Welly Ball successfully launches campaign at the Vic

Another year, a novel commencement of the annual Welly Ball charitable campaign. The ultimate event, due to take place this year on 4 November, is one of the biggest black-tie balls in St Andrews according to the organisers, and is healthily attended by weary clay pigeon shooters sourced from the land over. The launch this year took place in the Vic bar and club and is the calendar’s first major social event not to be hosted in the ‘Freshers’ Pavilion’ — a venue that appears plucked straight from the architectural preferences of Ghostbusters’ Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. For this reason, the Welly Ball launch was also going to have the advantage of being the initial rallying point for the town’s long-time summer-separated rahs and frolickers.

As aforementioned, the ultimate end of Welly Ball is charitable. It has over a sustained period worked with the Charlie Waller Trust, an entity that “[provides] mental health training, resources and consultancy with a focus on children and young people”. Such a service’s necessity is becoming ever clearer as the resources provided by social services suffer under financial strain and overstretching. Last year’s committee celebrated donating a reported £33,000 to the charity, and undoubtedly this year’s cohort shall do their utmost to reproduce a similar offering.

The event itself quite literally sparkled into life as attendees ascended their way through a wall of silver shining; such served as rude contrast to the habitual drunken clamber of the Vic’s stairwell to which most will be accustomed. The entry party was jovial and personable and, if one entered at the right time, arrivees could have a brief word with one of the DJs before they later jockeyed their disks with intensely groovy ramifications. Wellington boots were stated as optional in the event description but seldom was a humble gumboot on show; those who were seen to be sporting a pair could be categorised as either Welly Ball radicals or the freshly returned whose parents hadn’t yet managed to send up their newest pair of artisanal loafers.

As a choice of venue, the Vic must be recognised as the optimal choice — albeit a choice which is neither free nor fair; the pub-cum-club has the monopoly when it comes to late-night frivolity beyond the realms of the Students’ Union. Thus, drink prices, which don’t bear sober repetition, did leave a truly nasty sting in the pocket, and the giving hand, and indeed, in the now less wealthy body. The quality of the music went some way to recuperating this financial browbeating; whilst I’m by no means predisposed to EDM-alloyed headbanging and arm raising, preferring contrarily an Elton John- or Billy Joel-enabled groove, there were certainly some classics looped and bangers unveiled.

As ever, the smoking area provided consistent and inadvertent entertainment, as well as a honeypot for some golden quotes on the progression of the evening. One fellow attendee, who seemed obsessed by the conundrum of “rizz” and the obtainment of my Instagram @, revealed in a shock admission that “I came for golf daddies. I’m getting more Shrek 3 audience,” in reference to the excessively youthful faces that punctuated the smoke-marinated walls. Another, whose contribution was preceded by a discussion on genetics and their particularly pronounced Irish heritage, delivered what was likely the harshest critique of the night and of the University in one fell swoop, concluding “mid gaff for a moderate university”. What that actually means is not to me entirely clear but, after all, I’m neither sage nor translator, merely a humble reporter of the facts.

And a return to the facts will help conclude this article. £10 for entry, if too late for the reduced-price early bird ticket, may be steeper than casual entry to the Vic on undesignated evenings. However, it’s for charity, and if I’m going to participate in a transfer of Pound Sterling, I’d rather my moolah be put to a charitable cause than the alcoholic one it almost certainly would be otherwise. Guests could have a laugh, reunite, and resharpen to some extent their scalpel of impeccable chat and charm which shall undoubtedly be called upon throughout the semester ahead; in short, Welly’s perhaps premature pre-semester launch provided ample excuse to get back into the social swing of things, whilst equally reminding us of the real deal: the ball itself on 4 November.

Photos by Helen Lipsky