RAG: An Update

That stage of term is upon us. We passed week five with flying colours, but week six has hit us, or me at least, hard.

While life might have taken a turn for the worse in the the past few days, RAG has been booming – and it’s all thanks to the donations and time of you, the students of Cambridge. We at RAG have recently elected the charities that we’ll be raising money for in 2012-13. Get psyched. They are…*drumroll*…

Actually, I’ll tell you later. If you really can’t wait then scroll down, but try to control yourself – suspense is a beautiful thing.

First up, I want to apologise for my last article – I lied. I said that I’d joined RAG because it was fun or good or something. I now realise that it was pretty much exclusively down to my desire for an excuse to pun. RAG is a really excellent word/acronym to manhandle into puns – some past examples: “outRAGeous”, “bRAGging”, “foRAGing” (It made sense in context, I promise) and “fRAGile” (which probably describes my current mental state).

Distracting me from the mess that is my life (failed-pun flashbacks, my phone sitting damply in a bowl of rice) are the various exciting events that are coming up in the RAG calendar:

Wear Your Pyjamas to Lectures Day (a.k.a. ‘The Nightwear Before Christmas’) for Children in Need, this Friday 16^th. Day clothes are SO week six. Pudseys will be stationed around the Downing, Sidgwick and New Museums sites to pick up your money like cuddly loan sharks. Hopefully we’ll raise a lot of money, and maybe even get to see a new side to our lecturers. I suspect Economic Anthropology (Nikolai the Russian Guy) is a onesie man, and this is my chance to find out.

Speed Dating with the Union. Don’t feel blue waiting for Blind Date to come around – bag yourself some charitable lovin’ at http://www.cambridgerag.org.uk/speed-dating/.

Looking for love?

Candycanes. Even though you’re at Cambridge you’ve probably got at least one friend, and what better way to hang onto them than by sending a sugary seasonal treat directly to their pigeonhole for only £1.50? These’ll be going on sale on the RAG website from Friday.

Also, keep an eye out for the Lost video coming out in the next week or so. Lost, for anyone who doesn’t know, involves a coach-load of people being dumped in a mystery location (this time it was Hampshire), from which they have to find their way home without spending any money whatsoever. In other words, the video should be pretty good.

Orienteering? Piece of cake.

Returning to the point of this article, here are the charities. They’re voted in by representatives from each college and a central committee. This election seems, somewhat inexplicably, to have received less coverage in the mass media than some other election that went on this month (points for anyone who can guess which), but The Tab is here to put this right.

Local charities:

Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre – A helpline service for women and girls who have suffered from, or are currently experiencing, sexual violence.

Jimmy’s Night Shelter – Provides support and accommodation for homeless people in Cambridge.

FoodCycle Cambridge – Turning surplus food into tasty meals for those in need.

East Anglian Air Ambulance – A 365-day helicopter emergency medical service covering Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Teenage Cancer Trust – Addenbrooke’s Appeal – Improving the lives of young people with cancer, by treating them as young people first and cancer patients second. The Addenbrooke’s unit opened in February 2012.

National and international:

WaterAid – Improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world’s poorest communities.

Macmillan Cancer Support – Providing practical, medical and financial support for people with cancer and their loved ones, and pushing for better cancer care.

British Heart Foundation – Working for a world in which people don’t die prematurely from heart disease, through research, prevention activity and quality care.

Action Against Hunger – An international humanitarian organisation committed to ending child hunger.

NSPCC / Childline – Aiming to end cruelty to children in the UK through campaigning, helpline services and more.