A Brief History of CaSSoc
CaSSoc is one of the oldest societies on campus, founded 50 years ago shortly after the University was!
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In the early days, we were originally called The Thomas More Society, after our perpetual patron, St. Thomas More, the famous theologian and martyr of the English Reformation (right).
TomSoc was very much a scholar's community, providing a spiritual haven of talks, prayer and reflection for Catholic students in the 60s and 70s. Renamed The Catholic Students' Society, or Cassoc (a pun on 'cassock', the garment worn by clergy and altar servers), we flourished alongside the Methodist & Anglican community (recently reformed into AngSoc), with which more than one competitive football match was played!
It was then that we introduced the tradition of supporting a charity each year (the charity for 1998 was Pax Christi, an international Catholic movement for peace), and balancing events between the spiritual, social, and intellectual. 
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Surviving hiatus in the late 90s, we evolved into the more strictly alphabetical CaSSoc, seeing the introduction of many things members are familiar with today. These include the refurbishment of More House chapel; the formation of a campus Mass music group; the writing of our society constitution; famed annual events such as the summer Three Peaks charity challenge; and the establishing of the new committee positions which last to this day.
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For some interesting snapshots of our past, see our two previous websites. There is one from 1995-98 including a guided tour of what More House was like at the time, and one from 2012-14 including some events from then. We launched this website in 2014, and we have archived photos of events since that time, including committee elections, summer balls, and annual retreats.
