The 2019 President of the Members' Executive, Bronté Chamberlain, warmly welcomed all Members at the College's Welcome Afternoon Tea on Sunday, 17 February. Her speech is below, including many photos of Members enjoying themselves during arrival weekend.
"I’ve already had the opportunity to chat to many of you over the past day or so but to those of you I haven’t, and to the wider St Margaret's community I would like to formally introduce myself.
My name is Bronté Chamberlain and I am the president of the 2019 Exec. The Exec or Executive Committee are a group of enthusiastic returners elected by our peers, to be in charge of the social atmosphere here at St Margaret's.
We have spent the past 10 days intensely planning for the year ahead which we hope you will look forward to it as much as we are!
It is almost exactly a year a ago that I stood where all of you do now with a sort of nervous excitement about what the year ahead would hold but I can tell you now you are all in for a treat. My first year at uni was one of my greatest experiences from the people I meet to the activities we did and the lessons we learnt. Both in the lecture theatres and in the laundry room.
I know you will all look around now and see many new faces but I promise it won’t be long till you are all going to tutorials in your pjs. Margs will become a second home to you all and when you go home or go flatting, you will miss the constant buzz, it will feel weird to eat breakfasts alone and you will get looks of shock when you enquire about dinner at 5:15.
You will only get out of this year what you put into in and I promise both the university and St Margaret's have a lot to give. So dive in head first and give everything a go be cause there will never be a better time to do it than with 150 other people by your side who are going through the same thing.
I was recently walking around Wellington with a friend and we came across a quote that we thought summed up our first year quite well: "Maybe it won’t work out but maybe seeing if it does will be the best adventure ever". And that I can promise
Because just as St Marg's looked after me, it will also look after you. I hope you all enjoy the BBQ and your O-week as freshers and I look forward to seeing you all around so have fun and good luck.
I know my room is a bit of a hike away up on CD but feel free to pop in to mine, or any of the Exec's rooms over the next couple of weeks for a chat and introduce yourselves and we may have chocolate in return."
(Speech by Bronté Chamberlain, President of the 2019 Exec)
