Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

If you're an avid reader of Sam's blog, you'll already know that last Friday was Serendipity 2 day.

Serendipity 2 has always been a good idea that didn't really work in practise. The Christmas before last I spent my whole Christmas holiday daydreaming about what I could do to make it better. I hired a rodeo sheep and a candyfloss machine and publicised it an awful lot, and people came along and had a nice time.

So the pressure was on for this year to keep it up. But the Governance Review and running the elections has taken up an awful lot of time lately, and I really didn't put as much time and effort into publicising it. The day before Serendipity I started getting a bit panicky because there just didn't seem to be much of a vibe about the place. Nobody was talking about it, the media room wasn't full of clubs and societies preparing their wares, and I had a horrible feeling nobody was going to come along.

On the morning I didn't feel much better, especially when the majority of stallholders hadn't turned up by 10:45, 15 minutes before it opened to the public.

But around 11:30 it all started to come together. Academi started to fill up, people started getting competitive about the bungee run, and the ice-cream van belatedly turned up and started serving up deliciousness.

What's nice about Serendipity 2 is that people aren't stressing about roping in loads of members. Sure, you might get a few, but it's more about raising your profile generally. So we got the Art Society face-painting, the Indian Society doing henna drawing thingies on people's hands, the Fencing Club fencing, BUGS sitting outside in a tent, and Circus Skills juggling to their hearts content.

I think I'm going to recommend to my successor that they push this angle even more next year, getting everyone to add to the party-like atmosphere, so it's almost a carnival, not a recruitment ground.

It wasn't until it was all over that I realised that was my last shot at Serendipity. Very sad, it's like leaving school or putting your favourite toy or dress or something away in the attic.

Oh, and it didn't snow in the end.