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In 1953, RCSU possessed a Drum that was used to announce our presence at Rag events, Barnights, Morphy Day and so on. We still have a drum in the Office but this is not the original (actually, the present one was nicked from Southampton much later on).
In 1958, it was decided that RCSU needed a mascot that represented a common link between the students and since all RCS students (save Mathematicians, who always were a bit strange!) use a Thermometer at some time during their stay here, this was the mascot design chosen. So it was that THETA was born. In November 1958 he was named at a Union General Meeting (where, incidentally, the RCS Chant - the Kangela - was revised) and then christened in Imperial Institute Road in a bath of flames. In his first incarnation he was simply a ballcock screwed on to a broomstick 4ft long and painted in RCS colours. He was presented to a Freshers' Dinner on the 30th October 1958 prior to naming, where the following verse was recited:
"Freshers, into your guiltless hands we fling
Defence of this Thermometer, a thing
Handed down by generations, we recall
'Twas made last year out of a cistern ball."
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