Rag Week From Scratch

From UKRag Guides (wiki)

NOTE: This is an entry adapted from the fantastic guide prepared for Rag Conference 2001 from the sadly missed Barry Clements. As such please ensure any changes made are in keeping with the structure of the whole document. The original is still available on UKRag servers, please contact an admin for the original. Note added by Sean Murricane.

Contents 1 Aims 2 Different Rags 3 Reasons for having a Rag Week 4 Do we need one? 4.1 SMART Objectives 5 The Decision: We are going to have a Rag Week! 5.1 The Plan! 5.2 Benificiaries 5.3 Timing 5.4 General Ideas 5.5 Communication 5.5.1 Internal Communication 5.5.2 External Communication 5.6 Budget 5.7 Events 5.7.1 Brand your event! 5.7.2 Balancing Events 5.8 Events vs. Collctions 5.9 Cancellation 6 Appendix 1: How to SWOT! 6.1 Strengths 6.2 Weaknesses 6.3 Opportunities 6.4 Threats 7 Appendix 2: Sample SWOT Analysis 7.1 Strengths 7.2 Weaknesses 7.3 Opportunities 7.4 Threats 7.5 Strengths 7.6 Weaknesses 7.7 Opportunities 7.8 Threats 7.9 Strengths 7.10 Weaknesses 7.11 Opportunities 7.12 Threats 7.13 Strengths 7.14 Weaknesses 7.15 Opportunities 7.16 Threats 7.17 Strengths 7.18 Weaknesses 7.19 Opportunities 7.20 Threats 8 Appendix 3: Sample Press Release 8.1 Tips on your press release 9 Appendix 3: Case Study: University of Central England Rag 9.1 Background 9.2 Statistics 9.3 General 9.4 Year One: May 1998 9.5 Year Two: February 1999 9.6 Year Three: October 1999 9.7 Year Four: October 2000 10 Another Interesting Event...

Aims

By the end of the seminar, you should

• know the reasons why you are having a rag week
• feel more confident in planning a rag week
• be better equipped to evaluate the success of the event
• know where to turn to for help
• know about SMART objectives
• know how to do a SWOT analysis

Different Rags

There are a huge number of Rags around the country and every one is different. They can, however be split into three distinct types of Rag:

• rag week only Rags
• rag week as part of a full calendar
• ongoing calendar without a rag week

Reasons for having a Rag Week

• provides a focus for volunteers, University authorities, charities, media
• raise money for rag and charities
• raise awareness of rag, charities, volunteer involvement, University involvement in the community
• recruitment of new volunteers, friends of existing members, 2nd and 3rd years0
• use existing volunteers in the running and as an audience
• test and develop events
• an opportunity for volunteers and general students to have fun (i.e. an excuse to drink more beer!)
• “because we always have” i.e. the University expects it

Do we need one?

When thinking of running a rag week, you must understand why you are having one so in this process, decide on yours aims and targets. These should be based around:

• how much money you would like to raise
• how much awareness you would like to generate
• how many new volunteers you would like to be involved

SMART Objectives

A good way of constructing these is by using “SMART Objectives”. Although there is so much that can be said on this subject, in short, SMART Objectives are SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ACHEIVABLE, RELEVANT and TIME-RELATED. In this way, “We’re going to raise lots of money” turns into “Rag will raise £5,000 for charity during Rag week”. So fitting the SMART criteria, this aim is:

• Specific – “rag” will raise
• Measurable – an amount of money i.e. £5,000
• Achievable – a realistic target
• Relevant – the whole point of the activity!
• Time-related – “during Rag Week”

With the example aims above, the “Measurable” part may seem quite straightforward but might be more complex than you first think. money - £££ anywhere between £1 and £1,000,000 volunteers - number involved in making things happen and can be anywhere between 1 and 1000 awareness - quite difficult to measure unless you question everyone on campus!

There are a variety of ways to evaluate awareness:

• market research i.e. ask people, survey
• the amount of money that you raise
• the number of people who turn up at your events since, attending the event, they will have heard of Rag and the charities you are supporting - as long as there is literature/information available at each event
• a poster count i.e. choose a particular site (don’t tell your publicity people!) and monitor it for a period. Count how many days in the preceding weeks the poster could be clearly seen.
• how many times rag is mentioned on your local radio station or column inches you get in your Student newspaper, University publications/newsletter, University website, local newspapers
• how many hits your own website has, the number of emails you send out and responses you receive

It is important that you try to find out the circulation of each publication and when you get responses, to find out where people heard of you.

The Decision: We are going to have a Rag Week!

• STAGE ONE: SCREAM!!!
• STAGE TWO: BUY WIG TO REPLACE POTENTIAL HAIR LOSS
• STAGE THREE: MAKE A PLAN…

The Plan!

This is probably the most important step in the whole process. You should be planning a Rag week at least THREE MONTHS in advance. You can, of course, organise one in much less time but this will reflect its success. Your plan should include all of your targets and aims, your budget, what is happening, when and where, how people are going to tell each other about events and changes, the deadlines for cancellation

Benificiaries

As soon as you decide to have a week, you must decide who is going to benefit as this will affect the size, scale, and type of events you can run. Certain charities have specific Rag co-ordinators who are only too willing to help you in any way.

There are a couple of ways you can distribute your proceeds:

• by deciding on a number of charities beforehand and splitting the final proceeds
• by doing each event in aid of a specific charity
• by raising money for the Rag “pot” and deciding on the beneficiaries later

If you are running your first rag week, I would suggest choosing between two and five charities in advance and either run specific events for them or create a central “pot” which is divided up evenly between your beneficiaries. You can of course decide on a combination of these.

Timing

I think that the best idea is to think of all the options and do a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) on each idea to decide on the best. See appendix for more examples and a guide on how to SWOT.

General Ideas

Srengths everyone has loads of money freshers are still enthusiastic Weaknesses will people have money? exam times? is anyone away on placement/reading week/exams Opportunities add a theme to the week e.g. valentine’s week, piggy-back a well known charity event e.g. Children In Need, World Aids Day, Comic Relief team up with other clubs/societies e.g. sports charities with sports clubs Threats clash with other activities/competition for poster space e.g. election week weather

Communication

Communication is one of the keys to a successful rag week and there are two different types: external and internal which are both equally important. If your internal communication breaks down, you will have badly run events, if you have bad external communication, you might have expertly organised events, but no one will there to see them so you will not make any money!

Internal Communication

There are a huge number of ways in which you can achieve good communication and it should be decided in your plan how people are going to communicate.

A set structure should be set up, to keep track on who’s doing what, and when. The number of volunteers you have involved will dictate the number of positions you have and the structure you follow.

Many Rags would recommend one overall Rag Week co-ordinator with each event or general happening having it’s own organiser. It’ll be their job to make sure that there is a plan drawn up for each event, everyone knows what is happening, what needs to be done and that each event goes to plan. It is also their responsibility to liase with the rag week co-ordinator, setting a target for the event, keeping them up to date and making them aware of any difficulties that arise.

It’s the Rag Week Co-ordinator’s responsibility to make sure that updates are in keeping with the original plan of how the week should go, or at least contingency plans are in force should things start to change.

An overall Publicity co-ordinator should liase with the Rag week co-ordinator and NOT the individual event managers, to keep continuity with all the publicity efforts. This is because it will sometimes be more effective to advertise the week as a whole rather than individually e.g. student newspaper, major notice boards when one large poster will be more effective than lots of smaller ones. There should be opportunities, however, to advertise certain events additionally if they will appeal to a certain market.

Regular formal contact should maintained throughout the planning of Rag Week i.e. meetings, especially in the preceding four weeks. Depending on your committee structure, it might be more beneficial to have these separately from normal meetings, where the rag week co-ordinator might give a brief summary.

Email will be the most efficient method of communication for distributing minutes etc of meetings. It is important that this happens as soon as possible so that people do not forget what they have agreed to do, what other people have agreed to do and how much progress has been made. Minutes don’t need to be too detailed as most people will remember what was said if prompted by a short sentence. Minutes also serve as the best way to tell people who were absent what happened.

Take a note of as many people’s email addresses as you can at the start of term. These can help you “remind” your recruits of how great helping out on a Rag Week looks on their CVs, perhaps they will get involved for the week, come to an event…

External Communication

This is how you tell people outside your organisation, all about your Rag week, what you are trying to achieve and how you’re going to do it.

Email is great for getting in touch with the general student population to get people to come along to events. It is cheap, fast and everybody has access to it. Ask your University Computer Centre if you could get space on the ”message of the day” or the welcome screen when people log on, or even in the diary of the university’s website. Ask whoever deals with the technical support in your union (It will be whoever you call when you want to take a hammer to your keyboard) if you could have some space on your unions’ website. If your Union or University has a mailing list, ask if you could send a couple of messages out.

External communication is a great opportunity for your publicity people to shine through. Too often, publicity committees think putting up posters is as far as it goes. Publicity covers lecture announcements, press releases, radio appearances, banners, newspapers, and websites...anything that gets you noticed really!

Find out where your University Press office is. Make as appointment and get to know the people who work there. They deal with the media every day and will have some very useful contacts and advice. If you listen to them, tell them what you want to publicise and they will be your friends forever! If you tell them that you are students trying to do something positive in the community, trying to promote the positive aspects of student life, raising money for charity, then they will be really helpful. In addition, you may have to follow certain guidelines if you are using the Universities name. They will also be able to provide you with these.

The charities that you are supporting might also be able to help you with publicity. Get the charities to give you a mention in their newsletters and website. They could also send a press release to you local newspapers (in addition to your own) after they have received their money to say how much of a difference your efforts have made. They could also write to your Principal/Chancellor to say how they were impressed with your organisation.

Budget

Unless you are really lucky, you will have no money! This is fine since you are doing things for charity, you should be able to blag most things. If you have difficulty, there are two way of paying for things: either by the proceeds of an event or by the charity benefiting.

If you are an affiliated society or an association you will be able to ask your union for funding, but make sure you do this nice and early, as you may have to wait quite a while before the money is available to you. The amount of money you get will usually depend on the number of members you have.

You should be able to project (as well as you can) how much you are going to spend on each event, overall publicity, telephone calls, stamps – more or less every penny! You will also have to make a realistic approximation of how much you are going to make on an event to decide if it is worth going ahead. Some rags have specific budget forms they require all event managers to complete and get passed by the Rag exec before they are allowed funds to spend. Example form attached as an appendix.

Additional funding for events can sometimes be found through sponsorship. You may have to be prepared to change some of the event’s format for this though.

Events

Some people have difficulty thinking of enough decent events to fill the week. It is not necessary to have something on every night or day...don’t go for a second rate event just to fill a space in the calendar! Rag week is an ideal opportunity to try out new or different events that you might not have had the confidence or support to run in the past. This is not an excuse, however, to run an event that you know will loose money, or the breakeven point is very high.

Realistically to call it a “week” you should aim to have at least three or four events throughout the week spacing them between quiet and busy union nights. A few elements/events/ideas, which are typical of a rag week, are:

• Lecture raids/hits – this doesn’t have to involve water, cream or anything dangerous! As long as lecturers know you are coming and know how much disruption you are going to cause, they will not mind you having the last 5 minutes of their lecture. You could deliver something to someone e.g. box of chocolates in Valentine’s week and recite a message to someone. You could charge £5 per “hit” and can have any theme from Gorilla-grams to Grim-o-grams...this is a great awareness raiser! (one of my favourite moments in Rag was running around University with the Mission:Impossible theme on a stereo, hiding behind pillars etc – great fun!)
• Charities fair – get your charities along to publicise themselves, distributing leaflets, getting new volunteers etc. This could be done in conjunction with the Community Action group. It also lets your volunteers see how their efforts are being turned into reality.
• Joint events – team up with your Welfare people to publicise a campaign e.g. homelessness where they raise the awareness with leaflets etc and you raise money for Shelter. The possibilities for this are endless...LGB, Community Action,
• Rag Mags – one of the best opportunities to get rid of your Rag Mags and make some money. It is also a good opportunity to approach shops, bars, canteens etc and ask them to stock them for a week (or for a couple of weeks beforehand is even better!) with a collecting can beside them.
• Collecting cans – get them everywhere! Think of all those places that wouldn’t let you place your cans for the rest of the year...they will find it difficult to say no for Rag Week.

Brand your event!

Some Rags are lucky and they have inherited successful, well known events. These all began as small events but have a certain unique element which established them. A simple way to establish your event is to give it a theme or an extra twist depending on your own situation. We all know there are loads of simple events which can be quite dull unless you add a few extra elements! You could get t-shirts printed, glossy flyers (making them look more professional) and a whole host of other merchandise.

• Pub crawl – cheap, cheerful (gets better the further you go on!) and one to be remembered! If you turn it into the “Anytown Rag Three Legged Pub Crawl” or simply as “Carnage!” (see UCE Case Study), then people will remember it as that!
• Sponsored walk – boring! It is difficult to get students to do an ordinary sponsored walk but if you add a challenge and make it a 50mile sponsored walk, people might get interested!
• Spiderwalk (Sheffield Rag) is a 50 mile walk around Sheffield. It has been running for years and is quite unique in Sheffield.
• Bogle Stroll (UMIST Rag) is a 55 miles long figure of eight around Manchester (or Bogle Roll -125 miles by cycle). There is a history attached to the event involving Bogles...the native ghouls of the area!
• Mr/Miss competition – a cliched idea but if there is not already one run, jump on it! It is so easy to publicise, especially if you get sports teams involved and competing against each other. You might get some opposition from your Equal Opportunities officer so you might have to be diplomatic!
• A theme night – this might sound dull but if you have it on the same night of Rag Week every year, it will become part of the tradition
• Carnival/procession – its a mammoth task but worth it if it runs well

Balancing Events

Of course, you want to target the broadest range of students and to do this, you must vary the type of events that you plan to run. The people who come to an “icecream and jelly party” might not be the same kind of people who would like to come to a medieval banquet. The same follows that your best collectors might hate organising events and vice versa. Other people might be motivated by the charities you are supporting. You should try to get a balance with something to appeal to everyone. Also, try not to have all of your events at the same place. If you have a couple of campuses, have at least one event at a campus other than the main one and don’t have all your events in the Union, try out halls bars or common rooms. You might also have a high proportion of students who live at home (generally have more money!) or who don’t normally socialise on campus and so you need to make sure you are not missing these people out.

Events vs. Collctions

Events are great to have but they do involve a huge amount of work for a modest amount of money. Once these events are established, however, they will bring in more money for the same amount of work. Collections are much more reliable as there is no outlay and the return is better. Most people will manage to collect £100 in an average day and there is little organisation involved once permission has been gained.

Cancellation

When you are drawing up your plan, you must be aware of things that can go wrong and when you can cancel events before you loose any money. Always make sure that you have everything in writing: how much you have to pay suppliers and by when.

Appendix 1: How to SWOT!

A SWOT analysis provides a method for organising information to identify a strategic direction. It is a way of constructing a productive brainstorming, and act as an excellent bridge between initial ideas and final proposals. The basic principle is that any statement about an organisation or its environment can be classified as a Strength, Weakness, Opportunity or Threat. This information would typically be presented in a matrix. Effective SWOT analysis does not simply require a categorisation of information, it also requires some evaluation of the relative importance of the various factors – this is where it can get complicated! It is quite simple to rank them within each category and then develop them in their rank order.

It is important to run a SWOT as a brainstorming exercise to start with. Only after an allocated time should the different suggestions be discussed and evaluated.

Strengths

A strength can be thought of as a particular skill or distinctive competence which the organisation possesses and which will aid it in achieving its stated objectives. These should be matched to the opportunities presented in your target market.

Weaknesses

A weakness is simply any aspect of the organisation which may hinder the achievement of a specific objective. The aim is to identify a way of turning each one into a strength (or make it stronger!) to take advantage of some particular opportunity.

Opportunities

An opportunity is simply any feature of the external environment which creates conditions which are advantageous in relation to a particular objective. They are independent of your organisation. It is important to try to develop these and make use of each in order to get the best out of each situation.

Threats

A threat is any environmental development or situation which will present problems and may hinder the achievement of objectives. These are generally uncontrollable but you should aim to minimise the impact that these have e.g. Pluvious insurance cover for outdoor events. You should try to also turn threats into opportunities and in turn, strengths e.g. selling rain capes if it rains or having a contingency plan.

Appendix 2: Sample SWOT Analysis

FRESHERS WEEK:

Strengths

instil the idea of rag into freshers early everyone has loads of money freshers are still enthusiastic set up the committee for the year can introduce freshers to the city everyone is keen to learn about the union/University no one has lectures yet euphoria reasonably good weather

Weaknesses

people don’t know their contact details hard to plan over the summer everyone else is competing for the same people “climax too early” volunteer base is small freshers will not yet know what Rag is too few non-freshers no 1st year help difficult for a new committee to arrange communication over summer holidays is difficult

Opportunities

a stall at freshers’ fayre i.e. recruitment companies have a new budget for the new term companies want a new student base could have a flyer included in every “welcome pack” article/advert in introductory newspaper plenty of other events to “piggy-back”/”hijak”!

Threats

could get lost in the competition overpowered by other union events bombarded by flyers from other societies

MIDDLE OF TERM (SEMESTER ONE)

Strengths

had time to establish a better rag profile will have built up a volunteer base something for new volunteers to “get their teeth into” more time to plan events have built good relations with sabbaticals

Weaknesses

students have less money getting close to christmas weather is not reliable for outdoor events students getting down to work

Opportunities

offers students a break from the routine plenty of other events to “piggy-back”/”hijak”! a second wave of recruitment fireworks night/Children In Need organise a specific training event for committee

Threats

workload students have established a “going out” routine

VALENTINE’S WEEK

Strengths

just after exams alleviates post-Christmas blues popular time for other Rags Hug Week/Valentines themes

Weaknesses

competition at other venues with Valentine’s Balls could leave it too late to organise due to exams

Opportunities

Valentine’s merchandise themed events e’g Blind Date etc halls raids, match making service recruiting new volunteers

Threats

established events lack of money day of the week valentine’s day falls sick of that loving feeling/non romantics!

EASTER WEEK

Strengths

time to plan for the week during term Easter themed parties build on existing awareness of Rag better chances of nice weather fun – let hair down before exams Easter Egg hunts

Weaknesses

students are running out of money students are running out of time/deadlines etc. no Rag budget left

Opportunities

recruit next year’s committee last opportunity to re-enforce Rag

Threats

Union competition for club nights etc April Fool’s day – will people take you seriously? other societies have the same idea

END OF TERM

Strengths

people are “up for it” and want to have a lsast fling! long time to plan for better weather experienced committee no lectures

Weaknesses

people may have gone home early deadlines are closing in no money left exams! no follow up time afterwards

Opportunities

outdoor events are more feasible people are happier in the summer

Threats

clash with Union and club end of term events lack of money no people left no time to plan due to exams

Appendix 3: Sample Press Release

Snowdon Assault 2000!

Climbing Snowdon is a big enough achievement for most people and when they reach the top they are quite glad that it is at least half over! But for 5 students from the University of Wales, Lampeter – that’s just where it starts! David Arnold, Andy Fleetwood, Jon Pearson, Rick Ibbotson and Jez Ford have decided to undertake a sponsored CYCLE from the summit of Snowdon on March 10th in aid of The Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust.

Group leader David “Fraggle” Arnold said “We always wanted to cycle down Snowdon and we also wanted to do something for The Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust as it’s a charity close to our hearts. I personally lost a friend, Sian Bodilly, very suddenly a couple of years ago to leukaemia. We came up with the idea just sitting in a pub one lunchtime – we can hardly believe that we are now going to do it. It’s a really exciting challenge and we have had loads of support from our friends and families, as well as technical help from our local bike shop, CYCLEMART, in Lampeter”

The Trust’s Student Liaison Officer, Barry Clements said “It always amazes me when supporters come up with new fundraising ideas like this one but it just goes to show what lengths people will go to raise money for the Trust. We rely on the dedication and commitment of our supporters and no matter what boundaries stand in their way, they are always willing to give it their best shot.

“Although it is free to join the Register, it costs the charity £50 to complete a full tissue test of the volunteer’s blood sample. It’s a simple equation - the more people we have on the Bone Marrow Register, the higher the chance of finding a match for a patient. In order to put more people on to the Register, we need to raise much more money. We are desperate for everyone to help us, both by applying to join the Register and by helping us to raise funds.”

Anyone who would like to sponsor the intrepid cyclists should call 01423 871843 or email rag@anthonynolan.com for more information.

The Anthony Nolan Trust was set up in 1974 and is now the world’s largest independent Register of volunteers willing to donate bone marrow to save the lives of people with Leukaemia, should they match a patient’s tissue type. The Register currently stands at 300,000 volunteers, but with thousands of patients waiting for a match to be found the Trust still needs more people to come forward. Bone marrow transplants are the very last hope of life for a Leukaemia patient.

The Trust receives absolutely no government funding whatsoever and relies totally on the generosity of the public. People wanting to join the Register need to be aged 18 to 40 and weigh at least 8 stone.

ENDS

Number of words: 477

Editor’s notes:

• more information can be found at www.anthonynolan.com
• a photoshoot can be arranged on request

Contact: The Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust Barry Clements, 01423 871843 rag@anthonynolan.com www.anthonynolan.org.uk

Insert Rag contact details here

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Tips on your press release

There are a few “rules” to remember when writing a press release but if you follow the general format above, you shouldn’t go too far wrong!

Things to include:

• snappy title
• brief introduction
• a local angle e.g. a patient in need of a matching donor
• what you are trying to achieve i.e. raise money
• how the money will be spent i.e. recruiting new volunteer donors
• how they can find out more information

Appendix 3: Case Study: University of Central England Rag

Background

Note - This case study was written in 2001, so some facts may now have changed

UCE Rag is now in its fourth year and started on a small scale and developed into a medium sized Rag hoping to raise £40,000 this year.

UCE is a “new” University being established only 9 years ago and has a huge mix of students. There are strong halls and international communities with a large number of disabled students as the campus is well catered. There is also a large number of home students living in and around Birmingham. The University is split over 7 campuses with a total of 25,000 students. 13,000 (full and part time) of these are at the main site at Perry Barr, Birmingham. Approximately 40-50% of students at Perry Barr are of an ethnic minority. 2000 students are in University accommodation (8%)

Statistics

rag week whole year Year 1 £ 950.00 £ 3,500.00 27% Year 2 £1,500.00 £ 7,000.00 21% Year 3 £3,800.00 £37,000.00 10% Year 4 £5,600.00 £40,000.00 14%

The following table shows the % of income derived from events in Rag week rather than collections. It compares the high

rag week whole year Year 1 60% 8% Year 2 60% 8% Year 3 80% 10% Year 4 80% 25%

General

Each year has been built upon the success of the previous year but that is not to say that there have not been changes! Most notably and probably the most important factor has been the timing. The week has been moved from May, to February and now settles in October, but depending on other events, particularly megaraids, the exact timing changes. The main reasons behind this were to turn it into a better recruitment tool – to get more volunteers for the year ahead and to promote the benefits of Rag earlier in the academic year.

Events have ‘traditionally’ run on at least three campuses – Westbourne Rd (Education and Health), Perry Barr and Hamstead (Accommodation and a Union Bar) but due to the workload and logistics involved (most volunteers being based at Perry Barr) this was abandoned in Year Four.

Rag has an annual budget from the Students’ Union of £350, which has not increased this year. There is no Rag Mag so no reliable income from this source. There is no official budgeting for Rag Week, but almost everything is on a shoestring! All prizes are blagged about three weeks in advance from anywhere and everywhere!

Rag is not charged for use of any of the bars, but this may be down to a good working arrangement with the Union who are desperate for the customers, and Rag can bring them in! Taking students to a bar not normally used at Westbourne Rd as part of “Carnage” on a Tuesday helped this. (about 200 students on a night when the bar usually has maybe 20!). In the past, a minimal amount has been charged to rag e.g. night-club for Rocky Horror party, and such costs have come directly from the door money of that individual event, to ensure everything must make a profit.

Year One: May 1998

The first signs of a proper Rag Week at UCE! The week was run by a core of three people: rag chair, Student Activities sabbatical (SADO) and another committee member. Obviously this put a heavy burden on each but made communication and co-ordination more straightforward and effective. Events were run at three campuses, which was helped hugely by support from some nurses who gave a huge boost to the week.

Year Two: February 1999

The committee chose three beneficiaries and everything was shared equally between them. The emphasis was on small, low risk, low cost events with a few collections e.g.

• quizzes in the bar, making money from each team entering
• a pub crawl, no outlay, entry fee and promotions in each bar
• couple of collections at the local shopping centre, One Stop, and Harbourne
• an exec kidnap was attempted - the exec agreed to give up one afternoon to raise a “ransom” for rag by phoning friends, harassing staff etc. £500 was made with no cost
• RocSoc (rock music society) run a ‘Rocky Horror theme night’ at a local nightclub, donating all proceeds to rag

Again a small core of people, the Rag Chair, the SADO and two or three helpers ran the week, with more people helping out at individual events. Rag starts to build up a membership base.

Year Three: October 1999

This is the first Rag Week in the autumn term and was “wedged” between two megaraids – Manchester for ANBMT and “Midland Mania” for Help the Aged which provided two ready made events with no cost (10% of collection being reclaimed for transport). Events grow from the previous year i.e.

• exec kidnap moves into its second year, with the Aston President kidnapped as well – raises £750 with no outlay
• RocSoc continues to run the Rocky Horror Night, donating proceeds to rag
• collections still run at One Stop and Harbourne, but it proves harder to get collectors
• good recruitment with Andy Bott spending a day with a “toilet in the lift” raising £600.

The committee chose three beneficiaries beforehand and divided the money raised equally. The exception to this was the “toilet in the lift” which was for a specific charity (Whizz-kidz) at the volunteer’s request. Rag money raised after Rag Week e.g. collections for “rag”, tins on the bar, Carnage etc. was split and given to four charities nominated at an AGM in May.

Year Four: October 2000

At the start of the year it was decided to look at each rag week event and decide if it was making enough money, or attracting enough students, to warrant continuing to run it.

The following events were cut, as they did not seem to work well enough:

• Rag-run collections off-campus – difficult to attract volunteers
• Slave Auction on Sports Night –the sports night venue had changed and so they had become harder to make money from
• Multi-venue approach to the week was dropped. It was decided that events would only be run at campuses other than Perry Barr if definite support existed or if for an exceptional reason
• RocSoc requested their event be moved elsewhere in the year, as they needed to raise funds themselves at the start of the year.

The following events were kept:

• Exec Kidnap. For a low outlay, it has continued to produce an excellent result as the sabbatical teams change annually
• “…in a lift” series. A Shower was used this time! But how could this event be taken away?
• as a small event filler, quizzes were kept for when volunteer numbers were low

The timing was also changed slightly moving back one week to match Carnival’s, so that we could use ‘Carnage’ as part of Rag Week. Again the week was wedged between two megaraids: “Midland Mania” for Help the Aged and “Clash of the Clans” for ICRF – “reliable” start and finish points.

This also made Rag Week Halloween Week and so events could be themed. A huge Halloween party was run on the Friday night – “Fright Night”, and “spooky” quizzes throughout the week. “Chaos On Campus” was added during Thursday, with the shower in the lift, lecture raids, and a few jugglers to keep students’ attention.

The Union allowed their flagship ents nights (Monday and Friday) to be used for rag events, taking all the ticket money from these – Monday was a themed version of the standard Union night, and Friday was ‘Fright Night’ where all the Halloween decorations for were obtained free.

A couple of the few real costs are photocopying for posters and flyers, and the minibus, which was used for “Carnage” and the Exec Kidnap. Everything is done in-house except for 10 A2 black/white listings posters to show the calendar for the week.

The total Rag Week costs probably didn’t exceed £100, and where possible costs were taken from the door money before a total was announced, so the total is always the amount given to charity after costs. About 30% of the costs were absorbed this way, the remainder came from the union budget, or rag’s own ‘social’ account.

Another Interesting Event...

In March 2000, “Carnage” emerges...a cross-Birmingham Rag effort with Aston, Carnival and UCE joining forces. It was the very simple idea of having a pub-crawl and ending up in a nightclub. Carnival took on most of the workload, approaching bars and clubs, using their history and reputation to get very good deals and keep the costs down (each bar paid them £50, and the nightclub let 1000 students in free). UCE and Aston just had to sell the event to their students, which was hard enough the first time!

“Carnage” now runs separately at each Union, as the demand has become so high it is no longer possible to run a joint event. The work Carnival put in the first time has allowed UCE and Aston to approach bars and get the same offers, as people now know the event will not fail.

There were several advantages of this sort of event from the perspective of a small Rag

• larger pool of resources e.g. for printing, distributing publicity etc
• greater number of volunteers
• Carnival has a long events based history
• Selling points of mixing with other local students

A huge safety net was that Carnival bore the costs (printing tickets and flyers etc.) if the event failed, allowing new rag UCE and (at the time) floundering Aston to try a new event without risk of loosing money.