With gongs to announce the start of three-course dinners, perfectly arranged flowers in college courts, and bedders cleaning rooms, students enjoy many privileges during their studies. In the face of the comparatively luxurious lifestyle that we experience as students here, it can be hard to escape the “Cambridge bubble” and appreciate the comfortable position that we find ourselves in. Student charity can be a great way to burst that bubble.

Whilst encouragements of charity donations are common when buying a ticket to a ball or to support pink week by going to a nice dinner, I’ve found some examples in the archives of some far more interesting ways that previous students carried out their benevolent duties.

The first example of student fundraising that caught my attention involved a strict regime of “punt training” at 6:30 in the morning. Whilst rowers were busy down by Midsummer Common and beyond, the other end of the Cam saw four students training for their ambitious feat to punt from Oxford to Cambridge. Inspired by three Oxonians from 2004, these students set out to raise money for the charity Help for Heroes by recreating the journey in 2010. With some direction from Scudamores, these students aimed to “[turn] the laziest pastime in Cambridge into an adventure”, all whilst raising money for a good cause.

“These students aimed to ‘[turn] the laziest pastime in Cambridge into an adventure’”

In another quintessentially Cambridge manner, money was raised by convening a gaggle (or a school, or a flock?) of Toms for the charity Tommy’s, which supports mothers and babies who experience trouble during pregnancy and childbirth; exactly 100 Tom’s gathered for a formal hosted by Sidney Sussex fellow Sir Tom Blundell in 2011. With the proceeds of the £20 ticket going to the charity, this unusual charity dinner was hailed as a great success with “Tommittee” member Tom McNeil celebrating the £1,000 generated and the congenial atmosphere that meant “by the end of the formal, everyone was on a first names basis”.

One attempt to fundraise that I couldn’t possibly endorse as a good idea took place in 1965 when three postgraduate students engaged in some clandestine thievery at Royal Holloway College in London. “Borrowing” the taxidermy Canadian bear called Colossus who served as a mascot for the college, these students displayed the bear outside of Senate House with a ransom note to the Union of Royal Holloway; they demanded £200 for the poppy appeal, or whatever the nearest offer…

In the same year, Cantabrigians were involved in the creation of the world’s largest jam butty over in Oxfordshire. Joining hands for a good cause with the ‘Other Place’, this endeavour used over 30 pounds of jam to make the 36 square foot butty that was then cut up and sold for the World University Service – a charity that was set up to support refugee students to continue their studies following the first world war.

So, if you have some spare time and feel like supporting a good cause, take some inspiration from the above! Whether punting, formaling, kidnapping, baking, or a creation of your own, burst the bubble and raise some money!