A Look Back at Fresher’s Week

Fresher’s Week (and week 1) were jam-packed and we’re so grateful it went so smoothly! And of course, as is tradition, it started off with the beloved Board Games Night! As usual, we saw the CS building fill up with people of all years come together to enjoy playing board games, meet new people, and enjoy some free pizza (a common theme at our events, you’ll soon come to notice). Whether you came out on top as a chess champion, bankrupted all your friends in Monopoly, or successfully got enough laughs to be the funniest in Cards Against Humanity, we loved seeing so many of you having fun and getting involved on the first day! Even if I did lose every game I played :/ it was a lot of fun! And a big thank you to Tabletop Gaming who ran some Blood on the Clocktower games, that proved very popular! If you enjoyed the event, keep an eye out as in semester 2, we’ll be running it again! And quickly, thinking of pizza, our own Secretary Henry has set up the CSS Pizza Statistics page so you can keep track of just how much pizza we end up buying this year. Thanks Henry!

Next up, we had lunch in the city centre at the wonderful Alfred Works food hall. After many years of declining popularity, this year’s new location brought in nearly double the attendees from last year! With my delicious tacos still on my mind all this time later, I know I’m not the only one who had some thoroughly good food! Whether you had Asian, Italian, American, or another great choice of food, we’re glad the event was such a success!

A new event for this year, the Fresher’s Quiz proved extremely popular! With rounds themed around Computer Science, the University, operating systems, and even famous Joes (I was honoured to be included), there really was something for everyone to have a go at. And the scores were incredibly high! We were extremely impressed and proud of the knowledge we saw! Although, to whoever thought that I, the Scrum Master, was Donald Duck… I’m not upset, just disappointed. I joke, of course; I was actually surprised how many of you remembered me! It’s been a pleasure so far to have so many people recognise me and wave, say hi, or come for a chat; if you do see me around the CS buidling, where I’m always working on my Ph.D., feel free to say hi and have a chat! The more excuses to not do work, the better! Anyway, a final congratulations again to Team 0, who won the quiz, getting them CSS branded rubber ducks!

Going into week 1, we ran our annual CS Societies Night, which was your chance to meet many Computer-related societies and learn about what they do. A massive thank you to the fantatsic societies who attended:

• oSTEM
• WiSE
• GDS
• VGS
• UBRobotics
• AFNOM
• UBVR
• IBM Z
• AlgoSoc
• CyberWomen

And, of course, I go to finally wear the famous TeX costume, which looked much more enjoyable than AFNOM’s monkey suit!

Finally, our last big event was Pub Night on Friday of Week 1, which saw us pile into The Soak Bar & Grill in Selly and enjoy some delicious curries, and have a couple drinks to celebrate finishing the first week of lectures. So many people, new and existing students, came along and made it a fantastic night - a great way to end out an incredible Fresher’s! If you enjoyed the pub night, we will be making them a regular event, with them happening every other week (the next happening Friday week 3), so come along and chat, relax, and enjoy a couple drinks, whether alcoholic or not!

Throughout the week, we also had other smaller, but equally as important, events happening! Throughout the week, we had our stall up in the CS atrium, at the Guild Societies Fair, the School of CS Fair, and the EPS Fair. We had such good interest from you all, coming to chat, ask questions, start your TeX sticker collection, and join our socials! If you haven’t already, check out our website’s links page to join our Discord, WhatsApp, and Instagram pages to get all the latest updates about upcoming events! We also ran the annual Scavenger Hunt around campus for you to learn some fun facts about the place you’ll study at for the next 3 (or more!) years, as well as earn a special edition Old Joe TeX sticker to become the ultimate collector of our stickers. This year, we again saw more interest than we’ve had for years, so thank you to everyone who participated!

Amongst everything that’s happened, you may have noticed that we have a modded Java Minecraft server running! All the details you need (server address, mod list, rules, etc.) are available on the Discord Minecraft channel. Whether you play Minecraft all the time, or you’ve not played for years, this is a great chance to get stuck in, master magic, build the most efficient Create machinery, or like me, just build pretty things! We hope to see some of you in the server!

If you’ve enjoyed your time in CSS so far, and want to support us - along with getting many benefits - why not get yourself a £5 membership at cssbham.com/join. The membership lasts for the whole year, and gets you discounts on ticketed events, saving you money! It also gives you a pretty colour on our Discord server, a free t-shirt (soon), and the ability to vote at our upcoming EGM. Still unsure? Well, your membership goes straight to supporting the society, so we can pay for all the pizza, get you cool merch, and run incredible events for you and your friends to enjoy whilst at uni!

What’s Coming Up in Semester 1?

As usual, we have tonnes of events planned for you this semester on the run-up to Christmas, so let’s tease some!

Firstly, we have our Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) in a couple weeks. The EGM is a meeting for people to run for roles on committee, vote on the candidates, and propose constitutional amendments. This event requires attendees to be members of the society, but it’s a great chance for you to have a chance to say how CSS should be run, as well as see some early access sneak peaks at events and, wait, tickets for events?! I wonder what event that will be! The EGM will be in the Winifred Hackett Building on Wednesday 21st October from 1pm. If you’re interested in running or attending, keep an eye out on our socials for more information soon!

Then, on Thursday 29th October at 7pm, we’re running our Halloween Quiz; get dressed up in your halloween costume, form a team, and enjoy more free pizza! Much like the Fresher’s Quiz, we’ll be running the quiz in the atrium in teams of up to 6, and we’ll have free pizza and alcohol on offer like Board Games Night. Perhaps most importantly, there will be prizes! The winning team, and the best dressed, will all get prizes; however, we will have Halloween TeX stickers available for all who participate in the quiz! Oh, and did I mention? We have guest rounds! A beloved member of staff, and a beloved ex-secretary; what more could you want?

Finally, our last big event of semester 1 is my personal favourite: the CSS Christmas Meal! Join us at the Green Man in Harborne for delicious food, good vibes, and a celebration of semester 1. This event is ticketed, so keep an eye out for when tickets release, to get yourself in on the fun! Of course, we highly recommend getting dressed up in your best and ugliest Christmas jumpers (I’ll be there in mine, and my Santa hat)! And it’ll be your chance to get your hands on the Christmas TeX sticker for your collection. The date and time will be revealed soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

Besides our big events, we have plenty more on offer! Maybe you’re an arcade bar fan, and are looking for a reason to go to NQ64? Perhaps you’re looking for a new society, and a collaboration would be the perfect chance for you to find one? Or maybe, you’re looking to learn a new skill? Well, we’ve got it all! NQ64 evening, workshops, collabs, sponsor events, (did someone say mini hackathon?!), and a whole lot more! We’ll announce these events as we go through the year, but if you have more event suggestions, don’t hesitate to reach out and tell us!

Oh, and t-shirts! As you may have heard us say - and you’ve likely seen people wearing them - if you get the membership for the society, you will get a free t-shirt. Now, we haven’t forgotten, I promise! Issues at the start of the year pertaining to funds (I don’t know how Idris has managed the finances so well!) meant they were delayed, however, they have been ordered and are on their way! The moment they arrive, we will be running a big collection event in the CS building so you can come and collect the shirt, or buy a membership there and then to get one! It even has our sponsors on the back.

We are looking forward to seeing many of you continue to get involved in the society as we go through the year, and we can’t wait to run these events for you!

WhatsApp

This year, we decided to revive the WhatsApp community to make it the proper social it deserves to be! We now announce all publicity from Discord on the WhatsApp too, and we have added plenty of new channels for you to find coursemates, chat about work, and learn about our events! It’s still brand new, but if you’re not a Discord fan, then the WhatsApp might be the place for you!

Memberships

Finally, how are we doing with memberships?

Well, with t-shirts being delayed, we understandably haven’t broken any records yet, however, we reached over 200 members by the end of Fresher’s, and we’ve been climbing every day! Below is the graph of Fresher’s Week:

We started off really strong with early renewals and early joiners, which was incredible to see! And yet, even without t-shirts, we have been able to maintain a solid growth of memberships throughout the two weeks, which we’re very happy to see!

Want a membership? Looking to make your time at university better than ever? Then cssbham.com/join is the place to go!

Sponsorships

I would like to welcome our sponsors for this year! As always, we’re excited to work with our sponsors throughout the year, so let’s introduce them!

• Capital One - Gold Sponsor
• TPP - Silver Sponsor
• Interrupt Labs - Bronze Sponsor

We’re very grateful for the support they’re giving the society! If you’re interested, keep an eye out for events, messages, and exciting opportunities from our sponsors!

Going Forward

I just wanted to say one final thank you to you all for making 2026 Fresher’s Week something I will never forget, and I hope you all feel the same! Despite being my 3rd year on CSS committee, I’ve never been on committee during Fresher’s, and for my first Fresher’s on committee to be as President Scrum Master is an honour! I’ve met so many incredible people, been to all our fantastic events, and had an absolute blast. Maybe I’m exhausted, and maybe I’ve not done much work on my Ph.D., but wow, it was worth it.

So, if you’re a Fresher, a student who’s getting into CSS for the first time this year, or a long time supporter of the society, I can’t thank you enough for being here, participating in CSS, and having fun!

Also, I want to extend my thanks massively to my brilliant committee; without them, Fresher’s simply would not be possible, and the future events would be pretty lackluster! So, committee, whether you’ve done admin work, ran events, planned events, worked behind the scenes, chatted to students on stands and at events, liased with the school, the uni, or the sponsors, or something else, thank you so much! I see that this committee are extremely dedicated, hard-working people who just want the best for CSS and our members, and that fills me with lots of hope for the coming academic year!

Many thanks,

Joe (He/Him), your CSS Scrum Master

And the rest of committee <3

That occasion also marks the time to rewind and reflect on the experiences we’ve had throughout the entire year - and this is no different for CSS. Since I’ve already refreshed everyone on what we’ve done during semester 1, let’s go through what we’ve done throughout semester 2.

What’s been going on

We held a lot of quirky collaborations with other societies this semester, with societies both well-established and newly created. For example: our regular SloLAN game night with GDS, UGG, VR and eSports; a very last-minute entry into the EPS Sports Day with the Eagles, CivSoc, MathSoc and many others; and, our break; variation with CheeseSoc. We also settled the score with Bad Film following the war waged in Semester 1, which we unfortunately lost because they had someone who played Mario Kart Wii competitively for roughly 10 years, so we were set up from the very beginning! Regardless, there was more of a focus on the larger events this semester - so we’ve been a bit quieter other than for these events.

We held our biennial trip to The National Museum of Computing, learning about old machinery that may have been used during World War 2 and the earliest personal computers created. We were able to take on double the number of attendees we usually take every year, but the event still rapidly sold out. Despite that, we still had a blast revisiting the past, watching how technology changed through the decades, and even got to see some ambitious innovative technology that wasn’t particular popular at the time.

And of course, who could forget the incredible Ball!? This year, we held our annual Ball at Macdonald Burlington Hotel, a beautiful venue next to Birmingham New Street. Each attendee was treated to a 3-course meal before dancing the night away, celebrating everything that was achieved this academic year. It was an incredibly wonderful night for each and every one of us on committee, and we were incredibly happy to see our planning efforts pay off. It was difficult to get almost 170 attendees in a single photo, but if you made it on the night, see if you can find yourself in our massive group photo!

If you don’t see yourself, don’t worry, there are plenty of photos of the magical night at https://cssbham.com/ball/2025/photos.

And last but not least, but I also imagine to plenty of people’s surprise - we were able to hold an actual BBQ this year! With support from the Guild, we were able to cook your food, enjoy some cold drinks and celebrate the (near) end of exams together in the sun.

There is one more event I’ve not included here, but that’s because it deserves its own section of recognition - and this goes to none other than the legendary birmingHack.

birmingHack 1.0 - An Explosive Debut!

At our January EGM, we announced a long-awaited hackathon based in UoB called birmingHack, an idea that had been bounced around since 2023, and I wanted to make a reality this year. We brought the CS community of UoB together on the 22nd and 23rd of March, giving each team a full 24 hours to create something from scratch with the theme “Building Foundations” - to which those teams most certainly delivered.

There are numerous other challenges available throughout the event, such as extra categories teams could aim for other than the main theme, such as GDS’ “Best UI/User Experience” category, AlgoSoc’s “Best AI Hack without using an LLM” (which produced AI hacks that I was surprised to hear were made within the 24 hours!) and Majestic’s “Surprise Me!” category. However, there were also bonus challenges that were separate to the main hacking - such as AFNOM’s CTF, a cup-stacking challenge and AlgoSoc’s hilarious meme competition. To give a break from hacking, we held a lot of smaller break events, such as a midnight movie event, workshops for Git and the Neuphonic platform (one of our sponsors for the event), and general food breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

There were several memorable projects submitted with different purposes, inspirations and skill levels, that all reflected the individual teams that pulled everything together. Some teams focused on projects that would help others, others worked on more lighthearted games that were quirky and fun, and others created some incredibly impressive AI projects, given only 24 hours was provided to work on each team’s project. However, there were two projects that were special in their own ways, of which were ThatsAwkward and none other than FLOORPLAN. ThatsAwkward was a project entirely built by conversion students, who learned absolutely everything (Git, APIs, Flask, etc.) within the 24 hours, and produced an incredible project that defied expectations. And of course, there’s also FLOORPLAN, which won the inaugural birmingHack and additionally Majestic’s category for the “Surprise Us!” category. They also let us know that they got published in the SIGBOVIK proceedings for 2025 with FLOORPLAN!

If you want to see some of the other projects that were submitted, you can see them here: https://birminghack.devpost.com/project-gallery

birmingHack was in incredibly high demand when tickets were released - in the first hour and a half all 100 tickets had sold out, with an additional 150 people on the waiting list. I do apologise if you were one of those people who were on the waiting list but couldn’t go this year - but I hope we’ll see you next year! There was no doubt that we saw the success of birmingHack, and so did the School of CS, who will be welcoming a second iteration sometime next year.

In our AGM, we also passed an amendment adding the role of the Hackathons Officer, so if you enjoyed birmingHack and want to help organise an even better follow-up to the debut event, or you’re passionate about hackathons and want to get yourself involved with birmingHack, this is the perfect role for you! Keep an eye out for the EGM that elects this role early next year, around the time of October/November.

Thank you to each and every committee member of CSS who helped make this event possible - and thank you as well to Adam, an external volunteer from hackSheffield who eagerly volunteered to help ensure the event went smoothly!

Outside of Events - Discord and Minecraft

As we kick off the summer holidays, we’ve also been working on things for you to do with the rest of the CSS community if you need time to kill.

First of all, as it was voted on in our AGM, we’ve allowed for members to select what colour they come up as on Discord! Whilst you’re able to continue being the old-fashioned green you know and love, you can also select other colours that you may prefer.

If you haven’t become a member on our Discord server yet, you can use /makemember to give yourself the Member role, or if you even aren’t part of the Discord server, you can join our community over at https://cssbham.com/discord!

However, if you have a friend who isn’t a member but wants to get involved, then we’ve still got plenty going on. We’ve added two new channels for you to enjoy, the first being the #activities channel, where you can start Discord activities to play with other server members. We’ve currently got a Wordle streak of 20 days, but it’s not just Wordle being played; you can do the daily sudoku, build a farm, race each other, fight each other in a suspiciously blocky FPS game, anything that comes up on Discord!

And last but not least for our Discord server, we’ve added a new opt-in channel, the #pets🐶 channel! If you need a bit of extra serotonin to get you through the summer, server members have started posting their pets in this channel. You can access this channel through the #roles channel, clicking on the “Pets” reaction to get the respective role that shows the channel.

If you’re not a big Discord user though, we have something else for you - our newly re-opened Minecraft server, running the Craftoria modpack! Craftoria has a bit of everything, from modern tech mods like Create to magic mods, such as Ars Nouveau, but also decoration/building mods, such as Handcrafted and MrCrayfish’s Furniture Mod. We’ve also enabled voice chat on the server, so you can talk to other players in real-time.

As part of preparing the server for release, we decided to recreate the Computer Science building using all the new blocks Craftoria added, depicting different rooms such as UG04, Sloman Lounge, the ESO and even some of the individual offices. You can join the server at mc.cssbham.com using Craftoria 1.21.3, and grab the Minecraft role on Discord to access the Minecraft-Discord bridge chat. We look forward to seeing you there!

Memberships

And of course, last but not least - how did we do for memberships this year? It’s been included in previous end of year newsletters, so you bet I’m including it in this as well.

We start off with the all-too-familiar graph, which you can see for yourself at https://cssbham.com/membership-stats:

For this year of 2024/25, we’ve hit a total of 513 members - a massive number that obliterates our previous membership records by over 100! Every time I come back to this number, it terrifies me to think we’ve got 513 unique students who are part of CSS, which we can’t even fit into a single lecture hall. Compared to other societies as well, we are the 3rd largest Guild society in the university, just behind the incredible ACS and ISOC.

It’s been an incredible pleasure to represent each and every one of you, and I hope you felt welcome into one of the largest communities here at UoB.

On that note as well, if you’re a student returning next year, then the Guild is allowing you to renew your membership early this year! In case you missed it or simply forgot, you can go to https://cssbham.com/join and renew your membership for 2025/26 today. The Guild is additionally running a competition for societies to get the most membership renewals, so if you want us to use the winning funds to continue putting on big events such as birmingHack, providing members with discounted entry and supplying you with more free pizza, let your friends know to get their memberships renewed today!

As a thank you for renewing your membership, we’ll also be offering free ducks (whilst stocks last), or a TeX sticker of your choice in case you missed one this year! Don’t worry if you can’t collect your duck or sticker until after the summer; we can hand them out when you return during Freshers’ week or Week 1.

You don’t have to just renew your membership just for the sake of a new shirt or discounted events either - but to also welcome in the next generation of CS students or those interested in the subject, giving them a place to feel home when they may feel nervous about starting university. The Guild offered me to do an interview on renewing your membership a while ago, which you can find on Instagram, where I go into a bit more detail about how renewing a membership may not just benefit you, but also those around you.

Going Forward

As I finish off this newsletter and thus our reflection of CSS’ second semester, I’d like the opportunity to look to the future of CSS.

Like plenty of other members who joined university when we started recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, I will be graduating this year, with my Integrated Master’s degree on the 15th of July. However, over the last 4 years of my time at university, CSS has always been the highlight of it all, providing a space to meet new people, putting on exciting events that allow us to laugh the night away and forget all the chaos that may be occurring in the ever-changing world. Even with how prevalent change can be though, especially in a rapidly evolving and growing field like Computer Science, there is always some comfort to be sought in things that remain consistent - and for me, one of those things has been CSS.

Although its future is now out of my hands and left to Matty and the rest of the elected 2025/26 committee, I trust that they will rise to the challenge and continue to provide a community away from home, running a mixture of fun and industrial events that you are always welcome to no matter the circumstances. With that, I would like to bid the best of luck to the incoming committee for the next academic year - whether you are a returning face to the committee page or a brand new one, this is the perfect time to expand your skills and support a society that has helped kick off your time at university!

And of course, I can’t forget the committee I had the honour of leading throughout 2024/25 - there was a unique spark that shone in each of you every moment I worked with you. It’s an understatement to simply say I am proud of each and every one of you, to the point where not only do I consider you as colleagues, but as some of the best friends I’ve ever met during university, who’ve stuck by my side through the thick and thin of running the society. I’d like to give a massive thank you to all of you for everything you’ve done, and the best of luck wherever you go next - whether you’ll still continue being part of CSS Committee, graduating and starting a new job, or doing something else altogether. I’m hoping the experiences you’ve had this year will follow you wherever you go in life, allowing you to re-apply skills that you’ve learned and positive memories to recall when you too reflect on what you’ve done this year.

I’d like to give one final thank you to everyone for having me as your President of CSS for 2024/25 - it was a journey I never dreamed of taking when I first started university, but one I thoroughly enjoyed after I made the choice to run for the role in March 2024. You’ve all given me the opportunity to push my limits, test my skills in leadership and organisation, and meet so many people from the many diverse backgrounds of CS that make the field what it is today - I have no regrets choosing to take this journey. Although I’ll no longer be at UoB and working in London, I’ll still do my best to keep in touch through the Discord server or coming to major events, such as the Christmas Meal or the Ball, since CSS became such a big part of my life and I want to continue watching it grow after my departure.

Regardless, I have rambled on enough, and after two years of being CSS committee and four years of university, I need a long rest. If you’re graduating on the 15th of July, I hope to see some of you there, otherwise, I’d like to wish all of you the best of luck with University, your jobs, and your future!

Best Regards,
Holly Packer
CSS President, on behalf of CSS Committee

Before we finish off, we also have an industrial opportunity for those graduating between 2026 and 2029 - our friends at The Trade Desk have organised an Open House event for the summer!

The Trade Desk is a media buying platform that use complex data algorithms to connect advertisers with their audiences at an unprecedented scale.

Picture this… millions of online ad auctions happening every second, and we’re right in the midst of it, ensuring that the right ads reach the right people at the perfect moment. We’re talking about a massive volume of data — 120TB of it, to be exact-generated every single day. That’s a trillion queries processed daily.

Ever wondered what it’s like to work at a world leading programmatic advertising technology company? Now’s your chance to step inside The Trade Desk and see for yourself! Join them for an exciting Open House event where you’ll meet the brilliant minds behind their cutting-edge technology and learn what makes them tick.

• Dive into the world of advertising tech and discover how they’re shaping the future.
• Chat with their employees, learn about their culture, and see why they love what they do.
• Enjoy tasty bites and drinks, soak in the office vibes, and take home an exclusive swag pack!

This open house event targets students currently pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree, and plan to graduate between 2026 and 2029.

Event details:

• Tuesday 15th July 2025 at 5pm - 7pm (London time).
• Held in their office at One Bartholomew Close, London, EC1A 7BL.
• You can sign up here: https://app7.greenhouse.io/e/pkssta

The spaces for this event will be limited, and further details will be sent to shortlisted students via email.

Thank you once again to The Trade Desk for letting us know about this opportunity, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your summer!

If you need a quick reminder on what’s happened, let’s go over everything…

What’s been on this semester

Since our welcome week, we’ve been running a mix of new and recurring events, kicking off first with Cream Tea with TeaSoc! Even if we ended up buying Sainsbury’s full stock of scones and forgot the cream, it was still an incredibly successful event, giving us the chance to catch up with everyone after the chaos of welcome week. Thank you once again to TeaSoc for hosting this event with us <3

On the more technical side, we’ve been able to host a few workshops held by fellow students on what interests them - the first two held by Amrit, who bathed us in his love for Lua (the presentation itself being written in Lua!), and Matt, who travelled across the country to come back to UoB and give a beginner’s workshop on Python!

After that, we leaned back into our social side and ran our annual Halloween Quiz, where we saw a vast range of bizarre costumes and teams battling to win a swarm of Blahajs, and an Aftonsparv for the costume competition! Despite a marking error at the end that did end up affecting the final scores (oops), the event went wonderfully and it was incredible to see so many people dressed up.

Then, sometime in between we were declared war upon by Bad Film Society, who egregiously accused us of using their “brand identity” for some harmless publicity… needless to say, I will break my silence on this matter and will confirm that I have not tolerated this baseless slander, and that we have spoken diplomatically to find a negotiation that will appease both parties. However, I fear that we will have to resort to measures that will take us both down, as I will not kneel to Bad Film’s unreasonable demands and let them step over CSS like a doormat. We will win this war, one way or another!! 🔥🔥🔥

(For anyone struggling to read the post, you can see it in full here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCgljIPtNO2/ )

Towards the end of the semester, we rounded off with three big events - this being the Bar Crawl, our usual Christmas Meal and the return of the legendary Discord Botathon!

On the 30th of November, we hosted a bar crawl that traversed throughout the city of Birmingham, starting at Mr Mulligan’s, making our way to the energetic Heidi’s, partying our way to the Brasshouse before finally finishing off at the Soloman Cutler.

Following that, on the 5th of December, we held our Christmas Meal, returning once again to the Green Man in Harborne! We just happened to visit on a quiz night as well, so some groups of CSS members formed teams and participated in the quiz - one getting second place, and another getting second to last. Regardless, it was a wonderful way to conclude the semester, and it was wonderful to see so many people there!

Finally, on the 8th of December we hosted the Discord Botathon, the first since 2021. Seven different teams responded to the call and built a Discord bot from scratch, some learning from the bot workshop held the day before. Here’s how the final standings looked:

1. Texagotchi, with their beautiful illustrations of TeX and creative approach to the Tamagotchi concept!
2. Garlic Tone, that looked like it was ready to break every time we came to judge it, but took advantage of Discord’s remix feature to let users illustrate their pictures - something we weren’t expecting!
3. ETH Tracker, with their responsive and robust structure using Kafka to separate the processing of data from the bot’s workload!

Congratulations once again to the team behind Texagotchi, who have won Raspberry Pi Zero 2 Ws!

New Faces on Committee

In November, we held our first EGM of the year to fill in roles in committee that were either already empty, being stepped down from or were being rolled over - which resulted in a wave of new faces on our committee! If you run into them, don’t be afraid to say hi.

Congratulations once again to:

• George - Socials Secretary
• Sabrina - EDI Officer
• Nial - PGT Rep
• Joe - PGR Rep

Since Re-Open Nominations won the vote for First Year Rep, we’ll be following up with another EGM early in semester 2. If you’re a first year student who has enjoyed CSS’ events so far and wants to get even more involved, then keep an eye on your email and social media for EGM announcements!

Hoodies

We’ve had quite a few people ask about them, and we’re planning to deliver - hoodies will be on sale again in the near future! 🎉

Contrary to our usual convention, we’ll have both zipped and non-zipped hoodies available on sale, using the designs from previous years. When they become available, we’ll send an announcement on our social media and Discord server, then you’ll be able to get them from https://cssbham.com/hoodies. As of currently, we’re just awaiting approval from the Guild to put them on sale.

For everyone waiting on thigh highs - we’re trying our best, but these will still be a work in progress for now!

Members

You might’ve seen on Instagram that we recently reposted a screenshot from a reel that the Guild made, creating their own “wrapped” that summarised the year for societies so far. We were in one of the categories, and as of currently, we have the second-highest membership count in the entire Guild, standing at 404 (not found) members! That number has only been seen once previously in the second semester, but CSS has pre-emptively smashed it out of the park.

That’s not even the full picture though, since that number has only accounted for standard memberships - if anyone has been at UoB since 2022, there were a series of changes to how external memberships worked (these are non-students and staff who want to be part of a society), lengthening the process and adding extra roadblocks which has since deterred alumni students and others from joining a society as an external member. However, this year, we’ve had 4 external members join us, leading to a total of 408 members - which is the exact membership count we hit at the end of 2022/23 and the highest number of members CSS has seen in its 20+ years of history.

This was not a record we aimed to reach this year - as mentioned in the EGM, our original goal was to help bring awareness to CSS and what we do early on, then allow people to settle into the society in their own time and if they choose to do so; and that is still true today. However, it’s still left us on committee lost for words, and I think it speaks for the effort that they’ve all put in this semester. Thus, I want to give my most sincere thank you to the entirety of CSS committee this semester for making the impossible possible, putting everything they have into what they love, and being an unshakable team that can withstand even the toughest of tasks.

But of course, let’s not forget the reason we’re actually in this position - it’s thanks to you. CSS has maintained its unique and eccentric community throughout the years, but it wouldn’t be that way without the members that make up that community. Thus, whether you’ve given a workshop, joined us in events or simply hanged around in Discord, CSS would not be the same without you - thank you for making this our best semester in CSS’ history. 💙

What’s next

As I round off this newsletter, I’d like to give you a brief glimpse into what we’re looking to prepare next semester.

We’ve already started planning our larger events, such as our trip to the National Museum of Computing, the glamorous Ball, and the AGM to elect the entirety of committee for the new year. However, we also have a mystery event that we are currently working with the school on, as well as a few other societies to participate in. It’s been a long while since we’ve seen this kind of event at UoB, but perhaps some events we’ve run this semester and will run the next semester too may give you a small idea… oh yeah, and calling for peace in the chaos of war against Bad Film.

However, we’d also like to hear from you about how things went this semester - if there’s any events you’d like to see or have some thoughts on how we ran this semester, we have opened our feedback survey, which should take no more than 5 minutes to fill out and will shape how the society runs next semester. You can fill it out here: https://cssbham.com/feedback

If you’d also like to run a workshop on a subject of your choice like other members did this semester, then don’t be afraid to reach out to committee!

Until next time, on behalf of the rest of CSS’ committee, I’d like to wish everyone a happy holidays, and enjoy the winter break - we’ll see you again for an even better semester in January!

Best Regards,
Holly P.
CSS President

We’ve had an incredible start to the semester with our Cream Tea and Halloween Quiz events, and have got to meet so many of you. For our first session of Missing Semester, we had to book three(!!) rooms to have everyone join the event, and we had to order 40 pizzas from Papa John’s for our CS Societies Night, only to be told off for ordering too much. However, none of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for all of you. Thank you for making these events unforgettable, as CSS would not be the same without you.

This month, we’ve got a big collection of events coming up, but this list isn’t exhaustive - expect some surprises around the corner!

Lua Workshops 🛠️ - Thursday 31st October, 5pm - Y3-G29

This Thursday, we have Amrit giving the second Lua workshop that covers the following:

• The Lua C API and embedding Lua
• Making modules for Lua
• Setting up Lua in your editor
• Lua package management
• Type safety

If you missed the first talk, you can access the “slides” for it here: https://www.frityet.net/lua-ss/ (of which we were told were made in Lua, believe it or not)

November EGM 🗳️ - Wednesday 6th November, 1pm - Y3-G34

Campaigning for the EGM has now begun! You can now post your manifestos, questions and constitutional amendments ahead of the EGM into the newly opened channel on our Discord server.

If you’re considering standing for a role in the EGM, you are able to do so on the voting website: https://vote.cssbham.com

If you’re standing or have questions for candidates, you are now able to join them in Discord, which you can do here: https://cssbham.com/discord

See you on the day!

NQ64 🎮 - Thursday 7th November, 7pm

We’ll be returning to NQ64 for the night! NQ64 is a drinking arcade in Digbeth with themed drinks and arcade games like Mario Kart, Crazy Taxi, Pacman, etc. - for more information, check NQ64’s website.

We’ll also be hosting a walking train starting at 6:15pm from the Computer Science building if you’re not sure of how to get there!

If you’re planning on going, please note that NQ64 only accepts driver licenses and passports for entry, and only people 18 years or older are allowed inside.

Film Night 🎥 - Wednesday 13th November, 7pm - University House G12

The following week, we’ll be holding a film night - break out your popcorn (if it gets approved by the Guild) and enjoy a CS-oriented film with your friends!

Currently, we are holding a vote in Discord for the film to show; these include:

• Hackers (1995)
• Source Code (2011)
• Hidden Figures (2016)
• The Terminator (1984)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Voting will be open for a week, then the film to be hosted will be announced!

CSS x AlgoSoc 💼

We’re currently working on a collaborative event with AlgoSoc to deliver important knowledge about applying to positions in the CS industry - we’ll have more details confirmed soon, so keep an eye out on CSS’ and AlgoSoc’s socials!

Python Workshop 🐍

We’ll be looking to hold a Python workshop later in the month, hosted by none other than our wonderful Matt, who has held similar workshops in the past! If you’re unfamiliar with Python and want to start somewhere to learn it, this will be the best opportunity to do so.

Pub…? Lots of pubs…?

This is one we’re still in the process of confirming - keep an eye out for more information!

Missing Semester 🐧

We have more coming with our collaborative talks from us, AFNOM and contributors within SoCS! As a quick overview of what’s to come this month:

• Containers and Virtualisation, 4th November
• Shell Advanced, 11th November
• LaTeX, 18th November
• Git for Open Source Development, 25th November

Each session is being held on Mondays from 1pm to 2pm.

Festive fun awaits

This covers all of our events for November, but there’s also some pretty significant ones waiting right around the corner… something about advent… something about a green man and certainly dressed TeX… something about Discord bots…

We’ll post any updates on our Discord or Instagram @cssbham - we hope you’ve enjoyed the events we’ve run so far, and we’ll see you around!

All the love,
- CSS Committee

To start off another year full of fantastic CSS events, we’re running 2 weeks full of freshers activities to get involved with, with lots to do, even if you aren’t a first year!

Aside from mixers, everyone’s free to attend any timetabled event below!

Here are some big ones open to everyone coming up soon:

Board games night — Monday 23rd September 6pm-11pm — CS Building

Come to the CS atrium for a night of board games and pizza! Get to know other people in CSS while you learn how to play something new! We’ll also have a quiet room setup in room 222 if you’d like to take some time to relax in a quieter environment. Make sure to bring your student ID if you’d like to get alcohol at the event, and no need to bring your own, that’s our job!

We will have board games ready on the night, but you’re welcome to bring your own too! If you’re planning on bringing your own games, let us know what you’re bringing here: https://cssbham.com/bgn

If you’re interested in what others plan to bring, you can check that out here: https://cssbham.com/board-games

Regarding pizza, if you have any dietary requirements you want us to account for, please fill out the form here: https://cssbham.com/bgn-dietary-form - we’ll always have vegan, vegetarian and meat options available!

CSS Scavenger Hunt — Tuesday 24th September 10am-4pm — UoB Campus

Learn the lay of the campus with CSS’ scavenger hunt, find study areas and food outlets around the uni. Find us at our stall from 10am — 4pm once you’ve completed it in the CS building for an exclusive Old Joe Tex sticker! Join up with up to 5 other people and have fun exploring!

Sign up here: https://cssbham.com/scavenger-hunt

CSS goes to Ming Moon — Friday 27th September 1pm-3pm — Ming Moon, 16 Hurst St, Birmingham B5 4BN

Come along with CSS on our annual trip to Ming Moon! Located in Birmingham city centre, Ming Moon offers a pan-Asian buffet, and it’s the perfect place to socialise, meet new people, and enjoy a diverse food selection.

Regarding travel, Trainline is a useful way to quickly find and buy train tickets, and CSS will be doing a walking train from the CS building, as well as meeting at the venue. Join our discord server (invite link at bottom of the newsletter) to get information on the walking train nearing the event.

The price of the buffet is £16.99, and £3.40 for a return train ticket from the University train station, available here

CS Societies Night — Monday 30th September 7pm-8pm — Lecture Theatre 1, Teaching and Learning Building

Interested in cybersecurity? Game development? VR? If you’re interested in other tech-related societies in the uni, come along to CS Societies night to learn about 6 other CS and STEM societies, pizza included!

Societies attending:

• AFNOM - The ethical hacking society
• GDS - Game Development Society
• oSTEM - Out in STEM
• VGS - Video Games Society
• VR - Virtual Reality
• AlgoSoc - Algorithmic Programming Society
• CSS - Computer Science Society (that’s us!)

You can find their discord servers in the UoB discord hub here: https://discord.gg/9CH8VtfWQr

The rest of the building will be quiet, so feel free to leave at any time to decompress or cool down.

Mixers

CSS is running a few mixers where you can get to know other people in the same year as you, whether that be first years, final years, or postgraduates.

Below are the dates, times and locations:

• Final Year Mixer — Thursday 27th September 4-6pm — CS Atrium, CS Building
• Postgraduate Mixer — Tuesday 1st October 1-3pm — Joe’s Bar, UoB Guild
• First Year Mixer — Wednesday 2nd Wednesday 1-2pm — Joe’s Bar, UoB Guild

For the final year mixer, pizza and soft drinks will be provided, for the postgraduate and first year mixer, Joe’s Bar has a variety of food and drink available.

Pub Night — Friday 4th October 7pm-12am — The Soak, 563-569 Bristol Rd, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 6AF

Join CSS at The Soak for a night of drinks, socialisation, and fresh mixed grill. We’ll be rounding off the end of freshers activities at one of the best pub and grill houses in Selly Oak!

Make sure to bring a form of Photo ID (Not student ID!) if you’d like to buy alcoholic drinks, which will be checked at the door.

As well as the above, AFNOM, oSTEM, and VR will be running their own events as seen on the timetable, join their discord servers from the hub at https://discord.gg/9CH8VtfWQr to learn more!

If you know anyone who’d like to join, send them our way at https://cssbham.com/join so they can sign up!

If you have any questions, or just want to say hi, we’ll be at our stand in the CS Atrium on the 24th and the 25th of September, as well as being available on our discord server at https://cssbham.com/discord. Hope to see you around!

Rohit J
Special Events Officer
CSS Committee

I’ll start with a fun graph:

This year we’ve had slower membership growth, before shooting up with the Ball tickets being released! While not our record, 392 members is nothing to scoff at, and seeing the number of familiar faces at our events has been amazing to see! So many of our events have performed incredibly, and I can’t wait to see what gets planned for next year!

From our largest events, to our small weekly break; we’ve had something for everyone this year, and I hope we’ve been able to make University just a little bit less stressful, and a little bit more fun. We’ve had such a variety, from visiting Bletchley Park and Winterbourne, to our classic Board Game Nights, Hallowe’en Quiz, and Christmas Meal, and so much more! Not to mention the workshops you’ve run yourselves! Chris’ React Workshop, and Matt’s Mapathon and Python Workshop have been great events run by our members (and if you have any idea for one you’d like to run, let us know!) Our community is what keeps CSS going strong, and so we can’t thank you enough for running these events.

Of course, I can’t continue without mentioning our grandest event, the CSS Ball! With everyone dressed to the nines to celebrate the year together, it was such an incredible night that I hope everyone enjoyed as much as I did. Seeing everyone enjoying the night was the highlight of my year. The support from the School of Computer Science, and our sponsors, meant this year’s ball was our most successful yet with 177 tickets sold! I definitely think it was our best ever, and I was ecstatic to hear the same from so many of you too. It really makes being on the committee worth it. A huge thanks to the entire committee for helping to organise it, as well as a special thanks to our DJ, Matt Norton, we truly went out with a bang and had a special night for all!

I’m really looking forward to seeing what gets put on next year. Holly and the rest of the incoming committee have a big job ahead of them, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of old favourites, and some new ideas to refresh your palette. Make sure to check out the committee page to get to know your committee, and send them all your ideas for future events. I wish them nothing but good luck for next year!

So, if you’ve been with us through University, or this is your first year with CSS, thank you for being a part of our community, and for making University just a little more fun!

I hope to see some of you at graduation, and I wish you all the best of luck with University, your jobs, and the future!

Your CSS President,
Matthew Hammond

Just to end off, we do have a couple of messages from our friends over at Bank of America and Kainos!

For anyone who is looking to start searching for industrial opportunities early, Bank of America will be opening their applications early this year, and keep them open until the roles are filled! This is for the following programmes:

• Summer Internship in 2025
• Graduate Programme (for finance only) in 2025
• Industrial Placement Programme (for technology only) in 2025

These applications will be open from Monday 19th August 2024.

If you’re looking to learn more about Bank of America’s culture and organisation, their Spring Insights programme applications will open from Monday 14th October 2024 until Friday 22nd November 2024.

Last but not least, Kainos have provided us with testimonials from fellow students about working for them in a placement year!

Leonardo Bishop – Placement Software Engineer

When I first joined Kainos in August, I was not sure what to expect. Having never worked in the industry before, I was feeling a mixture of excitement and nervousness, and the idea of doing something I did as a hobby professionally in the real world was daunting at first. However, not only did this year at Kainos quickly ease any concerns I had, but the amount of feedback and support I have received from my seniors has allowed me to grow and develop as a person. I have been given the opportunity to work on several projects during my time here, including cutting-edge work around generative AI, and have also had the chance to travel and meet clients from across the country. The company culture here is fantastic, everybody is approachable and friendly, and I have never felt like just an intern. Ultimately, my time at Kainos has significantly developed my technical abilities and confidence, and my placement experience will be something I look back on fondly.

Callum Esprey – Placement Software Engineer

I am so grateful to have undertaken an amazing industrial placement experience with Kainos. It has significantly improved my technical skills as well as my ability to work collaboratively with people from a range of disciplines, this being in part due to the comprehensive and broad-ranging training I received at the start of my placement. The culture here has great balance with lots of opportunities to work on innovative and exciting projects or unwind with colleagues at monthly work socials which are always a highlight. My favourite social of the year being the Christmas Ball, held at Birmingham’s Grand Hotel. Personally, I have spent much of my placement working on cutting-edge Generative AI projects, Kainos is making great progress in being a predominate adopter of Generative AI and so I wholeheartedly recommend anyone with an interest in the field to give Kainos serious consideration when looking for a placement opportunity.

As Leonardo and Callum’s placement ends in the upcoming months, we wanted to share exciting news that our 2025 placement opportunities will be going live in September!

If you don’t already, be sure you follow Kainos across social media for updates on these opportunities. You can also visit our website in the interim to read more about and hear stories from our people:

Begin Your Career Story at Kainos - Graduates & Placements

Our placement roles will be found on our website, social media platforms and University job boards come September.

As always for CSS, it’s been a hectic start to the year, from welcoming freshers to electing a new President and First Year Rep, going roller-skating, and finishing the semester off with our ever-successful Christmas Meal. If you’re not quite up to speed, let’s catch you up with everything that happened!

Starting Fresh

As a part of our Freshers’ events, we had our yearly Board Games and Societies’ Night, both major successes - whilst Societies’ Night broke our record for the most attendees at the event, Board Games kicked off the start of the year with a bang, giving everyone the chance to meet new people, make new friends, and most importantly, enjoy some pizza together!

Mid-Term Events

During October, we had a handful of other successful events, such as our collaboration with TeaSoc, Bank of America’s CV Workshop, and our terrifying Halloween Quiz, all three exceeding expectations - Cream Tea had almost 100 attendees! That’s a lot of tea.

Last but not least

The end of the semester was a bit quieter in the world of CSS, but nonetheless, we made the most of it - finishing off with our final event of the semester, the ever-so-merry Christmas Meal, hosted at the Green Man!

Sponsor Update

We also have a quick notice from our friends at BNY Mellon about their internships and graduation schemes. We’ll also be publishing the slides from the Technology of BNY Mellon event on our Discord server soon - it has a quick extract about using Spring, so if you’re in 2nd Year and doing Team Project next semester, it may be worth checking the slides to know what to expect!

BNY Mellon are currently in process of recruiting for the following roles:

• Summer internship Manchester
• Summer internship London
• Full-time role Manchester
• Full-time role London

We look forward to speaking with our applicants in January and would like to take a moment to say thank you for your time and consideration of BNY Mellon as a firm.

Ending Remarks

Going into the new year, we have even bigger and better events lined up for non-members and members - thinking of running for PGT/PGR Rep? Ordering your thigh-high socks? Curious about the history of computer science, and its role in breaking the enigma code? Preparing your snazziest suits and dresses for the big finale of events at the end of the year? Keep an eye on our social media (such as Discord and Instagram), and we’ll have news on upcoming events to follow!

In the meantime, we would like to give a heartfelt thank you to all of our members who have joined us this year, those who have joined us in social or industrial events, and of course, to those who have made the society what it is today. We look forward to seeing you again in the next semester!

- Holly and the rest of CSS Committee

Firstly, to all freshers, congratulations on getting into UoB! I hope you have a brilliant time while you’re here. And to everyone coming back for yet another year of your degree, good to see you again, hang in there.

What is CSS?

So, what is The Computer Science Society? CSS is a student-run society that is a large part of the CS community here at UoB. Over the year, we run a variety of events; from pub nights, to workshops, to quizzes, to the CSS ball, to a mini conference called TeX Talks, we have something for everyone. You’ll notice free pizza and drinks are running themes at CSS events! My personal favourite is an annual trip to the birthplace of computers, alternating from The National Museum of Computing and, where we’re going this year, Bletchley Park!

Welcome Week

If you’re new to CSS, come say hi! We’ll have a stand in the CS atrium every day during welcome week, and we’ll have a spot in the societies tent too on Thursday the 21st, from 11 AM to 4 PM. If you’re a fresher still learning your way around campus, have a go at our scavenger hunt! Teams that complete it get a special, limited edition CSS sticker. If you want to know anything else, please check out the rest of our website!

We have a ton of events in the works for freshers, so keep an eye out for updates! Just to give a taste of things to come, we’re planning a board games night in the CS building (with pizza!), a pub outing to Selly Oak, and a return of our annual trip to Ming Moon - a Chinese buffet in the city.

Looking Forwards

The future of term 1 is looking bright, as we’ll bring back many of our classic events. You can look forward to the Halloween quiz, Christmas meal, and collaborations with other societies. We’ll also be hosting an Extraordinary General Meeting in late October, where we will elect a new First Year Rep and Post-Graduate Rep to the committee.

Speaking of the committee, I’m excited to work with the lovely people running the society this year! If you see any of us around campus, come and say hi. You can check out the committee on the committee page.

Join Us!

This last year, we broke many records for CSS: with over 400 members, we reached the 3rd largest Guild society at UoB; we have over 2.5k members in our discord server (and counting); and we ran 40 different events. Buying a membership gives you access to exclusive events, a green name on Discord, and a free T-shirt! Join us on the guild website.

We’ve recently updated our discord server, so if you want more updates on CSS, a place to discuss your course, or just to talk to other students, join our server

You can also find us on Instagram

Or join our Facebook group

Whether you come to just one event, or run for a role on the committee, I hope CSS can make your time at UoB spectacular.

See you later, Archer CSS President

Firstly, to almost all CSS members, congratulations, you’ve survived a year of university. 🎉 It’s been a busy year for me, for CSS and I’m sure lots of you too. In true CSS style, I’m going to kick off with a fun graph:

Here is the number of members we have had this year, rocketing up during fresher’s week and then climbing to reach an all-time high of 409 members of CSS. Seeing the number of people coming to board games nights, our trip to the National Museum of Computing, pub nights and the CSS Ball, it’s really inspiring to have so many of us in the community. In fact, with such a great growing community, we’ve run even more events than ever before! Whether it’s regular classics like the Hallowe’en Quiz and the Christmas Meal or new workshops or new trips such as to The National Museum of Computing, there’s been something for everyone.

My personal favourite event of the last year was our TeX Talks - a series of talks from academics, alumni and people from industry all about the cool aspects of tech! This was an idea I had a while ago and, after the usual panicking trying to find speakers and then having too many to fit in, it all came together. If you missed it, you can look back at the recording on YouTube although you might want to skip the first 12 minutes of faffing around :D You won’t be able to share in the free pizza but you will get to listen in to some of the awesome talks and find out about a range of tech topics. To me, this is one of the best things we get to do as CSS - explore outside of the CS course and broaden our horizons (all with free pizza of course).

I can’t talk about great events of the year, however, without mentioning our annual CSS Ball <3 It’s the one night in the year when lots of CSS members come together dressed in their best clothes to celebrate the time we’ve had. It’s always a great night and this year was no different. This time around we had a live band blasting out tunes onto the dance floor, a photobooth, photographer and a beautiful venue. I hope that, like me, everyone who came along has fond memories of a fabulous night out.

But, that was last year, what about the year to come? Last month, we hosted our AGM, the annual meeting in which we elect our new committee and boy, you’ve got some marvellous people organising CSS in the year to come. If you see any of this lot around next year, make sure to say hi! You can check out all of the new committee on our /committee page and read about their different roles. So, final thing to say - thank you! CSS has been so awesome this year and all the years I’ve been at UoB and it’s down to you, all the different members over that time who have made it so. Whether you were on the committee, helped run an event, helped clear up the mess in the atrium after a board games night or just came along to an event and smiled, you’ve made countless people’s time at university better. And that’s what CSS is all about and I’m certain it always will be in the years to come.

Thanks for a great time,

Jacob

CSS President 2022-23

Escape Room 🔐

This Friday at 8pm, put your teamwork and puzzle solving skills to the test at an escape room! Tickets are available at 🔗 https://cssbham.com/escape🔗

Quantum Workshop ⚛️

Interested in quantum computing? Join lecturer and researcher Miriam at 3pm on Wednesday the 23rd for a talk and get a hands-on experience programming quantum computers with IBM. Miriam will be teaching a quantum computing module next semester for final years, so don’t miss this chance to get a taste!

EGM 🗳

This is your chance to get involved with running the society! You can stand for election to be our new Social Secretary or PGR rep and help run more events. The speeches and voting will all be taking place on Wednesday the 30th at 1pm.

Christmas Events! 🎅

We’ve got lots of events coming up to celebrate this time of the year:

Christmas Lights

On Tuesday 29th of November, the CS Christmas lights will be switched on! Join us at 1pm to celebrate with a glass of mulled wine/non-alcoholic warm berries and a mince pie.

Christmas Markets

On Wednesday the 30th, we’ll be heading to the Christmas Market at 5pm for a bratwurst and some gift shopping. All are welcome!

Advent of Code

All throughout the month of December, we’ll be hosting a CSS leaderboard for the Advent of Code programming challenge (https://adventofcode.com/). Join us on Discord to compare ideas and trash-talk!

Christmas Meal

On Thursday 8th December, the annual CSS Christmas Meal returns at the Country Girl pub. Join us at the final event of the year for a delicious Christmas dinner!

Hope that all sounds good! Make sure to tell every single person you know 👀

Much love

- The CSS Committee