Relaxation Sessions & Exercise Classes | Quiz NightsMovie NightsGames Nights | New Skills & Workshops | Karaoke PartyGaming LeaguesRegular Meet-Ups | Group Chats


Virtual events

Whilst MDXSU continues to operate remotely, we encourage student groups to organise online activity rather than in-person activity. Our student’s health is our primal priority; however, their enjoyment and mental vitality are just as significant. So we’ve created a variety of suggestions that you may use to experience the University life remotely and safely! 


Gaming Leagues

Discord is a fantastic platform to set up gaming leagues on. You could voice and video chat with your friends as well as playing the music of choice when lounging around!


Regular Meet Ups

Create recurring events on the website, let everyone know about them through your emails and social media platforms, and invite your members to a Zoom call once a week, biweekly or monthly. The meet ups require no reason or education objective, simply enjoy the virtual company of others during these trying times. 

The meet ups could be at any time organized privately, and you could choose from an array of available interactive online platforms. 


Group Chats

It’s a good idea to keep your group chats going during this time so your members have someone to talk to, to combat loneliness. Facebook and WhatsApp and even Discord are the most popular for this, just remember to invite people to join  via a link shared on your website page and social media platforms, and not add them straight in via their number or profile.

They must have chosen to join the group chat themselves, otherwise you could be breaking the law!


Games Nights

Games Nights are a great way to entertain people and bring them together. Here are some of our favourite websites: 

Cards Against Humanity |  JackBox Trivia Games | Online Board Games | Skribbl.io (online Pictionary) | Online Card Games

Below are some apps downloadable on Apple and Android, to play group games on:

Psych!
Plato
House Party
Bunch
Scrabble Go
Mario Kart Tour


Karaoke Party

Zoom  

An alternative way to host a karaoke night, is to use Zoom as the platform to do so.

Step 1 – Advertise the Karaoke Event via your socials and on the MDXSU website, and ask people to book a free ticket to the event you’ve created so you can send them the meeting link before it begins.

Step 2 - Tag the MDXSU Societies social media accounts or email societies@mdx.ac.uk the details, so MDXSU know to advertise it for you too!

Step 3 – Ask your members to send you their song requests to perform during the karaoke, before the event.

Step 4 – Make a playlist on YouTube with karaoke style lyric videos of the backing tracks of the songs requested.

Step 5 – Once your members have joined the Zoom call at the time of the event, share your screen to play the music and show the lyrics. (Top tip: change your audio settings like this for clearer sound…click the little arrow by the microphone at the bottom of the screen, then click audio settings, advanced, then disabled the top 2 options.)

Step 6 – You as the host may want to mute everyone else’s mic for solo performances, as Zoom picks up sound from all participants. If they’d prefer everyone to join in then you can leave it as it is.


Movie Nights

Teleparty

Click this link for a video tutorial on how to access and operate Teleparty:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgNGiSWaX_k

Here are the steps to set up a group watching party with Netflix for FREE*! This allows you to watch movies together and provides a chat box at the side for you all to talk about it too! You and the participants will need an existing Netflix account to host/join this event.

*ONLY available on Chrome browsers on desktop or laptop computers.

Step 1 – Advertise the movie night event via your socials and on the MDXSU website, and ask people to book a free ticket to the event you’ve created so you can send them the link before it begins.

Step 2 – Tag the MDXSU Societies social media accounts or email societies@mdx.ac.uk the details, so MDXSU know to advertise it for you too!

Step 3 – Go to https://www.netflixparty.com/ and click ‘Get Netflix Party for free!’

Step 4 – Click ‘Add to Chrome’, then follow the on screen instructions!

Kanopy

An option to access movies for free, for those without Netflix accounts

Step 1 - Log into to MyUnihub

Step 2 - My Study / My Library / Databases / K / Kanop

Step 3 - select the film you want to watch and press play.

To watch together, a host could set up a Zoom call and share their screen, so everyone can watch the same movie together and talk in the chat box.


Online Relaxation Sessions & Exercise Classes

Do you have some top tips on how your members can relax during this difficult time? Maybe you’ve attended a yoga class before and want to share your moves, or have some good meditation techniques? And if meditation isn’t for you, and instead you like to feel the burn with an exercise class to release tension, then why not get your members to join you in a live workout?

The platforms we recommend for this are Instagram Live, Facebook Live, and Zoom…but you can use something else too if you like.

Step 1 - Let everyone know you’re hosting a group meditation/yoga/exercise class with a post about a week before the session, with the date, time and platform. This will give them plenty of notice to organise their work load/schedules around it

Step 2 - Tag the MDXSU Societies social media accounts or email societies@mdx.ac.uk the details, so MDXSU know to advertise it for you too!

Step 3 - Add it as an event on the website to get even more engagement. If you’re using Zoom ask people to book a free ticket to the event so you can send them the meeting link before the session begins

Step 4 - Share your amazing techniques and top tips in the session, and boost your members moods with lots of smiles and supportive words!

If you do not feel like joining a class with others, here is some Youtube channels and websites to partake in physical exercise classes & some mindful meditation/yoga in your own solitude:

Physical exercise channels:

SELF: https://www.youtube.com/self/playlists

BodyProject: https://www.youtube.com/c/BodyProjectchallenge/playlists

Yoga & meditation channels:

Yoga With Adriene: https://www.youtube.com/c/yogawithadriene/playlists

Great Meditation: https://www.youtube.com/c/GreatMeditation/playlists


Quiz Nights

There are lots of quizzes you can engage with online already, but why not create and host your own for your society members! This will help them continue to feel a part of the societies and communities we’ve worked so hard this year to build, making them feel better about not being able to attend your usual regular meet ups on campus.

Zoom

Step 1 – Advertise the Quiz Event via your socials and on the MDXSU website, and ask people to book a free ticket to the event you’ve created so you can send them the meeting link before it begins.

Step 2 - Tag the MDXSU Societies social media accounts or email societies@mdx.ac.uk the details, so MDXSU know to advertise it for you too!

Step 3 – Write your quiz, organising the questions into ‘rounds’. Some round suggestions include music, film and tv, general knowledge, picture round, famous quotes (who said that?), etc., but you can base the rounds on anything you want!

Step 4 – Create a presentation with all of the questions of your quiz in it. If it’s a long one, try to incorporate a mini break half way through.

Step 5 – Send everyone the meeting link half an hour before the quiz begins, and get set up on Zoom using the ‘share your screen’ feature, so everyone can see the quiz questions.

Step 6 – Optional, but you may want to mute people’s mics whilst you read the questions to avoid too many delays and ensure it runs smoothly. You can do this by clicking ‘manage participants’ and clicking ‘mute all’.

Step 7 – Go through the answers and ask people to tally up their scores, and send them to you privately on the Zoom chat box (which has the option to choose whether you send a message to everyone or just to an individual)

Step 8 – Optional, but if you know you have funding left in your society account, you may want to send the winner a little prize and claim back the money!

Kahoot

Top Tip 1: You can use Kahoot for FREE for up to 10 players, but you may want to bid for society funding to pay for a larger capacity!

Top Tip 2: Video call at the same time for even more fun!

Step 1 – Advertise the quiz event via your socials and on the MDXSU website, and ask people to book a free ticket to the event you’ve created so you can send them the quiz link before it begins.

Step 2 – Tag the MDXSU Societies social media accounts or email societies@mdx.ac.uk the details, so MDXSU know to advertise it for you too! Then create your quiz!

Step 3 – Download mobile app or go to www.kahoot.com and create an account.

Step 4 – Click ‘Create’ to get started making your quiz

Step 5 – Add a title, cover photo and description by clicking ‘enter kahoot title’

Step 6 – Next, type in your first question, select a time limit for the question, add an image (optional) and add the answers. Tick the correct answer(s)

Step 7 – Click ‘Add Question’ to continue making the quiz.

Step 8 – Repeat this until you’re happy with your completed quiz, then click ‘Done’.

Step 9 – Go to ‘Kahoots’, which will take you to a page which has all of your quizzes in it.

Step 10 – Make sure your quiz is ‘visible to everyone’. If it is not, it will say ‘only visible to you’ on it.

Step 11 – Share your quiz via link by clicking the three dots, share, then copying and pasting the link into a message to your members.

Step 12 – Click ‘Play’, ‘Host’, then ‘1:1’, when you are ready to begin the quiz with your members.

Step 13 – They will need to go to their app or on their webpage and click ‘Play’, then enter a game pin to join


New Skills & Workshops

Why not take the opportunity to teach your members something new! Invite everyone to a workshop and show them how to create something, draw something, cook something etc. over Zoom! Or put together a factual presentation to and present to them by sharing your screen on Zoom!