Become a Global Lounge Friday Hangout Volunteer

Friday Hangout sessions run on Fridays between 2 – 3.30pm at the Global Lounge. 

You can find the Friday Hangouts timetable here. 

We are encouraging students, who may or may not know one another, to come together – chill out, chat, play games, share crafts from their culture, make weekend plans, and more! The idea is that you don’t need to know anyone to enjoy these sessions – this is a friendly environment where everyone comes together at the same time to hangout and make new friends.

In the past, we have run activities from a wide range of themes. For example: 

• Arts & Crafts: In this session you'll be provided with different art supplies such as oil pastels, watercolours, sketch pads and scrapbooking materials. The rest is up to your creative freedom!
• Board Games: Alongside our classic board game selection, we have some brand new games in the Lounge for you to try out! Including Catan, Herd Mentality, Obama Llama, Pictomania, Sounds Fishy and many more. Get yourself a hot drink, make friends and enjoy the Board Game Cafe vibes.
• Indoor Sports League: These sessions will feature things like table tennis, darts, air hockey and giant jenga. 

As a Friday Hangouts volunteer, you will be leading the activities, trying to get people involved, and checking that the snacks and drinks are topped up – amongst other things. 

The Global Lounge is always looking for different ways to get students involved in university activities. Friday Hangouts sessions are a great way for students to come together and create a community. To help the sessions come to life, we will need 4-5 volunteers to attend at Friday Hangouts, to be in charge on the day and make sure that everyone who joins feels welcome. 

Does this sound like something you'd be interested in? If so, please check out how to apply. 

• When scheduled – help facilitate the week's session. Each week we will have a few activities from different themes – board games, indoor sports, and arts & crafts.
• Turn up 20 minutes before the session starts, to meet other volunteers and quickly chat about the session, and make a plan of what everyone is doing (arrival time: 13:40).
• Familiarise yourself with training resources provided by the Global Lounge.
• Move furniture if needed and set up the activity items. 
• Welcome everyone coming in for the session, offer them a hot drink and biscuit, and keep a list of students who have attended.
• Run planned activities and connect students with one another.
• Ensure that no one is sat by themselves, unless they want to just be around people but not necessarily engage.
• Thank everyone for coming, tidy up the space, ensure all mugs are back in the kitchenette and furniture is back to default position (end time – 3.45 pm).
• If no one else turns up, volunteers can use their ideas in their own group, and use the time to meet new people.
• Send feedback to the Global Lounge (email/form) on how the session went, suggest ideas of how to improve future sessions.

• Volunteering time will count towards Bristol PLUS Award.
• Gain confidence as a leader.
• Experience running an event/loosely structured session.
• Teamwork and team building.
• Taking part in shaping a programme which brings people together.
• Practising interpersonal, intercultural and communication skills.
• Meeting people from different backgrounds, different levels of study, different disciplines.
• Deepening the sense of belonging with the University community.

If you are interested in applying to be a Friday Hangouts Volunteer, please submit the volunteering application form. A member of the Global Lounge team will get back to you as soon as possible regarding any next steps. 

If you are a Society and would like to run a Friday Hangouts: Give It A Go session at the Global Lounge, please email the team at global-lounge@bristol.ac.uk with your idea. For example, teaching people how to play a card game from your country, showing people how to knit, or any other activity. We're open to ideas!