A constant crush of students packed the Union Building link at the University of Otago yesterday, as clubs from circus performing to tramping, ice hockey to sceptics, did their best to sign them up.
The Otago Daily Times visited and found out what the clubs had to offer.
Fiji Club Spokeswoman: Ate Cikamatana (21), first-year health science student.
‘‘We're pretty much just a group of Fijians in Dunedin trying to unite all the Fijians from around New Zealand that come down here, because we're a very small group, so we try to keep everyone in touch.
‘‘The club has been going for about 10 years, and there is no sign-up fee.
‘‘We do fundraising for what we want to do during the year, if we want to do something fun.
‘‘We usually have an inter-uni every year. All the Fijian associations around New Zealand will come together and have a sports weekend and cultural night.''
Society of Rationalists, Atheists and Skeptics Spokesman: Duncan Ross (24), biochemistry masters student.
‘‘We are a social group; we meet every fortnight and have a discussion about some aspect of rationalism, or scepticism, or atheism, or religion or something like that.
‘‘Our next meeting is about euthanasia and the right to die.
‘‘We'll have a discussion for an hour and a-half or a couple of hours, and try to come to some kind of consensus, gather everybody's viewpoints and figure out what people think.
‘‘We go out for drinks afterwards.
‘‘It's the idea of looking at the world, think about it, look at evidence and make up your mind about what's actually going on based on the evidence that you've found.
‘‘We have anywhere between 15 and 40 people showing up.
‘‘We're just a bunch of friendly people who like having a discussion about things.''
Dunedin Fire and Circus Club Spokeswoman: Adele Cleverley (26), second-year geology student.
‘‘We've been around for just over the last 20 years.
‘‘We offer beginner to advanced classes in just about everything circus-related.
‘‘We have unicycling, stilt-walking, hula-hooping, club juggling, diablo ... anything that you feel like.
‘‘We're a lovely community full of like-minded individuals who like to inspire and grow our community around us.
‘‘We tend to attract a very, very wide group of people, so we end up with people from all walks of life.
‘‘Club numbers are anywhere upwards of 30.''
Atom Spokesman: Cameron Toogood (21), third-year medical student and neuroscience graduate.
‘‘Atom is previously the Science Community of Otago, so we're the science club at Otago.
‘‘We're doing outreach. We're hoping to go work in high schools as well, get volunteering going there, so that we can help kids find a passion for themselves in science, or open to new things at university, or see new options.
‘‘One of the things we did last year was Let's Talk Science.
'‘We got professors out of their respective caves and teaching areas and got them in a big theatre and got them talking to students.‘‘We're hoping to do that sort of thing again.
‘‘The important thing for us is sharing the passion and the creativity and the excitement we've got as well.''
