By Holly Georgious

We’re Moving 

We’re moving and it feels strange. I don’t love the church by any means. There is little to no natural light. There are drug addicts on the doorstep, which is fine during the day, but when you have had to stay in the studio late and it’s dark outside with no one else around it’s not always the nicest thing. And the air conditioner is always on, so the pit is honestly minus two degrees on a good day and Arctic hypothermic temperatures on the rest. But despite all that it is the place where our journey began. It’s where we got tattoos and stripped down to our undies on our audition day. Where we shook our hips and body rolled when we were late. And where we first made friends and laughed during our first few weeks. The church has been there for all the ups the downs, the pride and the embarrassment and despite all it’s quirks and kinks it will always have a special place in my heart. Below are a few of my favourite memories from St. Matthews including that of the very first time I set eyes on it:

First Encounters Pt1 —

Luckily, I turned up an hour early for my interview day, because I spent the first half hour wandering around in a circle, going through various doors and stairways trying to find SCA’s entrance. In hindsight I probably should have gathered that I was pulling at the wrong door by the massive sign that said Germio de Brixton.

First Encounters Pt2 —

When the first day of term rolled around, I had luckily remembered which was the correct entrance. Unfortunately, I was so early that I was locked out. My newfound class mate and friend Sam and I spent the first 20 minutes of our friendship thinking about different ways to break in and contemplating whether this was the first task in the game show that is our course.

SpongeBob —

Helping Charlie frantically to attach SpongeBob to his stick. I appreciate that this memory should have some context, but really leaving it as is puts into context how weird it really was.

Strip that down for me —

The greatest and in many ways most committed dance routine of all time was Dean’s performance earlier in the year. As most of you know if we are late and have not given a reason we are made to dance in front of everyone before Town Hall. This is usually filmed, what Marc is planning to do with these films I will probably never know, but a part of me feels they would make good blackmail leverage, or the type of tape that would be leaked if you were to become famous. Anyway, I digress… on this particular occasion it was Dean who was late, which is unusual as he is usually pretty early. For some reason known only to him (and to be honest I’m not completely convinced he knew why himself), he decided to do a striptease. Although less tease and more strip it had the whole room in hysterics and Marc confused. It was worth it just to see the look on Marc and Ian’s faces.

Hot sauce and Mariachi —

We have seen a couple of interview days while at the church, all are interesting, usually bizarre and nearly always entertaining. Some highlights include finding a Mariachi band standing outside the loos, watching the toughest of SCA’s cry over the effects of hot sauce, getting vibrators chucked at us and looking after someone’s iguana while they were being interviewed. Like I said bizarre and entertaining. 

Family —

Having a birthday early on is always an awkward one. You want to celebrate and do something special, but you also don’t want to force people who hardly know you celebrate. My birthday fell on the second week. I walked in, thinking no one would know or remember bit instead was welcomed by a cake with candles, the whole room sang happy birthday and for the first time I felt like we were a family. 

Since then and starting we have experienced so much together. We have celebrated people finding out they were uncles and aunts, been there for others as family members have been ill and partied together when things have gone well. There have been ups and downs, cries and cuddles, but despite all it’s faults the church is where our journey began, where our family started and we have had some bloody good times there. I never thought I’d be saying this but St. Mathews church I’ll miss ya.