Reports
SCR & MCR
MCR
Matthew Kirk on life within the Middle Common Room
This year in the MCR has been a year of traditions, both resurrecting old and strengthening new. Over the last few years, we’ ve acquired several more – a Thanksgiving dinner, in the true American style; bringing out hidden talents in the MCR with our Art Show; and this is the third year in a row where the MCR has stayed up through the night to follow British democracy in action( who knows whether this last tradition will prove to be“ strong and stable”…?). But we’ ve also been bringing back old ones – for what I believe is the first time since 2007,
SCR
Alan Martin is back with this year’ s SCR report the MCR Presidents’ Guest Night is making a comeback. I’ m very pleased to be bringing this event back, as there is no other opportunity to really celebrate the MCR community, and all that its members contribute. On the academic side, the Postgrad mentor has done excellent work continuing the Postgraduate Seminar series this year, giving everyone a chance to discuss an issue they are passionate about. The highlight of this series was a day long mini-conference, which in association with the Vice-Master was the first success story of the colleges new crowdfunding endeavour, and allowed for posters to be printed and prizes to be passed out. Of course no MCR year would be complete without a variety of trips and events – this year we’ ve learned to bounce at a trampoline park, had food for thought with our start of year trip to the
The College Senior Common Room had another strong year in 2016-17. Highlights included a number of Sunday talks on topics as varied as Alexander the Great, Gravitational Waves and Border Ballards. As always, these were preceded by Sunday lunch, during which excellent conversation was had by members, the speaker and their guests. During the year, the SCR were treated to two excellent concerts. In October 2016, piano duet Antonina Lax and Alla Levit played to both Grey and Van Mildert College SCR’ s, in which they performed Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov and selected scenes of Petroushka by Stravinsky. During the performance a variety of images where shown that the music depicted. In February David Clappison gave a classical guitar recital in Grey. A number of the SCR, together with postgraduates from the Middle Common Room enjoyed what has become our annual outing to Wallington Hall. This included a behind the scenes tour of the house and a croquet match. As always, we enjoyed attending formal dinners, and particularly the termly guest nights, when we welcomed many members and their guests to College. The new Board Games evenings also provided an opportunity for a different selection of members to attend events in college.
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Baltic and an all-you-can-eat buffet, and following serious determination by one of our members, completed a Durham city college bar crawl!
RIGHT Grey students Alice Harfield and Sophie Leigh at The Informal Ball, Grey’ s only costumed Ball. This year’ s theme was“ Forever Young”