Photo: Jonathan Poncelet

UPDATED: “Consent” limits RAG week activities

Raising and Giving (RAG) week has often been known for its selection of fun, or ‘humiliating’, gifts that students could purchase for others in the name of charity.

This year, students could not order ‘gifts’ to be delivered in lectures. These instead had to be collected from stands around campus.

Freshers, therefore, will be none the wiser to the lap dances in lectures – or on lecturers – as well as beverages delivered to them.

The most notable Warwick RAG week event that has been retained this year is the famous ‘gnoming’.

There were still chances to pie people in the face during the week Photo: Jonathan Poncelet

With a trial last year of an opt-out system of gnoming, the issue of consent has been a major issue over the years. Shay Xiao Sicheng, events officer for RAG, argues that the “consent problem is simply just integral to the whole RAG Week”.

The issue of consent has also been brought up Tessa Ani Schiller, the other events officer for RAG. She believes consent has been brought into a new focus due to recent issues with “George [Lawlor] and the infamous consent workshop article”.

Due to this, RAG, with Tessa’s direction, have “designed a system whereby people would be consenting (but also asked on the spot anyways) by accepting to go collect – plus none of the things are nasty anyway, they’re all feel good.”

The ‘harsher’ elements of RAG week were, therefore, completely optional, with people signing up for these events rather than being nominated by others. This has allowed RAG week to retain the elements of fun, without having the issue of consent.

One of the many stalls around campus during RAG week Photo: Jonathan Poncelet

The charity being fundraised for this year is Mind, a mental health charity. Shay comments that it is essential for RAG to also raise awareness, and that RAG’s actions need to be aligned with the charity’s goals.

On the change Shay says it was a difficult one, and there would be no knowing how it would impact the week.

However, she said: “The whole week has been transformed to a feel-good week and I believe we’ve definitely been achieving that and brightening up peoples’ days.

“Even if we don’t raise that much money compared to lecture deliveries and gnoming from last year, I absolutely believe this is the right step to take.

“RAG Week is not just about the fundraising but also about raising awareness on issues that matter (in this case mental health) and I’m glad we’ve been able to add smiles to peoples’ faces.”

Tessa has also said that the amount raised will probably be impacted. However they have also done more to cover the money lost, such as more collaborations with media teams at Warwick.

More people will donate if their friends are humiliated.
Kulsoom Raza, second-year History student

Other students were not so convinced. Second-year Politics student Lizzie Groarke commented that the changes will impact the amount raised, and that it “takes the fun out of it really”.

More directly, second-year History student Kulsoom Raza claimed that, “the whole point of it is to raise money for charity, and more people will donate if their friends are humiliated”.

Tessa said that, ultimately, this was “a step we felt was necessary to take”.

Last Updated: 19:06 04/12/15 to reduce bias.

Comments (2)

  • Guess in the end it comes down to numbers as far as I can research from the 2014 YouTube review 2014 made £4600 and from boar article dated 1st Dec 2015 raised £1223.93 which is a big difference. It would appear nonsense political correctness gone mad has cost charity £3376.07. Maybe taking the fun out of an event does limit raising funds.

  • Farrah Burke (RAG President)

    That some students argue that the “fun” was taken out of RAG Week is frankly a short-sighted and irrelevant response. As the largest charity society on campus, and the third most successful university RAG in the UK, it was, is and always will be Warwick RAG’s duty to make student fundraising as inclusive as possible. What this article fails to cover is the abundance of responses, both written and verbal, which championed our bold step away from the conventional deliveries. A collective sigh of relief was felt within a large percentage of students who no longer had to fear the constant threat of public humiliation, or just general uninvited disturbance. As you can see from my photo, I am certainly fine with humiliation and I openly welcome it on a large scale, particularly in the name of charity. However, for a lot of students, they simply do not share this same sentiment. Never would I want to be responsible for a large-scale society event that deters participation in or discolours opinions of charity on any level. Old is not always better! Some traditions have to be revised – and I firmly believe that the existing RAG Week structure was one of them. Because – believe it or not – you can raise funds and awareness without whipped cream and cling-film!

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