‘Really surreal’: Students back on campus for 'Housewarming Week'

Despite questionable weather, an entire rebrand, and some false expectations, the students’ associations put up a banger ReO Week. After a semester of few in person classes, our students’ associations were ready to welcome everyone back to campus with Housewarming Week, the new and inclusive ReO Week.

Julian Tanaka, team lead of Massey at Wellington Students’ Association (MAWSA), said “Housewarming Week, as a week did go really well even if the weather was shit.”

However, the week wasn’t without a few bumps. MAWSA took the risk of putting on Housewarming Fest, a music festival with local bands, artists and food trucks. The event was cancelled due to few tickets being sold and students and staff isolating.

The University told MAWSA that students would have on-campus classes this semester, however many classes have remained online. “It was meant to be a big celebration of everyone coming back to campus, which is what Massey told us. So, in a way, it sucks that Massey didn’t follow through with that.”

While MAWSA envisioned up to 500 students at the festival, Tanaka said less than 50 tickets were sold. “It was also the biggest event we’ve tried to hold since Covid-19 started so we knew there were some things we wouldn’t get right.”

The rebranding of ReO Week was to be

inclusive to students of all ages. “When you think ReO Week you think freshers, but we wanted it to be everybody.”

This ReO Week was the first of its kind, with a collaborative effort across all student cohorts. Tanaka said Massey asked them to work on some things together, including branding, a clubs’ day and a mature students' wellbeing day. Julian said the first collaborative ReO Week “was a good start, it was a good trial run”.

Elizabeth Hodgson, President of MAWSA, said, “ReO Week went really well with what we had to offer. Obviously, we had to cancel our Housewarming Festival event which was a bummer.”

“We didn’t get the numbers we were hoping for and that’s okay. If the students don’t want it then we obviously need to redirect our energy somewhere else.”

While one event was cancelled, Hodgson was stoked to see students getting amongst it at other events, especially the clubs’ day. “It was really surreal and really great to see students on campus.”

Hodgson said the associations called it Housewarming Week because they wanted to create a vibe of welcoming students back to campus and having a housewarming party with them. “I’m super excited for people to be welcomed back into the space and really feel like they have a home here at Massey.”

Jake Law, President of Auckland Students’ Association (ASA) said, “Compared to semester one, we had a really good O Week.”

He said the Wednesday clubs’ day was awesome, especially compared to the semester one clubs’ day which had a 100-person limit. “Semester one clubs’ day was really unfortunate but this one was really good. We had about 120 students and lots of staff and members of the public came over.”

Similarly to MAWSA’s Housewarming Fest, ASA had an event that didn’t go as expected as well. “We did have a drag bingo on Thursday that didn’t get well attended. It was such a good event and the drag queen was amazing and we had such good feedback from the students that did come, but there were only about 10 students at each session.”

“We actually had some students that wanted to come and play pool in the student lounge and didn’t want anything to do with the drag bingo so that was a bit of a shame.” Law said Massey Albany’s student population since Covid-19 is reflected in how the events are attended. “Before Covid-19 we were up to 6,500 students, I think in 2020. And we’ve dropped down to 3,500 now.”

The Thursday Housewarming Party was held at The Merchant Pub in Albany with some giveaways and open bar tabs. “The party we had at The Merchant was quite a rager, we had half the bar and at least 60 people.”

Law was happy to be collaborating with the other students’ associations and combining names and designs for ReO Week. “Our students are here for the student experience and it's so nice to see students back and enjoying these events and memories.”