Recently we interviewed Jessica, the organiser of the very successful Dumfries Nursing Graduation Ball, to find out what it’s like organising such a big event and how it can impact your university life.

Can you give a little overview of what it was you did?
Yeah. So as part of the final year, we knew that we had our graduation ball coming up and we wanted to make it special and nice to remember. We've done some fundraising events throughout the year to make sure that goal was achievable. So firstly, I put a message in our Uni group chat to see who wanted to be part of it and then we made a group chat from that. People had lots of different ideas. We agreed that previous years our Union, bar and Greens, we so I spoke with them and. They offered to do like a race night, so we thought we could do that, but then that coincided with the raffle we were doing too. we spoke to a lot of.
Community areas and shops to see if we could get donations. we managed to gather quite a lot of prizes for a raffle that we held that night and that I think that was like the biggest thing we earned money from. We did a bake sale as well because There were quite a few keen bakers in our class.

How did the event itself go?
It was a really good night, actually. I think the lecture said it was one of the best ones that they have been to in the past. But yeah, I think because we had all that planning time then we had the support of you guys with putting in the additional funding and stuff like that as well. I think we managed to cover a lot of things like the ticket price, but we definitely managed to add a lot more things to the event form what I think previous years have just because we had that extra funding and the fundraising that we had done as well. We just tried to keep it affordable for everybody. We did have good numbers as well and a lot of people brought plus ones.

What do you think other people thought about the event?
I think everybody had a good night. Everybody stayed till the end, so I always think that's a good sign as well. It was nice because we held it at the Easterbrook as well where we’re graduating and then we were back there for our ball as well. it was quite nice, but I think everybody was overall pleased and nobody had any sort of complaints about the ball or the venue itself. We mentioned on the night that we couldn't have done it without everybody helping with their fundraising and all their effort as well. I know it is challenging and within nursing you do get a bit of a divide with a lot of older and younger students who are a bit different, but in trying to please everybody, I think overall it went well. 

How did you make the final decision of where the ball took place and other bits and bobs?
So originally, we booked a place that wasn’t really what we were looking for and then we came to you guys and with your support we were able to sort out what we were doing and how to go about arranging stuff. I think it would have been very difficult if we didn't have that support. For making decisions for everything else we sort of just done it through polls in group chats and messages. I saw everybody was in agreeance with staff, so I just used that information, put it into a spreadsheet, and saw what we could afford. I asked everyone what about their ideas and what they would like, but I did probably make the final decision based on everyone’s interests. I think without that final decision, you would never come to a conclusion if you were to wait on everybody answers. but I've not had anybody complain, which is a good sign.

How did you find doing all of the different fundraisers along with your uni and placements?
It was like quite challenging. It was hard to coordinate everybody to bring in all their prizes for the raffle and things like that. But overall, I think we work quite well and the uni were very supportive of us doing stuff to organise the event. They allowed us time out of class to set up for a bake sale and to run it and stuff like that. Alongside that, we sold the raffle tickets and everyone in the committee helped with all of these activities.

For yourself, what do you think you've gained from being the person organising the event?
I really enjoy organising things and taking the lead on projects so I would say I’ve probably gotten some more leadership skills out of this. I think this has definitely brought everyone involved closer together. We did a lot of decorating and things like that as well. We did all the chairs DIY because that was like an extra £300 if we were to buy new ones. looking at things in a bit more detail was very helpful and was needed to see what we actually needed.

what sort of impact do you think it’s had on your unique experience as a whole now that you've finished and graduated.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed my experience, and I think it summed up our night. It’s quite sad that we’re not all together anymore but I think you need to have that big kind of sendoff for when your finished uni. We tried to use local suppliers within the area that was a fun idea as well.

Do you have any advice that you give other students who'd be looking to organise and another ball?
Initiate as early as you can and find out who all wants to be involved in trying to form that committee. You could put out a questionnaire to your year to get feedback on what they would be looking for in a ball or end of year activity. There was about 12 or 13 of us on the committee, but it can be quite hard to keep it to a small group. try and listen to everybody's ideas. You’ve got to be quite strong minded sensible to not get swept away in all of the different ideas that are thrown at you. You need to judge what’s realistic for you to achieve and for what other people would actually enjoy. Organisation is the biggest thing for creating an event like this. Somebody does need to take the lead and I but having the committee is important because I felt like I wasn't alone trying to get everything done by myself. I think you've got to be proactive about hosting the event but as long as you start doing things early you should be able to get thing sorted.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when doing this?
probably people being indecisive and not knowing what they would like to do. Along with that having to take the lead and having a large responsibility to make sure it all work out. I think the money situation was made easier by you guys because you had it all and the onus wasn’t entirely on me, but I needed to make sure that it all worked as well. people did probably put a lot of trust in me. But yeah, that's probably one of the biggest challenges.

What was your favourite bit about all of it?
I just love Pinterest and stuff like creating ideas. I think it's quite satisfying. At the end of the day everybody enjoyed the night And I think that it felt quite wholesome everybody being together and stuff. But no, that was probably the most sort of satisfying thing is just like things falling into place. It was good to see initially at the start ticket numbers weren't the best, but then we did improve When people get a little push. There was a bit of money left over from previous years so that was a good starting point for us. It's quite nice incentive to get them started and I was very mindful of the money we were using because I didn't want to make it that it was £20 left for the next group to come organise the event.

In your opinion, why should students who are thinking of setting up similar events take the lead in organising them?
I think it is a really good thing for somebody to do. It gives them a lot of experience, like if they're not really used to organising anything. It does bring the cohort a lot closer, but I think it's more You feel privilege that you've organised something like that, that you've had the responsibility of organising something. it feels worthwhile when you know that everything's went well and everybody's had a good night. the end goal is good life experience.

Any other thoughts at all about now that it's all gone, that or just your Union general now that you’re finished?
I think you're like overall everything went fine and I would recommend organising things a bit earlier. One thing I would say though is that we didn't really know the support that we could get from you guys So I don't know whether the Uni can maybe incorporate something to inform us of what you guys offer.

A huge thank you to Jessica for giving us an amazing insight into what it takes to organise an amazing event such as this!

If you fancy finding out more about the Dumfries Nursing society, you can get your information here: Dumfries Nursing

You can also check out a list of all our wonderful societies here: https://www.uwsunion.org.uk/societies/societies/

Here are some more pictures form the event!