18
IMPACT
MONDAY 24TH SEPTEMBER 2007
Rag & Sport
Join a Rag Raising Raid Today Chiok-Sing Li Rag Publicity Officer RAG IS one of the largest student-led organisations across Universities in the UK, raising literally millions of pounds for local, national and international charities – and Bath Rag is one of the best, raising up to £100 000 a year. If you’re looking for a great time in a new city, doing something a bit out of the ordinary and meeting some like-minded people, then Bath Rag is the thing for you. Many a weekend is spent in a different city on street-corner ‘raids, collecting much-needed funds for different charities with your best costume, smile and a bucket. It sounds weird but is thoroughly rewarding and really makes a difference to the charities that rely on our collections. Plus you get to travel and experience Dublin, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London and occasionally further, while meeting other University Rags; not to mention the social events afterwards… Organising events is another big part of the Rag experience. A huge fireworks night, hitch-hike to the Eiffel Tower, our very own pantomime, a duck race down the River Avon and Bath Rag Week; a jam packed week of Rag events, craziness and fundraising! You can be a part of it all and help out or even organise a whole event with our dedicated and experienced committee with you every step of the way. Convincing 200 people to sleep rough to raise funds and
awareness for homelessness looks amazing on the CV. If all this sounds like something you would like to be a part of then we’ve got a number of events lined up for you. Saturday 29th September sees University of Bath students attempt to break a world record by having the largest number of people dressed as Smurfs in one place! You will have an opportunity to pick up a “Smurf Pack” throughout Freshers’ Week, containing a t-shirt and hat while volunteers will paint you blue to finish you off. If all is successful, then each participant will
UDDERLY BARKING: Rag raisers
receive a certificate and become a bona fide record holder. Visit www.BathFreshers. com for more information. Before you head into town for the first time, don’t forget to pick up “The Great Rag Guide to Bath”, a guide put together to help you navigate your way around this beautiful city, with some super-useful vouchers inside to save some money. All this help in a pocket-sized guide can be yours for only £3, with all proceeds going to charity. If you can’t pick one up during Freshers’ Week, come see us in the Rag office in 1 East Level 3 (to the right of the Library) or buy one online through www. BathRag.com. Also coming up is the Bath Rag “Lost” competition, taking place on the weekend of the 27th-28th October, which will involves teams of students taken to an undisclosed location somewhere in the UK with the aim of returning to Bath in the fastest time possible – with one catch. All travelling must be done by walking or hitch-hiking, so travel money is not allowed. Prizes will be awarded to the fastest teams and also the team that raises the most sponsorship money (it is a charity event after all). We also have a sponsored Bungee Jump coming up, so you can jump up and down, then up again for local and national charities. All events will be conducted under professional supervision but it won’t take away that exhilarating rush of freefalling, or perhaps the warm fuzzy feeling of helping a good cause.
You may come to University for your degree, but Bath Rag could give you so much more, offering experience and opportunities second to none to make your time at University all the more worthwhile. The NewScientist.com website even rates Rag as number 9 of 50 things to do before leaving University! For more information about any of our events, or if you would like to join Rag, then visit our website at www.BathRag.com. We will have a stand at the Students’ Union Societies Fair on Monday 1st October, where you can meet some of our lovely volunteers and make yourself known in
exchange for some goodies. Alternatively you can pop by to one of our weekly meetings, held on Tuesday at 6:30pm in 1 East 3.6, where we give a rundown of upcoming collections and events and how you can be involved. Failing that, swing by our office across the hallway in 1 East 3.5 and sit down for a chat over a hot drink to find out what Rag can do for you. Don’t forget to pick up a “Smurf Pack” and a “Rag Guide to Bath” to really get into the student lifestyle here in Bath. Most importantly, come see us; we might just have the thing for you…
SPORTING COMMENT
Doom and Gloom at an International Level Chris Gammond has been keeping an extremely close tab on the few highs and many lows of our English rugby players, cricketers and footballers over the last couple of weeks. NATIONAL SPORT: can you really get too much of a good thing? My own intensive and far-reaching research dictates that this should be broken into two questions. Firstly, how much is too much? Is the Rugby World Cup, Twenty20 Cricket World Cup, Football Euro 2008 Qualifiers, plus the Women’s World Cup all being seen together, too much of a good thing? Simply, no. It’s brilliant and everybody wants to see high class international competitions in whichever of our national sports they follow. Secondly, and this is the question which gives us the more telling answer, are you English? Now, as we’ve mentioned high class international competitions I feel that we must remove the Women’s Football World Cup from the list, because for this article, to be classed a high level football competition, Goalkeepers have to be allowed to participate. This, by watching any game, and in particular the 11-0 drubbing handed to South American champions Argentina by Germany, is quite clearly not the case. Anyway, the argument comes down to nationality because we’ll start analysing it at the bottom and work our way up. Where’s the bottom? “Nil Point”? England Rugby? The main thing to realise here is that in a game of Rugby, for you nonRugby fans, you cannot score less than zero. It’s an easy concept really, to win
you need to score points, and England on Friday night, whilst losing 36-0, could have stayed playing in Paris for a further four days without looking any more likely to get anything on the scoreboard. Old man Jason Robinson was the only player asking questions on the pitch against the Springboks, but there were many more questions flying around in the stadium. How could something like this happen to the World Champions? Who is to blame? Why have we got this ridiculous looking sash-thing on our kits? Why is Andy Farrell even here? Can Mike Catt at least try to hide his South African accent? On the other hand for English rugby, who can argue that this World Cup’s most intelligent play came from English Captain Phil Vickery when he got suspended for a deliberate trip in the first game and therefore missed the South Africa ‘game’? Genius? Unfortunately, English captains involved in misdemeanours are not uncommon. If we switch focus to our other national sport, Cricket, we immediately stumble upon the Twenty20 World Cup. As we stumble we read that the England Captain, Paul Collingwood, was found drinking at the nearest strip joint on the eve of a crunch game with (coincidentally) South Africa. Don’t worry fans, he responded to the allegations vehemently, claiming that he realised he shouldn’t have been (found) there and “wasn’t drinking
seriously”. Mind you, I guess he’s simply indulging in the sort of behaviour that is de rigueur in the modern game. It’s not very long since Freddie Flintoff set sail on his misguided maiden pedalo voyage. His misdemeanour is compounded when you understand that Twenty20 cricket is an English invention, an English format and with the only noticeable addition from the rest of the world being to erect a stand for scantily clad dancing girls (and men) to greet boundaries and wickets alike. Is anybody else getting
ANDY FARRELL: Clueless?
mixed messages? Did I mention the England Team are all but out, helped by Collingwood’s duck in the South Africa game. However, both the RFU and ECB can find solace in the fact that they did in fact qualify (if not simply on rankings) for their respective competitions, which Steve McClaren and the football elite have yet to do, and may not do. Where do we start here? Emile Heskey? Diamond formations or an analysis of McClaren’s Hair? Obviously, with all these football problems it would be easy to find opinions on the matter and construct well thoughtout arguments about the usual selection issues, grass roots funding, simulation, foreigners and goal line technology. Thankfully, within the confines of this column we haven’t got time or space to dissect and analyse all the issues. Or even some of them. Or even any of them. We simply join in the national fixation on highlighting and then moaning about the problems which face our national sports. We moan about why England have to stretch as far as playing the Villa captain in a game against Israel. We moan about whether we choose Robinson, James, or Carson or, heaven forbid, having to pick any other English premiership ‘keeper when we know full well it won’t make a difference if we have Wes Brown in front of them. But maybe this is the single biggest issue facing English Sport. The
media, fed by the public and the everincreasing level of expectation, put more and more extra pressure on the players to perform. Maybe. And then we look over the borders, where lowly Scotland beat the mighty French in football without moaning about anything apart from how much the pies cost, and were able to have a good knees up after the game without having to spend the night in the local gendarmerie’s cells. We look at Wales who won 5-2 without moaning about the fact that they need to call up league 1 players, relying on those playing at Gillingham come next weekend, or that their centre forward doesn’t even own a house. You may say that this column accentuates the problem as it highlights mistakes and by doing so entwines itself as part of this national problem. But you would be wrong, because this is not moaning about England’s current dip in the national sports. It is celebrating it. It is written from across the Severn Bridge and therefore it joins all the non-English students at Bath in smiling about England’s current form. Smiling and laughing.
Please note that all views and opinions expressed within this article, and indeed all of impact, are those of the author and not necessarily of impact as an organisation.