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Welcome Fair 2023!

The Welcome Fair is one of the biggest and most well attended events in the calendar year. It is a 1 day event which provides the opportunity for all of ICU students to showcase their community and for students to find out all about what they can sign up for. 

Key Information

When? Tuesday 3rd October 2023

Time? 11am - 5pm, set up & finish will be sent out to stallholders. 

Set up - from 9:30am! 

Where? South Kensington Campus

Guidance & Processes For CSPs

  • Step 1 - Sign Up For A Stall
    • Stalls are available for: All CSPs (Including Incubator Groups), Liberation Networks, Campaign Groups, Constituent Unions and Management Groups
       
    • To secure a stall at the welcome fair, the responsible committee members for the stall must read our Welcome Fair Terms and Conditions and submit a Welcome Fair Stall Request Form. 


    Welcome Fair Stallholder Terms and Conditions
    Welcome Fair Stall Request Form

    The Form for 2023/2024 is now open. Please submit the form by 1st September 2023. 
  • Step 2 - Plan Your Stall and Understand Our Rules

    The Welcome Fair Terms and Conditions outlines all of the expected behaviors for committee members. Every club and society must sign this to register for a stall at Welcome Fair 2022. The key things to remember are:

    • Maximum 2x committee members per stall at a time. This is to ensure there is enough space for all groups to attend the fair, and it is also intimidating to anyone approaching your stall if there are lots of people standing at it.
    • We cannot store anything for you overnight in our storage spaces. Please bring everything with you on the day.
    • No alcohol allowed at the Fair. 
    • You can only provide pre-packaged food. Please do not cook, bake or make your own food to give out to students. 
    • There will be Wi-Fi across the campus for you to use as normal.
    • We do not provide any power sockets or plugs. So, please ensure all electronic devices are fully charged.
    • Data Collection: You must not collect any personal data on your stall – this includes names, emails, phone numbers, photographs and social media account info. Please encourage students to sign up on the website to your mailing list. 
    • Please do not play any amplified music throughout the Fair and be respectful of the accessibility, quiet hour between 11am – 12pm
  • Step 3 - Committee Welcome Event - 30th September (Event Cancelled)

    This event has been cancelled and instead you will be receiving a digital information pack/briefing from the activities team if you have confirmed welcome fair stall.

    On Friday the 30th September, the Activities Team will be delivering an afternoon of updates and networking sessions for our CSP leaders. It is important that a minimum of 1 committee member from each committee attend as it is a condition of being given a welcome fair stall. We will release allocations to groups once they have attended the session. 

    There is more information on this to come but we will be running a welcome fair briefing, a networking space, a Meet and Greet with your new officers and a large scale drop-in to support CSPs with any last minute problems they need solving before term starts.

  • Step 4 - Your Schedule For The Day
    • Arrive from 10.00am-10:30am on the day your group has been allocated a stall. If you need access to a storage space, you have actioned this before the welcome fair as the Union Staff team will be unable to support you on the morning of.
    • Be respectful of the accessibility, quiet hour between 11am – 12pm
    • On your stall, you will be given 2x badges for the two committee members, there will be signage on your table that we will ask you to keep visible.
    • Set Your Stall Up by 11am ready to meet and greet students
    • Make sure you take breaks through out the day
    • At the end of the Fair (4pm) - Please clear away all rubbish from your stall and put in the bins provided. 
    • All Groups must be fully packed away by 5pm

Creating a Sustainable Welcome Fair

Creating a Sustainable ICU is a key priority, and it relies on us all working together to help cultivate a culture of sustainability on campus. Welcome Week has particular importance, as it is an opportunity to show students at the start of their ICU journey that we care about making decisions that do not damage our environment. 

  • Please avoid the use of any single-use plastic. If giving out freebies/incentives, try to think sustainably about your choices. Could you give out recycled pencils? 

  • We would recommend bringing laptops/iPads to the stand if you want to display any documents, images, or videos. 

  • Avoid printing/handouts where possible – we advise using a QR code that people can scan to find out more about your group.  

  • Try and decorate your stand with sustainable, reusable decorations, avoiding plastic confetti or disposable tablecloths. Purchasing a reusable tablecloth could be a clever idea, so you are covered for any future CSP (Clubs, Society and Project) event stands. Popular decorations that can be reused repeatedly include bunting, tassels, tissue pom poms and more. 

  • Avoid the use of balloons – the plastic waste from used balloons is more damaging for seabirds than hard plastic! 

Provide Food, Snacks & Refreshments

Our Clubs, Societies and Projects (CSPs) are allowed to provide light food, snacks and refreshments to other students attending the welcome fair. It is important however that this is only pre-packaged food. We will ensure if you have told us that you are providing any kind of food or refreshment that we will place an allergen poster on your stall that you must show at all times. You must also keep a list of the allergens that are in your food and refreshments so you can communicate them to members if asked to. 

 

CSP Stall Allocations

Stall allocations will be shown here once the submission form closes!

FAQs

  • How do I know my group has been allocated a stall?

    As long as you put a welcome fair stall request in, you will be given a stall. But just to reassure you, we will be drop a confirmation email to everyone who submitted a request. Make sure you do your core documentation and tasks though as we won't be able to allocate your group one until then!

  • I cant find my CSP on the Stall Allocation list.

    If your CSP is not on the above CSP stall allocation list its like you have not been allocated a space due to a late or no ‘welcome fair stall request’ form submission. You can still use the Welcome Week period to advertise your CSP via social media, or hold information events. But please ensure to submit an event form for these.

  • Are we having a digital welcome fair this year?

    The feedback from the digital welcome fair last year meant that the decision was taken to no longer provide a digital welcome fair. 

  • What specific items are we allowed or not allowed on our stall?

    There is a large range of things you can have on your stall, but ensuring they are safe is our priority. Rather than give you list of can's and cannot's please provide us with a list in your request form, we will review this and let you know. We will work with all groups to ensure they can deliver as close to what they want to as possible. Please see the above about food on stalls, any food that is no pre-packaged food will be removed from your stalls. 

  • I didn't submit a stall request form in time, is there anything that can be done?

    Unfortunately not, we will only be ordering the number of tables and chairs necessary for each group that requested a stall. 

  • My group can no longer attend the welcome fair, what should we do?

    Please drop an email to activities@imperial.ac.uk to let us know. 

  • In previous years there have been performances. Are there any this year?

    Over the past two years we have received feedback from CSPs and attendees of the fair that the way performances have been delivered is not effective and brings no added value to the welcome fair. We have decided to take a pause this year on providing this opportunity whilst we bring the fair back to basics, in the hopes that next year we will begin to develop what the welcome fair looks and feels like.