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Round the clock horse ride raises funds for Lucy’s Mum

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Equine Science undergraduates raised nearly £800 by riding our mechanical horse for 24 hours. The funds will help fellow student Lucy William’s family to pay for specialist cancer treatment for Lucy’s Mum Vicky.

Lucy, 18, who is studying for a Foundation Degree in Equine Science, organised the riding marathon to help raise the £15,000 the family needs to send Vicky to Germany for hyperthermia treatment.

With our students’ help, the fund has reached almost £14,000 and Vicky has already left for the Klinik Marinus in Upper Bavaria. Her family hope that the treatment will give her more time with her four children Christopher (20), Lucy, Billy (14) who suffers from spina bifida, and Charlie who is nearly two.

Vicky was diagnosed with cervical cancer just after Charlie was born and now has bone cancer in her back, ribs and pelvis.

Lucy, who also ran a cake stall during the fundraising event, said: “I was really pleased at the way everyone helped to make this such a success. We raised an amazing amount of money and I’d like to say a big ‘thank you’ to the students who took part and to the staff who had to stay up to supervise us!”

For further details see Facebook Vicky’s Miracle www.gofundme.com/Vmnmt

Caption: Lucy Williams with rider Natalie-Jade Hadfield on ‘Flicka’ our mechanical horse.

 

Reaseheath’s Rag raises money for St Luke’s Cheshire Hospice

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Caring students from Reaseheath College in Nantwich presented nearly £10,000 to St Luke’s Cheshire Hospice at their summer ball last week.

Money raised from RAG (Raising and Giving) activities was handed over to Mark Porter, St Luke’s Corporate and Community Fund Raiser, by members of Reaseheath’s Student Association. Mark said: “This is a fantastic amount of money which will help provide patient care in the local community. We are delighted that Reaseheath’s students chose us as their charity this year.”

Based in Winsford, St Luke’s Cheshire Hospice provides day care and longer term care to patients throughout Mid and South Cheshire and also supports their carers. Last year it helped over 3,000 people. The charity needs to raise £7,500 every day to keep its services free to Cheshire residents.

Reaseheath’s Student Association organised 35 fund raising events in RAG week alone, including a James Bond themed RAG Ball, a staff versus students football match, a raft race on the college lake, a tractor pull and a Three Peaks Challenge by students and staff from the construction department.

Student Association President Sam Norfolk, 20, who has just completed his Foundation Degree in Adventure Sports Management, said: “We had a fantastic team of Student Association members who worked really hard to put together activities which everyone could enjoy while raising money for a good cause. We chose St Luke’s because its services benefit the whole community and some were relevant to us, such as the bereavement counsellor for young people.”

In addition to supporting St Luke’s, Reaseheath students and staff have raised a further £4,000 for other charities this year including Macmillan Cancer Support, the Poppy Appeal, Red Nose Day and a number of animal charities.

Over the past 26 years students and staff have raised over £190,000 for local charities.

 

Reaseheath rowers to raise funds for cancer charity

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Forty staff from Reaseheath College in Nantwich have signed up to take part in the Chester Dragon Boat Festival to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Two teams of Reaseheath rowers will take on other dragon boat teams in the charity race, which takes place on Sunday June 22 on the River Dee at Chester.

Rowing the 40 foot long boats, the teams will complete three timed races over a short course of around 250 metres, with their single fastest time used for qualification into the grand final.

The volunteers are now busy collecting for Macmillan Cancer Support at www.justgiving.com/reaseheath-dragon-boat

Reaseheath Student Services Assistant Manager Greg Otto organised the teams after being contacted by Carl Fisher, a Cheshire volunteer for the charity. College staff previously took part in the dragon boat festival five years ago, successfully raising £550 for BIRD (Brain Injury and Rehabilitation Development).

Greg said: “We really enjoyed the 2009 event and everyone is looking forward to this year’s challenge. Every department has a staff member who is taking part, so it’s a truly cross college effort. Our new gym has just opened, so hopefully our team members will be using the new facilities to prepare for the big day.”

Sarah Page, Senior Fundraising Manager for Cheshire, said: “We love this event because it really puts the ‘fun’ into fundraising and we are delighted that Reaseheath has nominated us as their charity. Macmillan needs to raise over £1million for cancer services across Cheshire each year. Our mission is to support local people and fund raising efforts from companies like Reaseheath is vital to our work.”

There are boats still available in the Chester Dragon Boat Festival. Other companies who would like to get involved and support Macmillan Cancer Support can email fundraising@macmillan.org.uk or call 0300 1000 200. Alternatively businesses can choose another local charity to support.

 

New life saving kits for campus

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Reaseheath has become the first college to receive defibrillators from The Oliver King Foundation.

Eight of the potentially life saving kits will be placed strategically around campus and will be used in the event of anyone having a cardiac arrest. Thirty-eight staff members are already trained to use them and many more will undergo training.

The Oliver King Foundation was set up in memory of a 12 year old who died from Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS), which causes sudden death in apparently healthy young people. Nineteen youngsters a week are lost through the condition.

We raised over £10,000 for The Oliver King Foundation when it was our RAG charity in 2012. The foundation, which has backing from MPs and councillors, aims to put defibrillators in community areas where they will be available to give essential and immediate first aid in the ‘golden’ four minutes following cardiac arrest.

The equipment has been placed in schools in the Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton and Wirral areas and has already been used to help save the lives of three young people. The Foundation plans to expand the scheme throughout the north west and then nationally.  Reaseheath is the first college to benefit by purchasing defibrillators from the charity.

Our Chaplain, Drew Walker, has overseen the project and invited Oliver’s dad Mark King, the charity’s founder, to Reaseheath last week to hand over the equipment personally.

Drew said: “Having the defibrillators readily available on campus will help us in our efforts to provide a completely safe environment for our students, staff and visitors. We’ve already had lots of positive feedback from our involvement with the scheme.”

This year’s RAG charity is St Luke’s Cheshire Hospice.

 

Reaseheath students go orange for orangutans

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Reaseheath College animal management students went orange to help save one of the world’s most endangered apes.

The students dressed in orange and asked others to do the same during fund raising activities for the ‘Go Orange for Orangutans’ campaign. Their efforts raised over £300 for the campaign, which was run by Chester Zoo as part of its “Act for Wildlife” initiative to raise money for conservation projects worldwide.

Two groups of students took part. Seventeen Level 2 Diploma in Animal Care ‘Group B’ students raised £227 after being sponsored by family and friends to dress up in orange while members of Reaseheath’s Conservation Society raised £76 by holding a social event in the student bar. This included the free services of DJ Sam Walton, courtesy of Moo Media UK. As well as raising funds, the students  also took the opportunity to talk about the plight faced by orangutans due to habitat loss.

The Level 2 Diploma students presented their cheque to Penny Rudd, Chester Zoo’s Registrar and Internships Co-ordinator, when she visited the campus last week. The Conservation Society members handed over their donation during a recent trip to the zoo.

Level 2 animal care group b students l-r Penny Rudd Chester Zoo students ashleigh goldstraw and robbie kelly

Chester Zoo’s Penny Rudd receives the donation from Level 2 Diploma in Animal Care students Ashleigh Goldstraw and Robbie Kelly.

Chester Zoo’s appeal has raised over £13,000 to be used to provide specialist camera traps in Borneo, the last stronghold of the wild orangutan.

Penny Rudd, who is a former Reaseheath governor and has strong links with the animal management department, said: “It has been wonderful to meet students who are so keen to become involved in a real conservation project.

“Orangutans face a very uncertain future owing to habitat destruction, mainly caused by the widescale production of unsustainably farmed palm oil. Along with Reaseheath, Chester Zoo aims to actively encourage and educate young people who will have the power to influence the future. In this case we need to encourage shoppers to buy only the products which contain responsibly sourced palm oil (look for the RSPO signs on packaging!) This could have a major impact in saving what little habitat is left for the orangutans.”

Level 2 Diploma in Animal Care Course Manager Holly Berry said: “Our students were particularly keen to help as they had learned about the plight of wild orang-utans during their lectures. Both the students and I were very proud to have raised money for such a worthy cause”

For further details see www.actforwildlife.org.uk and for more details about Reaseheath’s animal management courses see https://www.reaseheath.ac.uk/subjects/animal-management/

RHES Help unwanted Reptiles and Raptors

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This year RHES (Reaseheath Herpetological and Entomological Society) have been raising money for North Wales Reptile and Raptor Sanctuary (NWRR). So far they have raised a whopping £437.08 through three events. RHES were present at Lambing weekend, Open Day and gained sponsorship through their successful leap of faith. Events included cake and sweet sales, Ozzy the owl meets and greets, reptile and invertebrate talks and guess the number of gummy snakes in a tub.

One of RHES aims is to raise money for a related charity. North Wales Reptile and Raptor Sanctuary (NWRR) specialise in Rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming in reptiles (pet and wild) the registered charity that receives no funding except for generous donations made by the public. RHES visited NWRR to donate the raised funds and also to help out for the day. NWRR has around 60 animals and the husbandry is a labour intensive job. On the day RHES helped out with jobs like cleaning the turtle pond, clean the tortoises and feed the raptors.

NWRR were extremely grateful for the support from RHES and were impressed tremendously by their attitudes towards pet ownership. In a letter Jane (NWRR Founder) said “I just wanted to write and say thank you for coming to see us yesterday we had a wonderful day and were very pleased you came to see us. Thank you for all the hard work you did and the raised funds was a wonderful surprise”.

Reaseheath Herpetological and Entomological Society

Welcome back

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Alright guys,

First of all, I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year and welcome back!

The Winter Ball was a great success, thank you to the entire SA who stayed up late the night before to decorate the bar and dining room for the evening. We have had praise from the Principal and Vice Principal saying how impressed they were and everyone who attended seemed to really enjoy themselves. Here are some photos from the evening:

In the first week back at college the SA have been busy coming up with ideas for more fundraising events for the term ahead. These include a onesie day and social which is taking place on Thursday 23rd January and clothes donations (we are encouraging staff and students to donate any unwanted clothes to St Luke’s so they can sell them in their shops). The SA’s three peaks challenge is going to kick start our RAG week, dates to be confirmed soon; also the Principal will be joining us for the challenge.

The Valentine’s day/RAG social is on Thursday 13th February, £1 of every ticket bought will go towards this years RAG charity. In the near future we have lots more events coming up, if you would like to get involved we are always looking for volunteers.

Are you interested in being a member of the Student Association next academic year? We’re looking to get the 2014/15 SA set up by May this year so if you are interested let me know and come and get involved!

Check in next week for another update.

Sam Norfolk
SA President

Winter Ball planning and RAG

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Alright guys,

Second blog now, this week after our meeting on Monday, we have been organising the decorations for the Winter Ball. We have also been discussing possible menu options for the meal which is on Tuesday 17th December. Tickets will be on sale soon so keep asking us for more info…

This week we are hoping to announce our charity for this year’s RAG. After a couple of weeks of process elimination we have shortlisted three and are looking forward to their presentations. We have a couple of events organised to kickstart fundraising in December.  The fundraiser will involve a kayaking challenge over a fair distance in both Nantwich and Crewe on the 7th and 14th December 2013.

Another event that we have organised is to steward for the Xmas lights switch on in Nantwich on the 30th November 2013, this will be happening from 4.30pm till 7.30pm. About 8 members of our SA will be volunteering their own time to help raise a donation for RAG.

 

Sam Norfolk
SA President

Reaseheath students pay tribute to Britain’s war veterans

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Representatives from the Reaseheath College’s Students Association were among those to join representatives from the Royal British Legion at Crewe Station on Monday for a special platform service to mark Remembrance Day. The service was marked by the arrival of a sign written Virgin pendolino train which will bear the insignia of a poppy on its cab for the next year.

students join Remembrance Day service at Crewe station

Students from the Nantwich college had spent the previous week helping to raise funds for the Poppy appeal in the station alongside ex servicemen. The Crewe campaign raised more than £4,000.

Stuart Kay, Chairman of the Crewe branch of the Royal British Legion said: “Reaseheath students behaved in a very professional manner and helped us considerably in our fund raising efforts. These young people appreciate that many servicemen and women are the same age as themselves and are involved in current conflicts throughout the world.”

Virgin Hero Royal British Legion Standard BearerStudents and staff also turned out in force at a college service to commemorate Remembrance Day. Hundreds gathered around the flagpole to hear an address by Principal Meredydd David and observed two minutes’ silence at 11am on Monday.