On 30th September from 11am til 6pm, the first manchester Alternative Freshers Fair will be held at The Basement, 24 Lever Street, City Centre.

Featuring many diverse groups doing stalls, talks, workshops, films and demonstrations, with freebies and giveaways and music and all sorts of other fantastic and fun stuff.

Stalls and space for showing films, workshops, putting flyers etc are still available, and help from anyone wanting to do promotional work for the event, flyering, postering, ads etc is much appreciated.

Email  mancaltfreshers@riseup.net for more details.

See you there!










“Why an alternative freshers fair?” you may ask.

Well the reasons are many and varied…. But basically we don’t believe the present freshers fair does justice to the many inspiring and diverse things that go on within this city. Students arriving in Manchester for the first time and wanting to throw themselves into local life are not welcomed at the university by community groups, campaign organisations, volunteer groups of exciting arts and music collectives, but by Barclaycard trying to immerse them into debt as soon as they walk through the door, the Telegraph with its prejudiced views and misinformation, and other people offering supposed “services” that are more about exploiting the student market than actually doing anything to make life an exciting and fulfilling thing for these newcomers to our city.

So an alternative needs to be made. People need to know about all the things that they can get involved with here, all the groups that are willing to help and guide them, to meet likeminded people with similar interests and get access to services that will genuinely help them and enhance student life for them.

This is what we are aiming to do. We want to bring together a variety of Manchester based groups and organisations under one roof to show students what goes on outside of the mainstream student body. To introduce them to a side of our city they don’t get to experience through the main university societies, and to help them integrate into the wider local community and make the most of their time here.

We want a showcase of the best Manchester has to offer, including environmental groups, social campaign groups, community initiatives, alternative health care, food suppliers, arts groups, alternative media, volunteer organisations, music shops and venues, LGBT groups, and loads more that will help them see that there is more to Manchester than the shiny corporate exterior suggests.

We are in the process of contacting many groups across Manchester to ask them if they will send representatives to the event. We want students at the event to be able to get involved in local campaign groups, to learn about nutrition and health in what for many will be their first time away from home looking after themselves, to find likeminded artists, musicians and media heads to collaborate creatively with, to help students from minority groups integrate themselves into the wider communities in the city, to let people find out how to help local community groups and volunteer for things they are interested in.

We want to event to be vibrant and colourful, with workshops and demonstrations going on all day, people giving out flyers for upcoming events, music, and all sorts of other stuff to make it a fun alternative to the mainstream officially sanctioned event.