As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we won't be running our events on campus next term. Instead, we're going to migrate our events to a virtual online format where possible!

Read on for a summary of what we'll be doing. There will continue to be newsletters with our timetable at the beginning of each week, so keep an eye out for those for more details.

We'll be using Discord to provide voice chat for many of our events, so make sure you're in our Discord server! You should also join our Slack workspace if you haven't already.

Board Games and Cake: We'll be using our Discord server to play online games, such as online versions of Cards against Humanity or Jackbox. We might also play some other video games if enough people own them. Keep an eye on all of our channels for details.

Film Night: We'll use a "watch party" service to allow everybody to watch the film at the same time. You can still use the Film Night Portal to vote for films, and if you like you can join Discord to chat about the film.

We intend to run talks over the Summer term! Our current idea is to have the speaker pre-record their talk, which members will then watch together, followed by an interactive Q&A.

If you'd like to do a talk, then we're making a call for submissions! Talks are half an hour, followed by fifteen minutes of questions. They will take place on Thursdays of every week, between 7:00 and 8:00. You don't have to have the talk written already - give us a general idea of what you'd like to talk about, and an abstract.

If you'd like to submit a talk, then please fill in this form! Submissions will close on the 20th April.

We're running an online Roses event in collaboration with the Lancaster University Computer Science Society! You'll be challenged to build an application around an API of our choice. It'll be taking place on the 2nd of May.

For more details and to register your interest, visit https://jam.hacksoc.org!

If you use IRC and you're a paying HackSoc member, then you can now get a HackSoc IRC cloak! This is displayed instead of your IP address when using IRC. If you'd like a HackSoc cloak, please get in touch with Luke Moll (one of our Infrastructure Officers) on Slack, or PM him (ldm) on Freenode.

Make sure you're in our Slack workspace and our Discord server to stay in the loop about our events. I hope to see you there!

Stay safe,

Aaron 🤖