International Week postponed
By Daniel Keenan | Feb 5 2013
International Week, scheduled to take place last week with several events organised across campus, has been postponed to an unspecified date later in the semester. According to UCDSU International Officer, Karl Gill, International Week was postponed due to “other events falling through.”“There was a number of the cancellations of the events that happened; some of the main events I wanted to organise, there was cancellations and one of the other events I wanted to organise, there was nobody getting back to me,” said Gill.The timing for International Week was planned in September by Gill and UCDSU Campaigns and Communications Officer, Paddy Guiney, and Gill says part of the reason for the cancellations was because he was unaware that there were already events planned for last week: “[We] didn’t realise that there’d be a series of things happening this week such as Refreshers’ Day, and there was an LGBT Day, so I decided to postpone [International Week].”The decision to postpone was taken on Friday, January 25th, though three events organised by the International Students’ Society and a Russian Society event went ahead as planned. Of the postponed events that were planned for the week, Gill said: “There was supposed to be a lecture from author Gavan Titley about multiculturalism; he was supposed to come in and talk about multiculturalism in universities and the importance of international study. Sport Against Racism, Ireland were coming in to organise the 5-a-side and organise a presentation on the importance of anti-racism in sport. They were the two main events that couldn’t go ahead. They’re the ones I’m really excited about organising at a later date.”Gill is confident the two main events will happen later in the semester, though no date has been mooted for either event. Though Gill says he plans to reschedule International Week, he also says that he would organise the two main events on separate weeks, if respective schedules don’t allow for the events to take place in the same week: “If I can’t get them to organise them on the same week, I’ll put them in separate week along with other events. The Russian Society in particular are very interested in organising something, as are the French society, and the Irish Language Officer is really excited about doing Irish classes for international students.”