Does science have a moral compass? UCL Second year History undergraduate Daniel Bowman discusses the highlights of a lecture by Lord Winston hosted by UCL Jewish Society on 18 February.

As the education director of the UCL Jewish society, my primary focus has been to invite and host successful figures in a variety of different fields to talk about thought provoking topics that are important to students. The hallmark of our talks has been the question and answer sessions, which often go well beyond the allotted time.

This was certainly the case with Lord Winston’s talk. The theatre was filled far beyond capacity, with students crammed into aisles and in the corridor, making the atmosphere of the talk especially exciting. It was without doubt the talk that I was anticipating the most, and it definitely surpassed all expectations.

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Adam Taylor, UCL Second year Economics undergraduate and President of UCL Jewish Society.

For the past two decades, the advertising business has been dominated by one man and the company that he built. WPP started in 1971 as a manufacturer of shopping baskets. In 1985, Sir Martin Sorrell bought a controlling stake in the company and, over the subsequent 30 years, transformed it through a series of audacious acquisitions into the largest advertising group in the world, with annual revenues of more than £9 billion. On 16 January, UCL Jewish Society hosted Sir Martin to address more than 200 people in the Cruciform Lecture Theatre.

The introduction promised the title of ‘2012 and beyond’, but Sir Martin was quick to announce, to much amusement, that he had no intention of sticking to this. Rather, he would open the floor immediately to questions.

Nonetheless, Sir Martin was unable to avoid the title as the first question asked was for his predictions for the year ahead. 2012, he revealed, would be a special kind of year for advertising. The quadrennial occurrence of the US elections, the Olympics and the European football championships would ensure plentiful demand for the services of WPP’s numerous companies.

Beyond 2012, he predicted, things could look a little more uncertain. The potential shift in economic power away from the western world and towards the emerging economies would provide new sources of business across the world.

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The Volunteering Services Unit (VSU) held its 2011 Volunteering Awards Ceremony on the evening of the 26 May in the Roberts Foyer, UCL Engineering Building. Now in its ninth year, this event boasted three special group awards, various speakers, as well as the highly deserved recognition of individual UCL volunteers.

As John Braime, Volunteering Manager started by saying, the awards are one of their ways of saying thank you to volunteers for all their work done in the community. Professor David Price, UCL Vice-Provost (Research), identified student volunteering as being one of the high points in activities taking place at UCL.

The VSU started in 2002 with 200 volunteers and by the end of this academic year numbers will have grown to 1,350 – a 12% increase on last year.

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