This weekend saw an event where the great and the good dusted off their finery and walked the red carpet in style, sitting down to a sumptuous four course meal and then waiting anxiously to see who would win the coveted awards.

No, not the Oscars - the RCSI College Ball! On Saturday 25 February, over 600 students partied the night away at the Burlington Hotel, the venue for the ever popular College Ball. This year had a stunning "Fire and Ice" theme and beat anything the Academy Awards designers could come up with!

The main focus of the night were the presentation of awards to the hard working Student Societies. This year close to 40 Societies represented their nationality, culture, interests and shared pastimes and often giving up a great deal of their spare time to do so.

This year, whilst all Societies were worthy of the ‘Society of the Year' award, it went to a group who work hard to represent all its members, hosting interesting events, working with other groups and even not too long ago for securing a visit to RCSI from the former President of Ireland - Mary McAleese. The 2012 Society of the Year Award went to the Islamic Society.
It has been a great year for the Islamic Society. They also won the ‘On Campus Event of the Year' for their Charity Week which raised over €10,000 for charity. To complete the hat-trick of successes, they also scooped the Societies Person of the Year 2012 award.

With close to 40 societies in the College, sadly some events have to take place away from the College and this year saw a new award in the form of ‘Off Campus Event of the Year'. This award went to the Pharmacy Society and Society President Martin Lanigan was on hand to receive this award on behalf of Pharm Soc.

It is important to remember that Societies are a great place for new students to find their feet when new to RCSI. Finding a group who share your interests can often help new students to settle in and perhaps feel more at home here. It was this in mind that the "Fresher of the Year" award is made. The competition was fierce and the competition so close that a joint award was made to Mohini Gadre for her work with the Art Society and to Angela Verelli who has worked hard for the Pharmacy Society.

In recognition of the efforts of outgoing committee members, Claire Acton was presented with an award for her marathon work for the Music Society. Well done to Claire on this well earned award.

The outgoing Societies Union were also presented with an award for their outstanding work in contributing to RCSI societies and student life with Éamon Ó'Ceallaigh accepting the award on behalf of himself and Stephanie Mancini.

The awards were presented by Margie Morgan from Student Services. Margie commented: "It is important that we recognise and reward the amount of work that our talented students put into their Society life. As Societies Co-ordinator, I get to see first hand that they often sacrifice evenings to contribute to student life. It is wonderful to see the results of this work and each year RCSI Societies go from strength to strength.