By Lavinia Emmett-Grey

After many years involved in student representation, I’ve realised that student politicians fall into various categories. There are the Fun Times People, who love O-Week and UniBar events, but don’t really care about anything else that the Union does. There are the ideologues, who once watched a documentary on Vietnam protests, decided that’s what uni is about and think that the Fun Times people are morons. There are the CV Sluts who are just looking for something to pad out their resume. There are the Hacks who are in it to recruit for [insert political party name here] and see the Union as a stepping stone to parliament. And there are the Gimps who are only there because a Hack told them to run and promised them free beer.
As a student politician, I believed in the importance of a campus culture encompassing everything from the karaoke nights where only three drunk girls end up singing Britney all night to the Ultimate Frisbee players arguing on the field; from the Dungeons and Dragons geeks hiding out in the Clubs Association to the vomit-coated lawns of O-Week. I have great respect for all the people who pour their hearts and souls into making this weird calendar of events happen.
I must confess, events were never really my thing. Sure, I was always happy to help out but a great O-Ball never thrilled me half as much as signing people up to join the Union, or encouraging students to get involved in a campaign about the accessibility of higher education. However, there was one event that has always held a special place in my heart.
Prosh is an event where students pull pranks for charity. It began at the University of Adelaide in 1905 when students paraded behind the horse-drawn trams in order to mock them. This was the first Prosh parade, the procession from which the event draws its name. When I was AUU President, I unearthed a large photograph hidden in a cupboard which was of the Prosh parade in 1917. In faded sepia it shows Beehive Corner, between Haigh’s and Darrell Lea at the end of Rundle Mall. The Prosh parade fills the streets from edge to edge, a sea of boaters and ruffled skirts, with people peering over balconies to watch the madness below. I always think how strange and sad it must have been to be celebrating in the middle of a World War. It’s as if Prosh then held all the vitality and wonder, the capacity to wake a small city into life, that the Fringe Parade holds today. On parade, students would take out the PROSH rag – a student publication with satirical articles – and sell it to the public to raise money.
The Prosh pranks of days gone by have all the magic of the great oral histories. In 1966, engineering students kidnapped a local radio presenter, put him in a boat, took him into international waters and made him broadcast a pirate radio station for 24 hours. They came back to shore, stocked up on more beer, then took him back out.

In 1973, the Engies (again) suspended an FJ Holden under the footbridge behind uni. In the 1990s, a toilet seat was glued to parliament house steps and passers-by threw coins in it. In 2002, students dressed in pig suits kidnapped the Ronald McDonald from the Myer Centre and the cops chased them onto campus.
When Voluntary Student Unionism was introduced, events were hit the hardest. In a choice between whether to fund welfare services or anything involving beer, it was an easy call to make. Prosh had started to dwindle before that though, with students forgetting the purpose of the event, seeing it as little more than a muck-up day with beer.
And that’s one of the reasons I’ve always loved Prosh over and above other events. I like purpose – I don’t go window shopping, I only shop when I know those 6-inch, red-sequinned, skanky Dorothy heels are on sale. At the University of Western Australia, Prosh raised $100 000 for charity last year.
I love Prosh for its irreverence for authority combined with a good heart. I love its sense of history that means students still pass along stories of Proshs past. Most importantly, I love that it’s fundamentally about community; a legacy of students going out into broader society with humour, hope and good will, all in the name of a good cause.
If you’re interested in keeping the Prosh tradition alive for another hundred years, get in touch.