Manchester’s biggest four university Christian Unions celebrated the finale of a week of public events last night at the Place Apart Hotel.
University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan, University of Salford and RNCM all held events throughout the week, with the universities’ Christian Unions at the centre of the planning and running of the week entitled ‘Convinced‘.
Christian Union (CU) members appeared to take publicity very seriously as over eighty people could be spotted throughout Greater Manchester wearing a red sweatshirt with the event logo printed on the front. Leafleting was also on the CUs’ agendas.
The week of events began on Monday the 20th of February; commencing with ‘lunch bars’ at the University of Manchester. The lunch bars continued throughout the week in all four campuses featuring food and a topical talk such as ‘What would Jesus say to Donald Trump’. Wednesday’s talk was from Sir Colin John Humphreys, who is a director of research at Cambridge University, and he spoke about how science and God can coexist.
Each day also included a free ‘banquet’ for international students at Union Hall by the MMU Birley campus with each night having the theme of a specific continent. One attender, Kitt Ellison, 19, MMU student, said: “I really enjoyed the USA themed evening. Great food and a great and interesting talk.”
But perhaps most excitingly, were the evening events held in the Kings House Conference Centre, next to the Aquatic Centre. These included Scottish dancing (a ceilidh), a Bake Off themed evening, and a ‘fun fayre’. Over 120 students turned up each night to join in the fun and end the night with a short talk by Adrian Holloway : each talk featuring the word Concvinced such as Convinced there is hope.
Convinced Ceilidh! from Naomi Armstrong on Vimeo.
The Christian Unions are all supported by UCCF, a non-profit organisation that works in universities nation-wide. Adam Jones, overseer for the North-West region was tweeting throughout the week:
Convinced MCR update:great crowd again for tonight’s event Convinced there’s genuine faith? @convincedmcr @UCCF @ManchesterUniCU @ManMetCU pic.twitter.com/T6J9j10cJ8
— Adam Jones ن (@AdamJones01) February 21, 2017
All evenings were also free of charge except for the Grand Finale which was held at the Place Apart Hotel in the Northern Quarter. The evening dress code was simply ‘no jeans and trainers’ and guests were treated to fancy desserts and live music from popular student brass band Tuba Slap . One attender, Hannah Carroll, 19, said: “Tuba Slap were amazing! They played absolute classics that everyone could dance along too. Want to hire them for all my future events already!”
One attender, Natalia Charalambous, 20, from Fallowfield summed up what appeared to be the consensus view of the week: “Every event was just brilliant. Each time you thought they couldn’t get better, we were taken by surprise. And the week just ended on such a high with the best party ever in such a fancy venue.”
Silver Linings Manchester 