Tab chats to RAG

So what is RAG all about?

Raising and Giving (RAG) is the biggest student fundraising society in Cambridge. They organise a variety of events throughout the year, from big challenges like Jailbreak and LOST! to the city-wide Blind Date, bucket collections and even a club night!

Each year they support ten different charities which are chosen by students voting on our website. They receive hundreds of applications, from which the RAG team handpicks a shortlist of twenty local, national and international charities that are effective and transparent. Then it’s the students who get the final decision! Cambridge RAG is run by students, for students, and it is important to them that you get to decide where your fundraising money goes, while getting a chance to find out more about the causes you’re donating to and the local, national and international issues your money goes towards addressing.

And with a yearly fundraising total of over £100,000, that difference can be massive. Voting is now open until the 19th of October, with their charities for this year being announced soon afterwards.

It’s hard to know how to make a difference in a world seemingly faced with so many problems, especially as a student with a limited income. Getting involved in RAG events and being part of the committee is a lot of fun, a good opportunity to meet people and to do unique and exciting things during your time at uni. RAG offers an alternative way of supporting causes you feel passionate about, without needing a lot of time, know-how or confidence.

What are some of the craziest LOST stories?

People have done some wild things on Lost before; groups have dyed their hair funny colours and even got tattoos all in the name of charity.

all for a good cause!

Here are some of the wild participants stories from last year.

The Tinder Team Lina, Jonas and Edii

Lina: Basically we all took pics of us holding signs that said "read my bio" and uploaded on tinder and then in the bio we wrote that we were doing this challenge for charity and basically just swiped as much as we could to get matches who could help us get back to Cambridge! I was the only girl and got a lot of offers that I declined because they were asking weird stuff of me in return for a ride [ew], but then one of the guys got a match who paid for tickets to Ely without ever meeting us, so that's how we got home!

Jonas: It was a mixed success – one of us managed to used up all their tinder swipes on the outskirts of Nottingham, which proved not be a good tactic. Lina had some guys that were somewhat keen, but again limited success. But the real star of the team was our third member, who got a Grindr match to buy his train ticket home. We did also have one guy on Grindr offer to drive us all from Nottingham to Cambridge, but he ghosted us right at the last moment.

Edii: We also had a bit of a photoshoot beforehand to optimize the level of engagement on our profiles and in the end someone on tinder bought us train tickets back to Cambridge!

Team Jonah and Anna managed to get a shout out from Love Island 2017 star Chris Hughes to boost their Lost story.

Charlie and Tisha passed with flying colours!

Tisha: Basically we had no luck hitchhiking so we walked for a bit and found a sign saying Nottingham town centre. Then a lady rocks up in a Land Rover and says jump in! We’re like great just our luck – we thought she was just going to drive us to the centre, but then ends up basically being our ‘chauffeur’ round Nottingham for the day driving us to all the spots. She got so involved it was great! Then we showed her the list of tasks we had to do, and she said that 'I know a pilot – let me make a few phone calls!' And then she drove us to the airfield and the rest is history! It was genuinely one of the most ‘what the fuck’ moments but also massively made me appreciate the kindness of strangers. Shout out to Zoe O’Brien Shelmerdine!!!!

Jonny: We went to the station wearing astronaut costumes and asked nicely if we could get on the train for free to London and then we did the same thing to get to Cambridge. Turns out if you ask nicely and smile people are very happy to help you out!

come fly with meee

So there you have it, some crazy stories about Lost. And the deadline to sign up for Lost is this Thursday so…. here are the tickets https://joinagora.com/events/26623/?view=public#tickets