Graduate English Society

QUEEN’S ENGLISH GRADUATE

WELCOME WEEK 2011

The Graduate English Society is pleased to host the following events for the benefit of the incoming and returning English graduate students.

when	what	where
6th (Tues) 11am-3pm	Welcome Room, Pt. 1	Watson Hall, 4th-floor lounge
7th (Wed) 11am-3pm	Welcome Room, Pt. 2	Watson Hall, 4th-floor lounge
7th (Wed) 8pm	Pub Night	The Iron Duke, 207 Wellington Street
8th (Thurs) 11am-1pm	Departmental Welcome, campus tour, lunch	Watson 517 to Grad Club
9th (Fri) 9 pm	Martini Night	Zappas Lounge, 178 Ontario St.
10th (Sat) 10:30 am	Breakfast	Wolfe Island Bakery, 311 Queen
10th (Sat) 2:30-5:00 pm	Kayaking	Ahoy Rentals, 23 Ontario St.
11th (Sun) 11 am	Soccer	City Park pitch, King & Barrie
11th (Sun) 4:40 pm	Wolfe Island Corn Maze	Wolfe Island ferry dock
13th (Tue) 7 pm	Movie Night	Watson 517
14th (Wed) 4 pm	Photo Scavenger Hunt	Watson Hall Lobby
15th (Thu) 7 pm	Dinner and Trivia Night	Grad Club, 162 Barrie St.
17th (Sat) 8 pm	WW wrap-up house party	Jen and Rachelle's, 7-215 Ordnance
20th (Tues) 2-4pm	GES Meeting	Watson Hall, 4th-floor lounge

Please send RSVPs for the Kayaking and Corn Maze events to julia.gingerich@queensu.ca; Also, specify which food items you’d like to order for the Corn Maze BBQ (see the description below).

QUEEN’S ENGLISH GRADUATE

WELCOME (BACK) WEEK, 2011

All events marked * are specific to English grads. We encourage you to attend as many of these as you can, especially the Corn Maze, but it’s all up to you. (Those who skip out usually end up regretting it, though, when they hear what a great time everybody else had.) Partners are welcome too. If you’re new here, really busy, and are picky about what you’d like to attend, you should at least be at the Departmental Welcome on Thursday the 8th because it’s the closest thing to mandatory.

The Corn Maze and kayaking require RSVPs, so please submit your name to me at (julia.gingerich@ queensu.ca) if you’d like to do either (or both!), and make sure to specify which food items you’d like to order if you’re attending the Corn Maze.

I’ve added SGPS events (see http://www.sgps.ca/orientation/details.html for details) in case you intend on going to some and want to see how their Welcome Week schedule sits with the GES’s. Contact the SGPS if you’re RSVPing for any of their events. We’ve tried not to conflict too much with them, but if we have, you’re better off doing the English thing.

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~ Tuesday, September 6th ~

* 11am-3pm : ENGLISH GRAD WELCOME ROOM, Pt. 1
where: English Department lounge: Watson Hall (49 Bader Lane), 4th floor
If you’re on campus Tuesday to meet Grad Director Leslie Ritchie, buy books etc., why not stop by the English Department lounge (just down the hall from his office) for coffee and snacks? Some returning English grads will be there to greet you, engage you in idle banter, and answer questions you may have about anything whatsoever.

9:30 – 4:15 : WELCOME & ORIENTATION DAY, Biosciences Complex

1:00 – 5pm : QUEEN'S AMAZING RACE, JDUC Room 237

8:00pm – 1am : SGPS MIXER, Grad Club

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~ Wednesday, September 7th ~

* 11am - 3pm : ENGLISH GRAD WELCOME ROOM, Pt. 2
See description for Sept. 6th.

12:30 – 4:30pm : SGPS SPORTS DAY, Boiler Room, The Mansion, JDUC

6pm – 10pm : SGPS 1000 ISLANDS BOAT CRUISE, Pier 

* 8:00pm - 12am : ENGLISH GRAD PREVIEW AT THE IRON DUKE
where: 207 Wellington Street (and Queen)
Before the official Departmental Welcome, it’d be nice to meet your future English grad friends and colleagues in a relaxed pub atmosphere. Incoming and returning grads are all welcome. Dress casually, or shabby-chic,

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~ Thursday, September 8th ~

8:30am – 3:30pm : INCOMING GRAD REGISTRATION
where: Wallace Hall in the JDUC
This is where you get your student card. Last names beginning with A-M will be registered from 8:30 to noon, and letters N-Z from noon to 3:30.

* 11:00am – 1pm : ENGLISH DEPARTMENT WELCOME SESSION, CAMPUS TOUR, AND GRAD CLUB LUNCH
where: start at Watson Hall: Room 517, end at the Grad Club (162 Barrie Street)
The Departmental Welcome is your first chance to meet the whole English Grad group all at once. Grad Director Leslie Ritchie will drop some sage advice on you, then we’ll all break up into groups for campus tours. A returning English grad will escort you round all the parts of campus relevant to an English grad, tell you some of the tricks of the trade (where the cheapest/best such-and-such is to be found, etc.), then we’ll all meet up again at the Grad Club for lunch.

6 – 8pm : SGPS HAUNTED WALK, Courthouse Square

8:30 – 11pm: SGPS TRIVIA, Grad Club

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~ Friday, September 9th ~

9am – 5pm : SGPS SIDEWALK SALE, University Avenue

6 – 10:30pm : SGPS SEMI-FORMAL, Confederation Place Hotel

* 9pm – 12am : MARTINIS AT ZAPPAS
[LOCATION CHANGE] where: 178 Ontario Street
After a day of meeting your new people in the halls of learning, meet them all over again—as well as returning English grads—this time with a swank martini in hand, at the sleek tapas bar and hip nightspot Zappas. Dancing after 11:00pm. Semi-formal attire recommended.

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~ Saturday, September 10th ~

* 10:30am : BREAKFAST AT THE WOLFE ISLAND BAKERY
where: 311 Queen Street
Assuming you didn’t follow up the previous night’s martinis at Tango with a pub crawl and 2am swim in Lake Ontario, or even if you DID and can still get yourself up for breakfast, come out for a delicious breakfast with your new English grad friends at the Wolfe Island Bakery.

* 2:30pm : KAYAKING ON LAKE ONTARIO
Ahoy Rentals, 23 Ontario Street
Dip your paddles in and ply the waves of Lake Ontario, explore the coastline of Kingston, historic Fort Henry, and surrounding islands. It costs $14 per person for the first hour and $6 for each additional hour. Please send your RSVP to me (julia.gingerich@queensu.ca). Julia Gingerich will be your experienced but unofficial kayaking guide. If you’ve never kayaked before, this is the perfect chance to start. This is also a weather-dependent adventure; so if the waves are too choppy for beginners’ comfort, we’ll have to call it off till another day. See http://www.ahoyrentals.com/canoe.php for more information.

4pm – 5:30pm : SGPS BOWLING NIGHT, Cloverleaf Lanes, 10 Bath Road

7pm-10:30pm : SGPS SPEED MEETING, The Grizzly Girll

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~ Sunday, September 11th ~

1pm – 3:30pm : SGPS FAMILY DAY BBQ, Grad Club

* 11am – 1pm : SOCCER IN CITY PARK
where: near the corner of King and Barrie
Reading, writing and drinking isn’t all we do! For those who would like to offset the sedentary life of the English grad with some friendly footy in the park, we’ll have regular weekend games till it gets too cold/busy to continue (Novemberish), then start up again in the spring thaw (Mayish). This is by no means competitive, so those of all skill/fitness levels are welcome. The point is good exercise and camaraderie. Join the Queen’s English Graduate Football Association on Facebook for regular game announcements.

** 4:40pm : WOLFE ISLAND CORN MAZE
where: Wolfe Island ferry
Meet at the downtown ferry docks, Ontario Street, at 4:40pm to take the 5:00pm ferry across to Wolfe Island. We will be returning on the 9:30pm ferry back to Kingston.
Our most popular (and definitely most exciting) social event over the last few years—don’t miss it! An evening of barbecue, volleyball, a campfire and an evening trek through a corn maze on Wolfe Island (a 20-minute free ferry ride from Kingston).  This year, it’s better than ever with two interlocking corn mazes!
- Please bring warm clothes, a flashlight, footwear that can be muddied, $23 for admission/BBQ/transport
- Food: when you RSVP, please indicate what food selection you’d like from each of these 3 categories: (1) a choice of steak burger, veggie burger, or 2 hotdogs; (2) a choice of potato or pasta salad; (3) a choice of pop or water.  Apple crisp will also be served for dessert.
- Transportation: meet at the downtown ferry dock at 4:40pm to take the 5:00pm ferry. The ferry dock is located on Ontario Street, north of Princess, left of the Tim Hortons at 285 Ontario. A horse-drawn hay wagon (no joke!) will take us to the corn maze and back to the Ferry. We will be taking the 9:30pm ferry back to Kingston.
- PLEASE RSVP, and include in your email your BBQ food choices.
- In case of rain, you will be contacted via email by 2:00 p.m. on the day of the event if it is going to be postponed due to inclement weather.

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~ Tuesday, September 13th ~

* 7pm : MOVIE NIGHT IN WATSON HALL
where: Watson Hall, Room 517
One of the perks of being in Watson Hall is that we have available to us a sort of movie theatre in Room 517. Book the room, get some friends together, and watch a DVD of your choice on the big screen; this became a regular Tuesday night thing last year. We’ll work out what the first movie of the year will be in the week preceding, and a message will go out on the English grad listserv closer to the day. If people are feeling up to it, we’ll head out afterwards for a slice of Kingston’s finest nightlife at any of a number of dance clubs (maybe even all of them!).

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~ Wednesday, September 14th ~

* 4:00pm - 6:00pm : PHOTO SCAVENGER HUNT, Watson Hall Lobby

What better way to get to know the campus and city of Kingston than a photo scavenger hunt after class? Teams will start off at Watson Hall and will be given a list of people/places/objects to find as they move through campus and into downtown Kingston. Extra points are given for humour and creativity, so come out and have an afternoon of fun!

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                                ~ Thursday, September 15th ~

7pm – 12am : DINNER AND TRIVIA NIGHT AT THE GRAD CLUB
The Grad Club, 162 Barrie Street
Who was the first human in space? What are the only two countries that begin with an “A” but don’t end with one? What woman writer wrote under the pseudonym George Sand? Which Canadian Prime Minister had the longest non-consecutive run in office? If you’re full of useless information like this, you’ll be a superstar for Team English at weekly Thursday Trivia Nights at the Grad Club. There are prizes to win every round, and bigger prizes for winning consistently (we won a $500 prize last year)! Even if you aren’t a trivia masta, it’s still a good time for drinks with your buddies, and for blurting out random, unconnected facts after a week of heady, subjective analysis. Our team is usually a winner at the general knowledge or song snippit recognition category because other teams just aren’t as cool.  (This is a weekly event, but we are skipping it on Sept. 9th because the SGPS is including it in their schedule of events then, which is nuts because there are problems enough finding seats on regular Thursday nights.)

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~ Saturday, September 17th ~

* 8pm : WELCOME WEEK WRAP-UP PARTY
where: 215 Ordnance – Apartment #7
Now that we’re all acquainted, let’s celebrate your imminent busyness with a BYOB party! Feel free to bring friends/partners as well!

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~ Tuesday, September 20th ~

* 2-4pm : GES MEETING, English lounge
where: 4th-floor Watson Hall
An important Graduate English Society meeting, being the first of the school year and the one where incoming grads are introduced to the operations/duties of the society and elect candidates to the all the available positions.  See http://www.queensu.ca/english/ges/about.html for more information about the GES.

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If you have any questions about Welcome Week (which, you will have noticed, is too fantastic to be just a seven-day thing), don’t hesitate to write either of your social convenors or any of the other GES social committee members (see http://www.queensu.ca/english/ges/Executive.html).

Enjoy the rest of your summer, and we’ll see you soon!