Program 1: Explorer 2017 - Day 15

The students participating in the Community Outreach Add-On got to work again today to prepare the Fête of Fun: a range of fund-raising activities for the great cause Sabre. Sabre is a small charity that works to implement specially-designed early-years education in Ghana, working with the government to shape national education policy. The Community Outreach group already raised over £1000 for the charity last week through the Charity Auction, which saw students and supervisors bid on a range of wares ranging from punting lessons, to Cambridge college tours, door-to-door laundry service, Spanish lessons and shaving off supervisor Matt’s beard (unsurprisingly popular among students!). If anyone should need further encouragement to support the cause, they should take a look at Community Outreach student Baris‘s fabulous use of Instagram below: https://www.instagram.com/p/BWsTDD4FoKC/?tagged=reachcambridge2017 Today’s Fête of Fun consisted of a variety of smaller stalls, allowing students to compete against each other to win pink tokens. Whoever collected the most pink tokens by the end of the afternoon would win a prize. Activities included apple bobbing, ‘Soak the Supervisor’, face painting, Pepsi Pong and 5-a-side football. ‘Soak the Supervisor‘ quickly became a favourite, giving students the chance to get revenge on their supervisors for shushing them in lectures or defeating them on the football pitch! For the price of just £1, or a yellow token, students were given the chance to throw a water balloon at a supervisor, with very satisfactory results (see video below!). More arty students had their faces painted, with star, sun, flower and even horse designs. This fun-filled afternoon of activities added £250 to the total raised for Sabre so far! This evening, our songwriter-cum-dramatist guest lecturer discussed the importance of creativity. Drawing on his own experiences, including writing a one-woman-musical, and those of others, he summarised the key ingredients for creativity and what it can add to our lives. I personally was disappointed that his lecture did not include live extracts from the musical, but the students seemed to enjoy it nonetheless!

on Creativity

After the lecture, the students were invited to Party Monday! This was the chance to relive the experience of every British child at birthday parties between the age of 1-12. Party hats were flying, maltesers were rolling and 90s pop was banging on the stereo. Students got stuck into Pass-the-Parcel, Musical Statues and other classic British party games with chocolate buttons up for grabs as prizes. The entertainment went on late into the evening, but not too late, as several students are participating in mock university-style interviews tomorrow…