Warwick RAG wins Society of the Year

Warwick’s annual Societies Awards returned on June 25, with Warwick RAG winning “Society of the Year” at the ceremony, held at the Vox Conference Centre in Birmingham.

As well as “Society of the Year”, there were a further nine categories, alongside awards for Individual Contribution.

For this year’s awards, a brand new new category entitled “Warwick Wildcard” was introduced to recognise creative and unique achievements not covered in the other criteria, with the inaugural prize being given to Mind Aware.

Warwick Tap saw multiple successes after winning both “Best Society Under 100 Members” and “Best Society Event” due to Pizazz 2016, whilst Panto society and EQHO won for “Best New Society” and “Most Improved Society”, respectively.

“Best Campaign of the Year” went to UNICEF for their #ChildrenOfSyria campaign whilst Warwick Economics Summit saw success in the “Best Summit, Conference or Forum” category.

Warwick Pole won “Most Inclusive Society”, and “Most Innovative Fundraising Initiative” went to Effective Altruism.

A total of three individual contribution awards were also awarded to Matthew Bennett, Natalie Haslam and Hiran Adhia, all of whom led society execs this year.

Warwick Pole, Music Theatre Warwick, and Warwick Salsa all also performed at the ceremony, which had members of the Sabbatical Team and university staff – including Registrar Ken Sloane – present.

Outgoing Warwick RAG President Farrah Burke said: “Becoming society of the year has honestly been a dream come true.”

“This year we pushed every single boundary which has all resulted in a projected fundraising total of £650,000 – almost double of that raised last year!”

Natalie Haslam, outgoing President of Warwick Tap, the receiver of two awards, commented: “We were extremely surprised and overwhelmed to have come away with multiple awards”

She added: “Tap has had an incredible year, making a society work is such a team effort and all of the exec have worked incredibly hard this year.”

Societies Officer, George Creasy, said that this year an “unprecedented number of society applications of an incredibly high quality” were received.

George added that “it has been an honour working with so many talented people this year.”