Our Campus Celebrity for this week is Claire Dunkerton, a 2nd year studying Fashion and Textiles Retailing. She tells Her Campus Manchester a little bit about her role as a hall group leader in the CU and answers some of our enquiring questions!
So what exactly is your role?
I’m currently a hall group leader. That means I run a group with a specific hall, I meet freshers and get to know them and put on events,the most notable is tea and toast.
How many hall group leaders are there?
Each hall will have roughly 2 leaders that will run a group. Sometimes the halls are grouped together if they are smaller halls. For Instance North Campus is joined together despite having separate halls.
What is your main role as a hall leader?
The main role is to gather the Christian first years within the hall to help establish relationships and run events for others within the hall. It’s really about bringing people together and being a support so they can do the events themselves.
The events sound great, which one do you enjoy the most?
So I really enjoy doing Tea and Toast at Owens Park Campus. For those who don’t know, a group of people from the Christian Union will go and set up camp under the bridge of Owens Park and make tea and toast for all those coming back in from nights out! Its really great as you get to meet so many different people and chat to them.
Although, the main CU run events too. One of the best is a meal with a message. This is where we provide a meal and then during mains and pudding someone will do a short talk about a topic such as ‘Who is Jesus?’ or ‘Is Christianity Relevant’.
Events week is also exciting. Talks are put on where people can grapple and discuss issues they have or a society has with Christianity. It’s so busy with events happening during over lunch time and in the evening!
Were you ever one of those lovely people that handed out sweets outside OP? If so, I’m sure you have some very amusing stories, did you find this rewarding?
So this event was run by a local Church, Ivy Fallowfield, rather than the CU. However I’m a member of the Church so was involved! The aim was to show the Church cares and be a positive presence within Fallowfield. Half way through, we started to give encouragement notea as well as sweets… people wanted the encouragement more!
If any readers wanted to join the community, who would be the best person to get in touch with?
We have a Facebook group – University of Manchester Christian Union. Anyone on there will be able to help! Please send me a message, I would be more than happy to meet up and get you involved!
What is your favourite time of the year to celebrate as part of the CU? I imagine Christmas must have been very busy!
Christmas is always amazing! We had an absolutely brilliant Carrol Service held at Holy Trinity Platt Chruch. We gave out Christmas cards in halls. It was great.
However Easter is also a very special time where we can really focus on how much God loves us and the sacrifice and power of Jesus.
What regular evenings/services/events happen each week and where?
Each hall group is different depending on the hall so get in touch and we’ll point you in the right direction.
CU have a main meeting every Tuesday evening at 7:30. Keep an eye out on Facebook to where we meet though, usually in the SU somewhere!
The video below shows some of the events that are on at the moment – take a look!