Encore

I am writing this the day after the completion of Mansfield’s first ever Giving Day, still on an absolute high after the wellspring of donations large and small. Uplifting messages of support came from all over the world, inspired by the sporting and creative challenges completed by staff and students. In total more than £70,000 was raised for our priorities: Mansfield Matters; Student Support; and Access and Outreach.

Community Week began on Monday 26 October, with varied fun activities and treats for students and staff: branded brownies, origami sessions and some specially organised Online Alumni Reunions hosted by current and Emeritus Fellows and tutors.

Then at 9am on Wednesday 28 October, the 36-hour ‘Giving Day’ online crowd-funder for Mansfield began. The Principal launched the day with a klaxon; we had Professors and students running 1886 laps of the Quad all day (to match the year in which Mansfield was founded) and smashing that ambitious target by actually completing 2020 laps; our highly creative community also produced a wealth of cakes, poetry and music; and a herculean 12-hour rowing challenge with ergometers (‘ergs’) added to the excitement on the Quad, thanks to MCBC.

So many students, Fellows, alumni, and staff took part, and it was fantastic to see all the encouraging messages coming in on social media throughout the day.

We were all addicted to the online Giving Day platform, watching donations as they came in, cheering when it was someone we knew, willing those challenges to be met – 200 Giving Day donors; 50 first-time donors; ten people giving £500 or more; and so on. One by one we reached them all.

Nearly 36 hours later, it’s 8.55pm, there are five minutes to go before the Giving Day deadline. The Quad is dark, George King, President of the Mansfield College Boat Club is rowing the final half-hour of the 12-hour erg challenge. The Principal and a (socially distanced) gathering of staff and students – most of us sweaty in running gear after running, jogging or enthusiastically walking laps of the Quad – stare at a screen showing the live total of funds raised, stubbornly stuck at £59,915. Minutes to go. Seconds. Just as the clock ticks across 9pm, the numbers move

Muzzammil Khan (Geography 2020) Dan Tarry (Geography, 2011) , Mansfield College Alumni Association President ‘ Mansfield took a naïve 18 year-old under its wing and nurtured me through my three student years. I have extremely happy memories of those years, which have been profoundly influential on my life. I feel very strongly that its Nonconformist tradition, combined with its deep regard for the strength of social cooperation and action, is its defining characteristic. It is the abiding imprint of this ethos which has led to my active and lasting involvement in community politics and community education, and has underpinned my 50+ years working in education – not least as Headteacher of an East End community/comprehensive school, and subsequently as Deputy Director of a national education charity.’

Mike Walton (English, 1956)

Prof. Chris Martin, Professorial Research Fellow in Civil Engineering and his daughter Olivia

and click past £60,000. The exhausted rowers and runners punch the air as the Principal sounds the klaxon to end what has been a marathon effort. Exhausted, elated, we toast the Mansfield community.

I am beyond delighted with our total raised (over £70,000), particularly in this year when our students need our support more than ever.

But what was achieved in coming together and celebrating Mansfield as a community was just as valuable and demonstrates a generosity of spirit that not even the strictest physical distancing or Covid restrictions can repress.

Head Porter Tom holding a Community Week Brownie ‘ Mansfield is such a cool college. I definitely applied (here) because I knew that it has lots of diversity relative to other colleges in Oxford, and I knew that it has one of, if not the, highest state school intakes out of Oxford and Cambridge. Coming here was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve met so many people that I wouldn’t normally meet, from different places. Coming from London I hadn’t had any Northern friends before so it’s been really great to meet those people and find out about their lives and interact and share things about myself as well. It’s been a really great experience.’

Yolanda Ameny (MEng Engineering, 2019)