effectively into 2 rooms (one with srs and one with brs obviously)...

What do you guys think?

Don't think anyone has contacted Goodge street with regards to this yet..

Also guys please respond to Sulemans thread on the RUMS ISoc T-shirts....InshAllah they won't be that expensive at all and If you want one then let it be known!!!

Wasalam
Rashid

[Sana :)]

The basement cruciform rooms are the ones with barriers. the only problem there is that
a) they close at 9
b) people walking by can see in
c) they are pretty dismal and office-like.

The foyer seminar rooms are better.. There are windows; i think that helps. What if we did foyer seminar room 1 as the brothers room and initial talk. then the sisters can head next door to foyer 2 and continue there.

Also, there has been a lot of talk about booking rooms, but to my knowledge, it is either president or treasurer who is allowed to book . Am i wrong on this point?

Ilhan, let me know if you have already called goodge street, otherwise no worries i can do that tomorrow iA. if they cant donate the boxes, what if we got the same caterers for both this iftar and the eid dinner? im sure they'd love the business... and be able to give us a better deal perhaps knowing that we'd become regular customers?

[NMA]

aa,

Seminar rooms are better, nicer setup, some av stuff there too. Seminar rooms and basement rooms close at the same time. Room availability can be checked online, sorry, I don't recall the address, try room bookings as a UCL search from the UCL website. Book sooner rather than later. Handing in the form is not a confirmation of booking, which can take easily 2 weeks more...

Room bookings via the union require the signature of the president or treasurer, but technically anyone can hand in the form providing this is present. That said, it is amazing how the rule gets bypassed at times. Many years ago, an alternative group booked a room and advertised an event in our name... the first we knew of it was when we found the advert... due to the intensive form of advertising, this was pretty much the day before. Bizarrely, in the long term, this played out to our advantage on no less than 3 occasions. who would have known?

An event held on university property has certain conditions regarding food. Please make sure you are aware of them. If not, then PM me. I will explain it to you there.

wslm

NMA

Disclaimer: my knowledge of union and uni regs is old now and subject to the decay of memory over time.

[abir]

Salaam

I'm afraid i have to agree with Sana on this one the foyer seminar rooms would be a much better location and they have now all been fitter with 44" LCD/ Plasma screen so they should realistically be able to cover any of our AV needs.

Wsalaam

Abir

[Ilhan]

AA,

I called Goodge Street Mosque this morning about food for this event. They said they would provide food for £2-2.50 a box. If we wanted food for free, our best bet was to call back during Ramadhan to arrange this. Actually, in any case they said to call back in Ramadhan to sort out food as its too early now.
I agree with the masses here, foyer seminar rooms would be ideal location.

WS,
Ilhan

[mrakhtar]

The following are reasons why I think Seminar room 1 in the basement is the best room for the job:

1. It has 2 entrances. Brothers can enter from the front, Sisters can enter from the back.

2. It is close to the Lecture Theatres CLT1, CLT2 , the cluster room and the library. All of these we can show them in our 'tour' of the university after the event. Granted you can do the same from Foyer Seminar rooms but all im saying is that with a group of people (both brs and srs) its easier this way.

3. It has an internal barrier that can be pulled out to seperate the long room physically, so the barrier can be open during the talk, and after it can be pulled out to segregate the room. Thus there will be no need if shifting the sisters/brothers elsewhere or for them to even move out of their seats. If we have it in a foyer seminar room then with only one entrance people etc i dont think it will flow as well..

These are obviously just my own thoughts..I don't have any problem as such with the foyer seminar rooms, I just think the basement seminar room will be better for the above reasons lol..Khair iA all of this might not even be an issue as we will only beable to book what we can get...Can we even book on a sunday? Ayeshah could u find out for us iA?

With regards to the Goodge Street Mosque food, think that it should be decent, and if we supplement that on top with some snacks +dessert from our budget than it could be a really nice meal! ...

With regards to uncles and aunties - I was wondering why not put an Advert on the website, which says something like 'Attending Mums and Dads? Want to join your brothers and sisters for Iftar too? Email us at [e-mail] with the subject: Uncles and Aunties! and we will meet you on the day..'

By doing that we could perhaps get an idea of a) how many freshers are checking out the website.. and b) how many freshers plan on joining us for iftar..this way we can have a rough idea of how many food boxes we'll have to order