It’s been a fantastic year for HackSoc. We’ve done so many things and had a great time! The elections are now complete and it’s time to hand over to a new committee…

Summary of the year

We’ve done alot this year, including attending many hackathons, running many tech talks from members and guests and engaging with the wider community. In summary we have done the following:

  • Fresher’s Fayre (2x) and Employability Street: We attended freshers fair twice and an employability fair put on by the University in order to show people at university what we do as a society.
  • TechFest (2x): We ran two hybrid conference style events with tech talks and Pizza in order to engage with our members and see what sort of events they wanted us to put on this year.
  • TechNottingham (many): We went to the monthly tech meetups with members of the nottingham tech community.
  • Intro to Python sessions (many): We ran very successful introduction to programming sessions which taught non-programmers the basics of Python.
  • TechTalks (from members and guests): We had talks from Goldman Sachs, Esendex, LifeSciences and many talks from members of the society on topics ranging from Git, the use of Microframeworks to DataMining with Spark.
  • HackNotts and WiT!: Not to forget the elephant in the room, we ran 2 very successful events in the form of a large Hackathon HackNotts and the Women In Technology conference.

Jamie helping out at our local hack day!

What does it all mean?

  • Record Member numbers: HackSoc has had the largest intake so far with 172* members! This is the most the society has ever had. We are now regarded as a large society in the grand scheme of the students union, this is fantastic and we will definitely be doing more stuff with the University in the future.
  • Low attrition rates: We have also had the lowest attrition rates so far for the regular events we run (including the tech talks and guest speakers) which is fantastic. On average we have had 15 people at each regular event, with record highs in the first 2 weeks and moreso around special events such as HackNotts and Women In Technology.
  • Engaging with the Real World: As a society we began to engage more with the local technology community which is something we didn’t real do before. This involved going to the monthly meetups with TechNottingham and also specific events including mobileNotts and Hack24 (next week). This was an important goal of mine as I wanted to build the community both within the university and expand it to the wider one.
  • Spread the love: This has been the second year that MLH has existed in the EU and HackSoc has been to many of the hackathons this year, including BrumHack, HackLondon, Hack The Holidays, StudentHack, HackCambridge and of course running HackNotts! As a result, we came 6th in the MLH EU standings for the fall season. This is great for a society of our size and shows that we definitely deserve our place in the hacking community!
  • Address all the issues!: This year we have been quite successful with some of the events we have run which have aimed to address some of the important issues in the tech industry and further afield. Notably, We ran an MLH Local Hack Day here at the university which was an attempt to dispell myths about hacking and allow people from all over the east midlands to have a go at hacking and Women in Technology which aimed to discuss the issues surrounding the repesentation of Women in the Tech industry.

*This is accurate as of 10/03/2016

Tim and Gregor from MLH doing the live stream!

Constititution Changes

We’ve also voted on some changes to the constitution, these include:

  • Some old roles have been removed, including Corporate Relations, Web Secretary and Equipment Secretary.
  • New roles have been proposed including, Outreach and Inclusivity Secretary & Infrastructure Secretary.
  • The responsibilities of Corporate relations have been merged into the role of President.
  • Amendments to the role of Hack Secretary include the addition of the responsibility of organising HackNotts. This change has been changed to reflect recent changes of responsibility throughout the year.
  • Clause 1.14 has been modified to change the conditions upon which a member of the society may run for the role of President in the elections. More specifically, to be elegible to run as the President of the society, a candidate must either be a former member of the committee or have attended 3 national hackathons and the current presidential candidate is running unnopposed.
  • Name Change for the role of Graphics and Publications to Graphics and Publications Secretary.

The new constitution can be found here

Rich and his stickers!

Election Results

I’m pleased to announce the new HackSoc committee for the following year is as follows:

  • President: Richard Davies
  • Treasurer: Jonathan Dilks
  • General Secretary(s): Bety Mehide and Benjamin Charlton
  • Hack Secretary: Gregor Engelmann
  • Outreach and Inclusivity Secretary: Amy Dickens
  • Infrastructure Secretary: Casper Oakley
  • Graphics and Publications Secretary: Houman Brinjcargorabi

These roles are in line with the new constitution (above) which was voted in favour with a majority yesterday before the elections took place.

I’m confident these folks will do a fantastic job in keeping the society going as one of the most active and most awesome! It’s been a fantastic year and I am proud to have been part of it, thank you all for your support and advice!

Thanks

Luke Geeson, Outgoing President

So long, farewell, here's to another year!

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