Epic snowball fight planned

A university wide snowball fight is being planned to make the most of early snow flurries. A Facebook group titled ‘The Snowball Fight’ was created by final-year student Paul Bell. He commented, “every year I have been here it has snowed heavily” and he intends the event to be “the biggest snowball fight of your life”.

According to the BBC, recent snowfalls have been the earliest on record since 1993. More than twelve inches of snow has fallen in parts of South East England, with the Met Office issuing weather warnings for the East Midlands, Yorkshire and North East England. A quarter of schools nationwide were closed on Thursday and Gatwick airport halted flights until Friday morning. Bell created the Facebook event so that when sufficient snowfall arrives on campus “we can get everything in place and send a message” informing those of the event which, scheduled up to May, could last as long as the snow lasts.

The Facebook group received more than a thousand members in a day and a half, and currently has a further 1,400 people still awaiting reply. At time of publication, 2,410 students are planning to attend, and Bell observed that even “if ten percent come, we have got two hundred people, which would be incredible”. Andrew Cho, a first year management student commented, “I’ve had plenty of snowball fights in Sweden, so I won’t be attending, but it has the potential to be epic.” Nick Britain said, “I’m indifferent as having lived in Brussels I am bored of snowball fights – and I can’t throw very well.” However, international student Kuok-Ming Soh plans to attend as “in Singapore we don’t have snow so it will be a novel opportunity.”

The snowball fight will be held outside the Zeeman Maths building due to its large, central and well-known location. Bell added that “the big flat field is ideal”, and advised those attending to wear “gloves, socks, and lots of padding, or maybe a snowman costume if you want to blend in”. Warwick sports societies have been contacted and asked to wear hoodies to distinguish between “friends and foes”, and Bell hopes the event will see sufficient mayhem to install it as a “yearly tradition”. He added to those unsure of whether to attend that “if you want to spend time in your lecture, you need to rethink”.