BY MIDHAT MERAJ (MAN/II)
In the following interview, Ece Berkyürek (ECON/III) talks about the Quidditch Club.
Q) What is the history of the Quidditch Club, and when was it formed?
A) The application to establish the Quidditch Club was submitted in May 2015, and the club was officially established on July 5, 2015. This made it the second official quidditch society at the university level in Turkey. Halil and I started playing quidditch for the METU quidditch society in February and have been playing for the METU Phoenix (now, Hacettepe Phoenix) club since then. This gave us the idea of forming a quidditch club at Bilkent, and after a little searching we managed to find students who were interested in the game and wanted to be a part of this society.
Q) Who are the founding members?
A) The founding members are Halil Can Sezgi, Selin Tonay, Batuhan Eren, Mert Özateş, Deniz Cömert, Gizem Önal, Hüsna Dolma and myself. Around 200 people signed up for the club during orientation; at the moment we have about 40 active members.
Q) What is the Quidditch Club about? Can you briefly describe the sport?
A) Quidditch as a fictional sport was described by J. K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series, and was adapted for actual play in 2005 by a group of students in the US state of Vermont. It is a mixed-gender, physical sport played on an oval field; there are three hoops of different sizes at both ends, and five different balls. Team members have to play with brooms between their legs at all times; if the broom is taken out, the player is inactive in the game. Each team fields seven players: one keeper, three chasers, two beaters and one seeker.
Q) What differentiates quidditch from other sports?
A) Quidditch has a “four maximum” rule that allows a maximum of four players from one gender on the field at any given time. It is important to note that the gender a player identifies with is considered to be that player’s gender, which may or may not be the same as that person’s sex. Thus, the society believes in equality and freedom and strictly forbids any kind of discrimination in any of its activities.
Q) What aspect of the Quidditch Club do you appreciate the most?
A) What we love most about quidditch is its inclusiveness in terms of gender, race and background. The main purpose of the club is to play and have fun together, and revel in playing a sport that we previously had only read about in the Harry Potter series. Lastly, the game is physically as well as mentally invigorating and hence gives players great satisfaction.
Q) How often do Quidditch Club activities take place?
A) The club’s first training session club was held September 17, and from then on we have been having training sessions on Sundays (1-4 p.m.) on the Main Campus grass field, which are open to everyone, and on Fridays (8-10 p.m.) on the East Campus fields, which are mainly for team members.
Q) What are your future plans or goals for the club?
A) We are quite ambitious and competitive; we practice hard and train regularly. We aim to participate in the Turkish Quidditch Cup in the future; we could not do so this year due to exam schedules. We also look forward to taking part in tournaments, both in Turkey and across Europe.
To get to know more about the Quidditch Club and its future events, you can follow these links:
www.facebook.com/BilkentQT