#cspass

The new PASS Coordinators have been decided upon for the next academic year, so all of you leaders next year, these people will be your first port of call for all things PASS-related.

Current leader Devin Ridgway will be bringing his wealth of experience, from his two years as a leader, to lead PASS1 in the final year of his MEng degree. Joining him in taking the reigns from Sarah and Dan will be George Vanburgh, currently on placement at Credit Suisse in London.

Devin’s current PASS co-leader, Liam Breeze, will be taking over PASS2, from Becky and Matt, in his third year. His Co-coordinator will be CM student David Green, who currently works with George at Credit Suisse.

Given the great working relationship that the four already possess, I can only imagine CS PASS moving from strength to strength in 2015/16.

Las week, the Kilburn Building played host to the first inter-PASS Scheme Games night of the Year. The Challengers: Aerospace Engineering.

The night included many a game, starting off with various card games, and ice-breakers, allowing everyone to get to know one another.

Then the real competition began.

CS and Aerospace would each face each other in a whole assortment of games. A few of the notable results:

Aerospace's Fred and Ibrahim beat out Hugh and Zac of CS PASS in a best out of 3 FIFA 15 contest, winning 5-0 on aggregate

Team CS beat Team Aerospace in the opening contest of Articulate

Team Aerospace beat Team CS in a inter-disciplinary game of Cards Against Humanity, after a tie-breaker

In addition to the games, each scheme provided a challenge for the other:

CS were challenged to land a plane from a mountainous terrain to an island runway. After a few near-misses, and (in some cases) crashes, we finally landed the tiny biplane.

Aerospace had two mini challenges: the first, was a virtual maze delivered through Dan Underwood's pride and joy, the Oculus Rift. The next part was a quest in a real life maze: The Kilburn. The visitors were quickly able to complete it, earning 5 points towards the rankings.

By the end of the night, our Aerospace visitors were the victors narrowly beating the hosts. However, we do believe the football mantra: There is always a return leg.

Tis the Season to Facilitate. This week in PASS we did things a little differently. Usually the first year cohort is divided into tutorial groups and we cover what each group needs individually. This week the cohort was divided by problem groups. So each subject had a group devoted to solving their issues and questions regarding that subject, ideally with a Christmas theme.

Exceptional Leaders Will and Gaurav take their PASS Group through a problem

It made for a fairly popular session, with all the rooms buzzing with activity. The Computer Science and Maths group, never known for having a quiet week, got into the Christmas spirit very early on

Christmas themed activities were planned, such as the maths-orientated '12 Problems of Christmas', designing a web system to monitor Santa's Little Helpers, Yule Based Predicate Logic and Santa's Software Design. However, being as adaptable as ever, the Leaders made sure to put the needs of their PASS Group first, and covered the topics that they had issues with.

The many different activities going on the Collab this week - from presentations, to designs, to past papers

Name: Liam Breeze

Nickname: Liam

PASStory: I benefited from PASS last year, and had lots of food!! Currently I am a first time PASS leader, giving away lots of food 

How do you think PASS has gone for you so far?: Yeah, PASS seems to be going well this year. The cookies I bring to the sessions have gone down a storm and I'm sure I've been of some help to others.

Is there anything that you would hope to improve on in the sessions to come?: I would like to have more structured PASS sessions, for a more useful experience, and lots more food!

What are you most impressed/surprised about this year with PASS?: I'm surprised by how much I enjoy being a PASS leader. I mean I knew I'd enjoy it, but not this much.

This week, we posed the questions to the Students As Partners Sabbatical Interns to find out how they think Computer Science PASS have done so far this year, what we do well in, and what can we do to make it one of the best in the entire University.

1) What do you think about the way that Computer Science PASS has kicked off the year this year? 

"Computer Science has kicked off with a bang, they are ready to make a strong impact on Peer Support in Manchester!"

"I loved the idea of the PASS Leader socials!"

2) How do you feel our coordinators have organised PASS so far? 

"The coordinators have done a great job of getting everyone involved with a range of socials and engaging in creativity activities with their Leaders. All the leaders are very active and involved with what is going on, which is always great to see."

"The coordinators are BRILLIANT – I like how they always have registers printed out, and how they are always around when PASS is happening so that they are available to answer any questions or if there’s any help needed."

"The level of engagement that the Computer Science Coordinators have had with peer support this year has been great. I’ve loved getting to hear what Computer Science have been up to through their weekly email and newsletter contributions."

3) What do you reckon are CS PASS' biggest strengths this year?

"The friendly and approachable leaders and coordination team."

"Their biggest strengths are in their leaders. They all are working together and helping each other out to grow as a scheme and continue to improve."

4) Where do you feel that CS PASS can improve in the next semester and a half?

"Make sure they try out the facilitation debrief that has been created by the sabbaticals, which is designed to develop PASS leaders key skills including use of wait time, redirecting questions and checking for understanding."

"I think some (but not all..) CS PASS leaders are a bit low on the creative side- it may feel like they are restricted due to the nature of the content- but there’s definitely ways to get around this!"

"CS PASS need to make sure that they hammer home the idea of facilitation and not teaching. If they continue to get all their Leaders involved and with some help from Annabelle I am sure they will have a strong second semester as well!"

5) Have there been any good ideas from CS PASS that have noticed, while observing CS PASS Sessions?

"I really like the way the PASS groups are in rooms together, it creates a lot of energy in the rooms."

6) Any final remarks to the Leaders/Coordinators in Computer Science

"I’ve loved meeting the coordinators at various training. I especially enjoyed seeing them work with other coordinators at the debrief training and the great story they came up with. Dan was great when he acted as the storyteller and shared the epic tale with the rest of the attendees."

This week (5/11/14) in PASS Debrief, we had several guests, consisting of Sabbatical Interns and International Visitors, who participated in the activities that Dan had prepared for us.

The first - entitled Silent Charades (a Chinese Whispers-Charades hybrid) - involved one member of each team being told a phrase to act out to one other member of the team, who than had to propagate that message down the chain in a similar fashion. The phrase, chosen by renowned feline-lover Dan Underwood, was 'A cat bathing itself'