Cambridge Societies’ Fair – why can’t we have one?

I would like Cambridge to have one sometime in 2025 – perhaps once the mayoral elections are out of the way. The concept is simple: Do what the students do every year, but for ‘town’ (and county too!) And for those of you who want to be even more active (but avoid the politics), see the Rebel Badge Club who are coming to Cambridge in April! (Hence the image!)

“What is a ‘Freshers’ Fair’ for those of us that didn’t go to university?”

Good question. It’s a big event organised (normally) by the students union of the university concerned. Think of it like going to a fair ground where different people have got different stalls and attractions for people to try – only this time the stalls are run by the many different student societies.

“Such as…”

In October 2024 the University of Cambridge hired a huge marquee on Parker’s Piece (as they do every year) and invite their member societies to hold stalls where newly-arrived first years – ‘freshers’ – can find out about the societies and groups organised in the university city.

Above – from CambridgeSU – have a browse

“What might a Cambridge Societies’ Fair be like?”

First of all, this is different to the Volunteer for Cambridge events the city council hosted in the 2010s. <<– See the video medley from 2016!

I first wrote about it back in 2012 on my old blog here. Over 12 years later…exactly. It should have been something put on for our city as part of the post-lockdown recovery, not least because so many groups struggled to reform afterwards. I don’t know if anyone has done an audit/survey of who closed down as a result.

Back in 2023 I also pondered the idea of something similar with evening classes and sports classes, but given that everything is run on a shoestring here, the participating institutions end up hosting their own much smaller scale events in-house. I’m of the view that because Cambridge has grown so much in recent decades, we can no longer carry on doing things in the way that might have been more suitable when we had a much smaller population. Furthermore, with the overhaul of local government looming, we’ve got to come up with some solutions on how to inform a critical mass of our population so they can scrutinise and suggest improvements to whatever the Government proposes.

Getting to those ‘hard to reach’ groups

To which I always wonder why institutions find it difficult to reach the people who they say are really important to them. To give you an idea of how diverse the activities and societies are, here are just a couple from two of the four themed groups.

Above – from CambridgeSU Freshers’ Fair 2024

My point being is that if you create an event on a large enough scale, have it properly advertised, and make it easy to access especially by public transport, people will turn up – if anything by word-of-mouth from the groups who have stalls booked. And that variety will bring variety. In Coleridge Ward last month on a cold December evening not many people came along to a community action event that actually had a reasonable amount of publicity from both council and volunteers. But then how many people would go along to such an event (or even want to step outside) on a cold December evening?

“Why? Why a Cambridge Societies’ Fair? What problems will it help solve?”

There is always the small risk that either no one will turn up (for whatever reason), or that even if people turn up, it won’t actually lead to anything substantially different. The latter was one reason why the Volunteer-4-Cambridge events were cancelled: the number of people signing up to volunteer for things did not get near the targets.

But, if you can accept and mitigate for that risk, then the potential benefits include:

• My proposed venue is The Junction – which also allows for use of the outdoor space on the Leisure Park. This allows the venue to advertise its shows and sign up member supporters, helping it become more financially sustainable (and enabling more people to find out not just about its shows but community activities for young people too)
• For sports societies it potentially increases the number of people getting active socially – because having the personal invitation and the personal conversation makes much more of a difference than social media posts. That then makes their societies more active, vibrant and financially sustainable, and improves the health of the individuals getting involved
• For hobby societies – in particular the less well-known ones, it may help some people with niche interests who might otherwise struggle to socialise, to find a group of people who have multiple shared interests – noting that some of our civic institutions (eg The Cambridge Museum of Technology) co-exist with societies that use their facilities, in their case the Cambridge Industrial Archaeology Society
• Social groups help newly-arrived residents settle in – vitally important for a city such as ours that has a very high turnover of population and very high costs of living (thus making socialising more expensive than it should be)
• Social groups help longtime residents such as myself get to know those new residents moving in – essential for community cohesion in a city that has changed significantly in the lifetimes of the longterm residents.
• Existing societies can find out about new venues – especially those being built as a result of the expansion of Cambridge, thus making community venues more financially sustainable (and beneficial for the communities seeing them used too)
• It creates a forum/space for the public to suggest ideas for new groups/activities to be formed/undertaken for which we do not currently have
• It creates an informal space for councillors, politicians, and campaign groups to meet the public in a non-confrontational environment – it’s not a public debating space. (These things normally work better after an election!)

Whether such an event will go ahead has never really been in my gift. It’s up to people in the institutions to make things happen. That said, I’m trying something locally that will hopefully result in a neighbourhood level summer event in Coleridge similar to, but perhaps with more attractions there than in previous years. (See here and scroll down). Part of the challenge is being able to meet regularly but not have every meetup being one that’s in a poorly-heated community room with a dry agenda and a committee! (Which is perhaps where branding things as ‘voluntary sector’ can be problematic.)

Stir Cafe, The Old Swiss, Sunday 12 Jan 2025 from 2.30pm A few of us will be there looking at what the documents say on the future of Cambridge.

Hence experimenting with a series of hyper-local-to-me small gatherings over the next few months on a fortnightly basis under our long-lost TeaCambs name – the first gathering being on Sunday 12 Jan 2025 from 2:30pm at the new Stir Cafe on Cherry Hinton Road where the Swiss Laundry used to be. It’s nothing complicated, just me saying I’ll be there (probably with Puffles as having a large cuddly dragon by the table makes it so much easier for people to spot the group) and will bring with me some print outs, maps, and diagrams from council meetings and government consultations that will affect our area. Such as East West Rail’s proposals for Cambridge Railway Station.

A reminder of the social movement we had in Cambridge in the summer of 2019

I wrote this at a time when the city was alive with activity on all things climate emergency – driven mainly by the children and teenagers to their credit. It was also a time of a very unstable Conservative minority government. Then the general election happened followed by the pandemic outbreak, and…it’s heartbreaking. I’m not going to claim that anything will come from a small group of people having a Sunday afternoon coffee at a local cafe every fortnight, or a glass of wine next door at the wine shop in a similar frequency. This is just me doing something within walking distance of where I live, and that it’s up to others to decide if they want to do similar for their patch. The bit I can help with are links to documents and print-outs for people to discuss (such as the Cambridge Station proposal map/diagram at item 6, Appendix A, Route Section 8 here), but given my not great health I can’t travel far and run sessions on the other side of town. As with the climate protests of 2019, it has to be decentralised and hyper-local.

Anyway, I’ll be at Stir at the Old Swiss on Sunday from 2.30pm. If you’re in the neighbourhood, feel free to pop in. (A couple of the councillors and politicians said they’d pop in).

If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to:

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