Monday 08-12-2025 - 10:00

Hello readers! 

It's that time of the month again, so here's a wee sports update.  

I thought the teams were brilliant last month. Even though I'm only directly involved in Run Club, I do genuinely feel enormous amounts of pride at what everyone has achieved in November. At the start of the year, it's fair to say- and I know they won't mind me saying this- that a lot of the teams had doubts about their abilities and potential. Fast forward only a couple of months and the change has been drastic, with some breakthrough performances and newfound levels of confidence. That was one of my main aims coming in as Sports Officer, so to see that manifesting so early on honestly makes me really happy. As a Psychologist in the making, seeing the development of people who are starting to realise their potential is something I take a lot of joy from, and from a personal perspective, I see people who I've come to regard as friends walking taller, smiling more, and enjoying what they do, and it's brilliant.  

We also have had a lot of "Movember" activities going on, with our teams at the time of writing raising nearly £8000 for charity! The level of passion and dedication towards this fantastic cause is always one of the highlights of our academic year, but I'll let them tell you about that...  

That's all from me, see you in the next one!  

~ Joe 

This article includes news from: 

• Badminton 
• Dance 
• Women’s Football 
• Volleyball 
• Ladies’ Gaelic Football 
• Swim 
• Men’s Football 
• Women’s Basketball 

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Badminton 🏸

Games 

QMU Badminton had a very strong November, securing three BUCS wins: a 10–2 home victory against Edinburgh 5s, an 8–4 win away to Abertay, and a 9–3 home win against Edinburgh 6s. 

We also participated in our regular Napier Friendly event, which we run in collaboration with Napier each semester and have done for the past few years. This friendly is a great opportunity for our non-BUCS players to get valuable court time, play against new opponents and enjoy a relaxed, social competitive environment. It also helps maintain a positive relationship between the two clubs 

Socials & Events This Month 

• We’ve had a social every week throughout November. 
• White Lies Social – This was a joint social hosted by us, with Swim, Volleyball and Rock Climbing joining. We also supported Netball’s Movember Bingo beforehand before heading to Three Sisters for our own social starting at 9pm. It had a great turnout and allowed many people to mix with new faces! 
• Wig Night – We joined Volleyball for a collab social at their sponsor venue Pilgrims, for a change of scenery and then headed to Three Sisters afterwards. 
• Cowboys & Cowgirls – A more chilled themed night for the group. 
• Cops & Robbers (26th November) – We’ll be joining Hockey later in the month for their joint social. 

Movember Fundraising 
Throughout the month we’ve been raising money for Movember and completing forfeits linked to our targets: 

• We hit our first committee target 4 days into the month and completed the forfeit on the 5th (Ice Bucket Challenge). 
• That same day we reached target two, meaning I had to get my legs waxed at Three Sisters during our White Lies social. 
• On the 10th we hit Dan’s forfeit, and he had to bleach his hair so early in the month. 
• We’ve now reached our £1000 target, so we’ll be completing our half-marathon walk on the 9th of December. 
• As we reached the target before the end of the month, we’ve added one final challenge: a Polar Plunge if we hit £1500. 

Grand Ball Support 
To make the Grand Ball more affordable and inclusive for our members, QMU Badminton offered to pay the first £20 of the ticket for those attending with us. The results so far have been really positive, our numbers for Grand Ball doubled after we introduced this support. 
A lot of our members are also part of other sports and societies and some are attending with them, so we’re genuinely pleased with the turnout!  

Dance 👯‍♀️

We’ve had such an amazing month in dance, and I wanted to share all the highlights with you! This month, we’ve had some fantastic socials, including joint socials and our big Movember social with cheer. The event went incredibly well, and we even uploaded a socials dump so everyone can relive the fun. 

We also ran Self-Care Week, where every day we shared what some of our dancers were up to along with tips on taking care of yourself. Our Motivational Monday stories continue to be a hit, and our Wellness Wednesday posts have been getting great engagement—this week’s question, “What do you do to reset for the week?” sparked some really thoughtful responses from our community. 

We’ve also done a bit of spring cleaning! We emptied out the sports cupboard and made our space super tidy. We even held a little clear-out social where anyone could come and give our costumes a new life. We’re so happy to say that the majority of the costumes went to Newbattle High School. It’s been wonderful to make this bond with them and we have plans to support them throughout the year. 

Dance was also awarded Sport of the Month! This was such a fun and exciting time for us, and we’re so happy and very grateful for all the support from QMSU. On top of that, we elected Members of the Semester, where each captain chose a member from their class to highlight for their hard work. Our President also sneakily chose a competition captain, a recreational captain, and a committee member to recognize, as they’ve all been working incredibly hard behind the scenes. 

On the competitive side, the teams are flying through their routines, with most dances now complete! Our President and Vice President have been visiting classes to check in and see how everyone and every team is doing, which has been a lovely way to stay connected. Recreational classes are running full steam ahead, with dancers smashing routines weekly and showing some amazing progress. 

We’ve also sent off our Grand Ball tables, and we’re thrilled to have the highest number of members attending ever—it’s so rewarding to see dance continue to grow! 

Looking ahead, our Christmas dinner is booked for next month, which will be our last social of the year as a team—can’t wait for the celebrations! 🎄Overall, it’s been a fantastic month full of engagement, growth, and community, and we’re excited to carry that energy into December! 

Women’s Football ⚽

It has been an incredible month for Women's Football both on and off the pitch!  

We started strong with our 24 hour cycle fundraiser and bake sale for Movember. We pedalled from 9am-9am with the team joined by several other societies helping out throughout the day. A huge shoutout to Poppy who stayed for the full 24 hours, and Ailsa and Freyja who were also there for the majority of the event. We had a lot of fun and absolutely smashed our £300 fundraising target!! 

Our success continued onto the pitch winning our first EVER league game with an amazing 3-1 victory at home!! The girls have worked so hard this year and it's amazing to see it paying off, a very well earned win which we celebrated at Cheer and Men's football's fundraisers.  

This week we travelled to Glasgow in the freezing cold and fought back from 3-0 down to win 3-4, an outstanding performance and a testament to the team’s determination. Next week we face our cup game, which will be a challenge, but we’re taking our recent success and confidence with us. 

November has truly been a month to remember for QMUWF, and we can’t wait to build on this momentum! 

Volleyball 🏐

Volleyball had a total of 4 games played this month with 2 more happening in the last weekend of November. The men's volleyball team have played valiantly against all teams faced and are gelling well together. The women's team have played their games and have done exceptionally well! The women currently sit atop of the league for BUCS 3rd tier and are going into a conference cup this weekend.  

For fundraising we set a target for Movember where we had different goals to hit. Albeit that we haven't done well here, a bake sale is happening on the Friday of the last week of November to raise more funds for Movember.  

We had joint socials with Swim and Badminton for our wig night out. Another social we pitched up to was Netballs Movember fundraiser with our White Lie T-Shirt event. Our last social of the November month is that of 12 Pubs of Christmas this Friday! 

Ladies’ Gaelic Football ⚽

Ladies Gaelic Football at QMU are off to a flying start this year, kicking things off with two wins from two, a long day up in Aberdeen and a big home performance both ending with well-earned wins. 

Despite some character-building wet and dark Tuesday sessions on a tiny patch of the Meadows, lit only by street lamps, spirits remain high. With no manager, the captain and committee have been steering the ship brilliantly. Malones Leith, our sponsors, keep morale even higher with the odd celebratory pint. 

Special shoutout to Seamus’s for supplying post-training the ham sandwiches (and the cheeky pint) to help with the re-fuelling. 

With more league games next semester and a few big Christmas nights planned, there’s plenty to look forward to. 

Swim 🏊‍♀️

QMU Swim has had a very eventful month, starting with our new addition to the team, our adorable new mascot Squirt the axolotl. This wee gal will be joining us on all our special events, including match’s and fun nights out!  

We also hosted an Aquathon this month, this was to raise funds for ‘Movember UK’. The Aquathon consisted of a 5km run around Musselburgh, swiftly following with a 1.5km swim at Porty high school. This was a great challenge for us, as all of us struggled with the run! We managed to raise near £200 from donations from family and friends, thank you to everyone who supported and donated!   

We had arranged for a friendly against Napier Swim this month, but due to unforeseen circumstances we have had to postpone this match. However, we took this opportunity to take some photos in our gear and showcase some of our training sessions.   

Finally, we hosted our Christmas dinner at the lovely Angel’s Share Restaurant, where we enjoyed a lovely 3 course dinner provided by our sponsor Frankenstein's. The evening was filled with festive cheer and many bottles of fizz to celebrate!   

Men’s Football ⚽

This semester for Men's Football has been incredibly positive, we have had a fantastic set of enthusiastic freshers and who have joined us and the future looks exciting with them on board. 

On the pitch we have had a mixed bag of results, but certainly some standout wins over RGU (on penalties!) and our old foes Napier catch the eye. 

Whilst on the pitch we have been battling hard, it's off the pitch where things have come much easier for us Football lads (no surprise). The turn out to socials has been ever dependable. We continue to look the part and have continued our close relationships with fellow sports and even some new ones! 

We hope to keep the costumes game high, pints flowing and our title hopes alive in BUCS. 

Women’s Basketball 🏀

In November, we had our first win of the Semester. We overall improved our individual skills as well as our team chemistry and collaboration with the guidance of our wonderful coach Eimear, having great games no matter the result. Hopefully we will continue to develop our plays despite missing members who are off to their placements. 

Run Club 🏃

Last but not least!  

Run Club continues to go from strength to strength. We've finished the semester with a record 43 members, an unthinkable turnaround from last year. We regularly have people turning up for Joe's Monday circuit sessions, a big group run on Wednesday, a fab women's only run Thursday, and an exploring run on Sunday. As you can see from one of our pictures, not even the rain will stop us! 

We also had the SSS XC championships in St Andrew's in November. We came away from a super competitive event with no results to speak of, but a big learning experience and a great day out for Joe, Jordan, Abbie, and Evelyn.  

We're looking forward to our Christmas run on the 3rd of December, and our Christmas meal the following week. We're also very excited to welcome everyone back next semester and to hopefully improve on all the foundations we've built in Semester 1!