Visit Socbridge for our and others' Society Stalls open All Year Round! Including timetable of Squashes All Year Round. And a timetable of Meetings for Greeting Newcomers and Beginners All Year Round.

Newsflash If you really want to find a soc that is particularly welcoming of you, you might find something from the following menu to work out. The need for finding societies along such lines has gone up a lot with the COVID crisis' lockdowns. This includes because of many other societies ceasing to have the means to meet regularly, or to have figured out how to change activities to the remote setting in a sufficiently appealing way to get new members. You're furthermore welcome to briefly discuss your search for such a soc with us (The CakeFaeries).

At present, societies can be found -with useful information attached as regards what kind of people they contain, what kind of community they form, and to what extent they are places of relaxation or of support- in the following four places.

By way of explanation, almost all societies functional components are their webpages, their email lists and their social media accounts. Almost all socieities have at least one of webpage or social media, and almost all communicate about events and how to get involved via at least one of email lists and social media. And so five great concentrations of such resources can be found in the following places.

1) Webpage listing societies' UCS (university computer service) email lists, Raven log-in.

2) Webpage listing societies' srcf (student-run computing facility) email lists, accessible to people at Cambridge by logging in by Raven and to many Cantabs by logging in instead using Goose.

3) Webpage listing many societies' srcf website links, again accessible via Raven or Goose.

4) Almost all of you will find that your own College has its own registered societies, very often listed on a particular webpage with suitable links.

Googling for 'College Name' + Societies will usually reveal which webpage a given College has. With a bit more time (and maybe some volunteers offering help) we will compile a list of these here.

For now, here are Trinity's and Emma's :)

5) Starting in around 2011, entirely social media based societies started to appear, and there is a fair amount of evidence that Generation Z people prefer these. Noting moreover that these seldom have 'official registration' (because who are a bunch of older folks to 'license' how we Gen-Z people associate), the time is surely long past for compiling a searchable list of such societies, clubs and groups. So we make a start on this below. As this list grows, names to search will be converted into links (in the meanwhile, use 'Name below' + 'Facebook' to quickly find any unlinked ones), and perhaps some other group will host a page of such links that we link to here. For now, a sample of what societies of this kind have to offer are in section IV below.

This said, as a matter of urgency in this the third term blighted by the COVID-19 Pandemic, we turn to our usual task of recommending more specifically Safer Space Societies and Lighter Hearted Societies!

I. LIST OF SAFER SPACES THAT ARE ALSO LIGHTER-HEARTED SOCIETIES

[Safer Spaces are Places where personal abuse is guaranteed not to be tolerated, which a number of people may at some stage very much desire.]

1. Our own Safer Space Providing Organization provides the following Safer Spaces

* GIVEN by CakeFaeries Site . . . Mailing list . We are the providers of Surprise Cake, Kindly Notes and Silly Notes :) This is mostly based on small local Bakings, and on individual or small-group "Raids" to distribute the Cake to those who sign up asking for it :) Cake can go to whichever you ask for out of rooms, pigeonholes or lighter-hearted society meetings... Most of our events are moreover run by the following further types of CakeFaeries...

* The Silly CakeFaeries' Legion of the Tortoise Pep Squad

We craft tortoises, octopodes and Silly Notes, whether or not based on tortoises and octopodes :)

* The Silly CakeFaeries' Sheila and her Dog Society Site . . . Lovely Older Site . . . Mailing list . Currently mostly involves Chain WritingSilly/Children's Genre one line at a time, and numerous start of term, end of term and Mayweek Scavenger Silly Hunt Items Lists...

Sheila - a Society Ruled by a Long Line of Penguins all called Alan (or Alannys or Gender-Neutral Counterparts) - has been considered to be the Silliest Society in Cambridge since the 1980's :) Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Silliest of Them All? Sheila!

* The Hunty CakeFaeries' Cooperative Scavenger Hunt

Every fortnight, we release an Items List, of things to find, and/or act out, and/or draw, photograph or video. A few involve solving puzzles. Some items are subject related, college related, book or film related, and a range of unusual objects.

Past examples include most unusual flavour of chocolate, largest clock, posing as Darwin outside Darwin College (other Colleges' equivalents of this are left to your imagination :) ) and building a scale model of Minas Tirith out of a portion of fudge.

The main points of the activity are having fun, meeting people and Ally Training :) The Items List includes Silly and Duelly sections as below. Most start and end of term items are 'presented or acted out in person', whereas most mid-term items are to be presented by email, e.g. Silly CakeFaeries' chainwriting. It is specifically collaborative rather than competitive.

* CakeFaerie Parenting - a parallel of College Parenting but now between CakeFaeries, is among the activities run by the Listeny CakeFaeries.

These Safer Spaces are such that one should contact each's organizers via the above email addresses for specifics of when and where these next meet in cases for which that is not provided.

II. OTHER LIGHTER-HEARTED SOCIETIES

1) Society of Confusing Anticipation (SOCA)

This society, website here and facebook here is currently running the following not-in-person meaningful-participation activities.

* SOCA Hunt for Scavangers: Ahoj! Joha! Ohaj!

Leaves are falling from the trees! Cats are creeping out of taps and cookie jars! That's right, autumn is upon us! To help you enjoy this season, we've reinstated SOCA's very own Hunt for Scavengers! Our October list of things to do can be found on our website. New lists will be released every month; the latest is here email us proof of your achievements to participate! We may share our favourite things on our Facebook page (with your permission, of course).

To sign up for our Scavenger Hunt, please email societyofconfusinganticipation@gmail.com with:

your name

your college

your email address

if you have teammates or are looking for teammates :)

(optional) any proof of achievements!

Dining by candlelight,

A textbook

Latest Items List for this Hunt can be found here :)

* SOCA Word Building Jabberwocky: Callooh! Callay!

There are never enough words in the world, so join us as we create some more! Invent spontabulous new words with Word Building Jabberwocky, our fortnightly email activity! The first fortnight's theme is to invite you to make up your own Lewis-Carroll-like nonsense words!

To sign up for Word Building Jabberwocky, reply to the Assistant Spiderdragons at soca.word.building *at* gmail.com with:

1) Your name

2) your email address

3) your favourite made-up word (optional)

and we'll add you to the email list where each fortnight's made-up words are posted!

yours,

the Assistant Spiderdragons

2) CUSFS (Science Fiction Society) are currently running chain-writing and further article writing for their TTBA (Title To Be Announced) Sci Fi and Fantasy themed termly publication.

Email cusfs.chainwriting *at* gmail.com if interested :)

3) A new society called Cambridge Utopia are chain-writing instead actual Utopias!

(This gives some idea what Cambridge people can do if just quite simply left alone to our own devices).

These wonderful people wish for it to be known that they solely write apolitical Utopias; if any of you would like to collabratively wrtie political Utopias instead, we suggest you just get your own facebook page or srcf webpage :)

III. LIGHTEST HEARTED SOCS OF EACH KIND

Many are concentrated in the 'quirky aisle' (including the inimitable Tiddlywinks! and yet some reside within other soc-rings.

So, if you'd like a lighter-hearted thesping group, why not try

CULES (Light Entertainment Society)

The Cambridge Impronauts (previously known as ICE: Improvised Comedy Ents)

A more laid-back musical group? How about

CURE (Recorder Ensemble)

UCPO (Philharmonic Orchestra)

UCCB (Concert Band)

Catz Jazz

CU Ceilidh Band

or Orchestra on the Hill ?

A more laid back athletics activity? How about

Hare and Hounds ?

A more laid-back team sport (and certainly all-genders-at-once-inclusive!) How about

Ultimate Frisbee ?

Community-wise,

Tango

Tea Soc enjoys some fine brews...

Cambridge Vegan Society

Oh, and multiple colleges have Knitting Societies *links forthcoming (and at least 1 sewing society: Trinity Hall Sewing Society:) Wholesome.

CU Rambling Club

CU Med Hik A brand new society, providing 1 on 1 hiking buddies, mostly for Cambridge's medical students.

CU Medical Humanities SocietyMedics exploring overlap with humanities subjects :)

St John's Cubing Society

And last but not least, as a cherry on a sundae so as to speak, the Emmanuel College Real Ice Cream Society (ERICS) :)

IV. LARGELY SOCIAL MEDIA BASED SOCIETIES

Overheard at Cambridge

The Porter's Log

Kindbridge

Duckbridge

Queerbridge

ADCbridge

PidgePals This new soc pairs people up with pen pals: support group value!

Catbridge

Camfess and another Camfess; are there any further Camfesses? :)

Homfess

Jfess

Jesus Caff Memes

Crushbridge

Crushbridge Bot 5000

Memebridge

Cuddlebridge

Cumbridge

Trinimeme

Rumourbridge

Dogbridge

Cambridge Law Facul-Tea

Worldbridge

Jewbridge

Bridgebridge

The Pelikind (Corpus Kindness Society)

Magdfess

Corpus Christi Memes

Trinity Hall Gardening Society

Tit Hallsome (Trinity Hall Wholesome Society)

CU Poohsticks

Foodbridge

Trinity Hall Hummus Society

Trinity Hall Coffee Society

Trinity Hall Arts and Crafts

Trinity Hall Memes

Squirrelbridge

Ducks of Cambridge

Cambridge University Cat Club

Homerton Confessions: the Kind Ones

Cambridge Confessions

Girton College Compliments

* Most colleges have an associated Compliments Society, so more links coming here soon *

* There's also an estimated 30 subject-based meming groups :) *

Some of the above might exist in more than one form, are entirely welcome to, and whoever wants to start any more of these is free to do so :)

[Without having to 'seek validation from' or 'make a pitch to' external regulators that know little to nothing about science students, socially anxious people, left-out people setting up stuff on our own terms, subcultures, oppressed minorities presently lacking political lobbies, cooperative rather than competitive societies, societies as designed by apolitical people, women or nonbinary people, or, for that matter, Gen-Z people.]

V. SOCIETIES IDENTIFYING AS COLLECTIVES

Cambridge Hip-Hop Collective

Cambridge Language Collective

Cambridge Consent Collective

Cambridge Yarn Collective

VI. CURRENTLY INVESTING RESOURCES IN THINGS OTHER THAN THEIR USUAL ACTIVITIES

* The Duelly CakeFaeries and Cambridge Safer Space Waterfighting (CSSW) Site . . . Mailing list . CSSW run start and end of term Outdoors Safer Spaces involving many rounds of one-hit kills water pistol battles and picnics. These can include inter-team warfare in the scavenger hunt as well as Scav Hunt Judges versus Participants rounds! It is done solely off university property. Our Rules Set is here; it is 'one drop kills' waterfighting, so people seldom get particularly wet :)