Students choose Charity of the Year

This year the Students’ Union opened up suggestions for its Raising and Giving (RAG) Charity of the Year in the week leading up to Fresher’s.

We received over 30 suggestions with the most popular put to an All Student Vote during Fresher’s Fair on Monday 25th and Tuesday 26th September.

The final four were the Teenage Cancer Trust, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Nightline Aberystwyth and North Wales Mountain Rescue Association.

After two days of voting and over 1885 votes cast students choose Teenage Cancer Trust to be Charity of the Year who will receive up to a third of RAG money raised this year.

Kate Thomas, one of the students to suggest the Teenage Cancer Trust said:

"I am so pleased that Teenage Cancer Trust has been chosen as our charity of the year. After losing a friend to cancer during my early teenage years, I know how much this charity can help not only young cancer patients, but also the families affected by this. I hope we can do the charity proud this year and raise money as a university to support their work. Cancer is such an awful thing to live with anyway, but those suffering with it at such a crucial and critical age need so much support, and TCT work incredibly hard to provide that."

This year the Union will be splitting its Raising and Giving (RAG) fund in three as part of opening up the decision to students going forward. Overall one third of monies raised will go to the Teenage Cancer Trust chosen by students, another third going to the Campaign Against Living Miserably which was chosen by the Full-time Officers and final third available for small grants to Local Charities at the end of the year, a process of which will be unveiled later in the year.

Sports Teams and Societies are still able to support charities of their choice through specific events and fundraising activities.

Full results of voting can be found below: