By Megan Loock
Staff Elm Writer
At the start of October, Washington College’s Black Student Union hosted a series of Disney+ watch parties to bring the WC community together in the spirit of Halloween.
Disney+, the exclusive streaming service for entertainment owned by the Walt Disney corporation, joined the bandwagon of watch party software on Sept. 29, according to Variety.
BSU, however, streamed the films via Zoom.
While Disney+ does have a watch party feature, all streamers must have a subscription to the service in order to watch, according to Observer.
The month-long event debuted with a screening of the Disney film “The Haunted Mansion” on Oct. 2.
The following Friday Oct. 9, they streamed, “Return to Halloweentown,” the fourth and final movie in the Disney Channel original movie series “Halloweentown.”
“The purpose of this event was to primarily get everyone in the Halloween spirit,” sophomore Treasurer Tamara Dyer said.
BSU was supposed to host a streaming of the Netflix documentary “13th” on Oct. 16, but they postponed the event due to the lack of attendance at their last two virtual movie streaming parties.
“With the current climate we’re in…we decided that we wanted this space to be calm and collected where people can just enjoy time together,” Dyer said.
On Sept, 16 the BSU hosted an interest meeting, one of two interest meeting events they will be holding this semester.
“It really was a chance to get to know the new members,” Dyer said. “It gave students a platform to talk about anything from school, to home life, to a tweet you saw.”
“It was a nice stress reliever since most people went through similar things,” sophomore Social Chair Mariama Keita said.
Out of all three events this semester, the interest meeting received the highest attendance. As a result, BSU is in the process of reworking their event schedule to supply more interactive events that encourage students to socialize.
The BSU is also planning to do a mock Verzuz battle. The BSU will be choosing songs from six different artists to compete against each other and allow the students to discuss and debate which they believe the better song was.
Music producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland created “Verzuz,” a virtual DJ battle to bring entertainment and joy to millions of hip-hop and R&B fans due to the coronavirus.
According to CNN, “Pit two of the biggest names in music against each other on Instagram Live for a friendly head-to-head battle. No one would actually be declared the winner. But fans could hear their favorite songs and endlessly argue over who had better hits.”
The plans are not yet concrete, but Dyer is excited to host this event.
BSU has been struggling to find ways to get new members to join and continually engage in events such as Friday movie nights, according to Keita.
“We needed to adjust our recruiting tactics,” Keita said.
BSU will be hosting their second interest meeting via Zoom on Nov. 5 at 8 p.m.
“It’s basically just a check in,” Keita said, “since it’s after the election students are welcome to talk about their feelings but it’s primarily getting to know the new members.”
For more information about BSU visit their Instagram @wacbsu or contact president Destiny Harris at dharris4@washcoll.edu