UKTSU hosted its Semi-Annual Dinner on Saturday 13^th November 2010 at the Wilkins Old Refectory, UCL. The purpose of this event was to provide an opportunity for Tamil students from the current academic year’s Tamil Society committee and others representing various other universities without a Tamil Society, to meet and network. Attending universities included Arts London, Brunel, City, Greenwich, Hertfordshire, Imperial, London Metropolitan, London Southbank, Oxford, Portsmouth, Queen Mary, Roehampton, SOAS, Surrey, UCL and Warwick.

 

Our hosts for the night, Helen Jeyakumar and Laxman Pararajasingam, welcomed all our guests and the evening was commenced following a minute silence to commemorate those we lost in the war in our homeland. This was followed by introduction of each of the guests and a game of identifying celebrity name labels affixed to their backs by getting the members on their table to describe them. Each table also had a celebrity couple they had to identify. The interactive game allowed the guests to warm up to each other and have a good laugh!

The history and function of UKTSU was then presented by Nanthan Nathan and the idea of UKTSoc and the ways in which the societies can work together were also established by Pratheepan Subramaniam. A musical entertainment then followed where Helen and Timothy on vocal and guitar, respectively, gave beautiful performances.

 

The highlight of the evening was the game of charades! The celebrity couple from each of the tables took it in turn to play and it certainly provided a lot of amusement for the guests.

The latter part of the evening consisted of a scrumptious dinner and dessert. The guests happily mingled with each other. The Tamil Societies were also provided with an opportunity to promote their events.

Ensuing dinner, the most important aspect of UKTSU was addressed where the guests were informed about UKTSU’s cause; The Mannar Orphanage. The purpose of the presentation by Selvan Gnankumaran, was to gain support from fellow Tamil students as this is a student cause where UKTSU is present as a registered charity organisation to channel the efforts directly and transparently. The message seemed to have reached most of the guests as some expressed interest in supporting the cause and we will hopefully see some university Tamil Societies contributing donations to the cause in the future. Further to the presentation, some of the members shared their personal experience of visiting the children at the orphanage this year. The ‘Sponsor A Child’ project was also launched amongst the students with Judy Sharanya Aloyscious being the first to sign up.

The thought-provoking aspect of the evening was then followed by a 3^rd round of game where one member from each of the tables had to speak in full Tamil for 30 seconds. The winning tables were then entered into the final round of games where a member representing each of the 2 tables had to pop as many balloons as possible without using both of their hands together. The winning table had guests from Imperial, Oxford and Greenwich and was presented with a large box of chocolates. The evening was concluded on a high note with the chocolates being shared amongst the rest of the guests, and many of the guests signing up to UKTSU and its cause! The PR2 Dinner organising committee of UKTSU would like to give a special mention and a huge thank you to the very hardworking UKTSU members who contributed during the run up to the evening and on the evening, to make it a success!