Hi guys, Russell here, Open Place President of the Durham University LGBTA. It’s my job to keep our wonderful exec in check and to ensure that the association is consistently heeding and exceeding your standards. Open Place refers to a representation of the males and those who do not identify as male or female, while Katie champions women’s issues – though each of us are supremely caring and qualified to assist with anything, regardless of gender.

I cannot verbalise just how much this association means to me. To have such a tight-knit and caring community means the world to someone who can one day be singing in the street and the next crying in the shower. Within the LGBTA we have such a vast base of activities – one night we’ll be screaming drunk on the Powerhouse podium, the next we’ll be protesting for gay rights, then we’ll all collapse on the sofa for a quiet cuppa or a film. Nobody is left out here, everyone has their place and their people. I’m unfathomably proud to represent a society that is committed to looking after both yourself and each and every one around you.

As for me, I’m a fourth year Mathematician (at least in name) at Cuths. I adore Durham for its landscape and society variety and am clinging kicking and screaming to each passing day. Should you need to find me, by day I’ll be spinning a web of numbers in some dark corner of the Maths dept, by night I’ll be at some sort of society.

One last thing: I know there will be many readers who are terrified at the idea of coming to see us. It’s daunting enough to be on your own in a room with forty or more happy students, worse still when it means publically coming to terms with a side of you that some might find difficult to face. Please don’t let this stop you. Don’t be me in my first year, thinking two weeks in that it was too late to go along to a social, wishing for the rest of the year I had. If anyone feels alone or would like a chat just ask for me or send me an email and I’ll come running, all soft brown eyes and foppish smile.