Hi.

I am very busy at the moment putting our plans into action regarding a National RAG week.

To fill you all in as to what’s happened so far, I attach an e mail I sent out through the STADIA network to various interested parties and an e mail I sent out to those who responded.

If anyone reading this blog has any ideas, suggestions or criticisms about the planned RAG week, please do get in touch.

Thinking of running a RAG week? Look no further

My name is Sam Lebens, and I was elected to the NUS NEC on a platform of supporting your unions' RAG work. To this end, we are in the process of planning a really exciting national RAG week. If you're interested, we’d love for you to be involved.

What is RAG? RAG stands for 'Raise and Give' and has in recent years become somewhat of a student phenomenon. Students get together and plan fundraising events that range from the wacky to the absurd. Some unions have a long and proud history in RAG, raising thousands of pounds every year, while some have a dedicated few who give up their time to raise money for others. But its not all about how much money your union can raise.

Why RAG? As many FE unions can teach us, RAG events from Comic Relief to Tsunami Aid are a fantastic entry point for new activists to involve themselves in our Union. Not only can RAG get more people involved with your work, and not only does in raise money, it raises awareness of political issues and campaigns. It can also raise the profile of your union as a force for good in the community at large.

NUS National RAG Week will start on Friday December the 1st (World AIDs Day) and last until the following Friday. NUS is offering to help you participate in a National RAG week.

What's in it for us? If you apply to take part, we will provide you with a handy handbook with expert tips, resources and materials to run a fantastic campus wide event. The handbook itself will be a resource that can be used in future years. We will also coordinate with the charities and help make sense of the complicated legal stuff that can often get in the way.

HIV/AIDS - There are quite a few members of the NEC who want to raise the profile of Africa within the student movement. Therefore NUS National RAG Week is going to raise money for and awareness of the African AIDs epidemic as well as the epidemic at home. We feel that this will tie in really well with any sexual health education that your Union (and NUS in conjunction with your union) may be offering to your students.

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to drop a line to all those who have expressed an interest in our idea of a National RAG week. My e mail through stadia created a lot of buzz and the response has been really great. So far, we have about 20 unions interested in taking part and that number is sure to grow. In this mailing, I just want to flesh out somewhat the details of the idea and then tell you where we’re going to from here.

Unions across the country want to create new activists and they want to run good RAG. We thought that by organising a national RAG week, we’d be able to encourage and facilitate unions in achieving these goals.

What National RAG week is

The plan so far is that we supply you all with the materials and ideas to run a really great week of fundraising events around HIV/Aids in Britain and worldwide on your campuses.

Where we go from here

In September we will be holding a steering meeting in which we flesh out our ideas and put together a framework for rolling this out to your unions. There are still some questions left to resolve: exactly which charities do we work with (perhaps we should be broader than just one issue), how do we work around the legal issues, what exactly should the resources be, who else do we want to work with, and so on…

Obviously, there will only be a limited number of people able to attend (and a limited number we can invite to) the meeting but any contributions that you may want to put my way via e mail will be gratefully accepted.

After that meeting in September, you will all receive further news about how things are coming on.

I recognise that this week is going to be quite highly centralised, and I certainly want to encourage RAG initiatives outside of our framework, but the hope is that if we can provide unions with high quality and well-planned material, we will be able to really push RAG up the student agenda. So please do reserve the week Friday 1st - Friday 8th of December on your campus, so that your union can take part in the biggest coordinated national student unions' RAG week in years.

Thank you for you interest so far, and here’s to a fantastic and dynamic national RAG week across our campuses nationwide.

Yours,

Sam

sam.lebens@nus.org.uk

or

rag.week@nus.org.uk

Ps. On the week before National RAG week, NUS will be running National Shag week - a week of sexual health education and campaigning ~ these two weeks really compliment each other, tying our education and campaigning in with our fundraising and vice versa.

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