We are proud at UWMCC of our exceptional commitment to worthwhile causes in our local community and across the world. Throughout this academic year, we hope to replicate and improve on what we managed to achieve as a club last year
The main aim of our Charities Secretary Olly this year is to make this side of the club more personable, especially for events such as the Half Marathon. This is why this year, clubmen will be able to choose their own charities to represent in certain events, and each of the larger events will be in aid of different charities decided by the whole club!
Our main charity this year for the Half Marathon, 24 Hour One Hand One Bounce and various Charity Circles was the Huntington’s Disease Association. However, due to Covid-19 both our Half Marathon and International Tour to South Africa were cancelled. Instead we decided to run, swim and cycle the perimeter of South Africa (some 6230km) in 12 days (the duration of our tour) at our own homes in June. This was incredibly successful and has still raising money throughout the summer on our justgiving page (www.justgiving.com/team/warwickcricket) and was by far the largest distance covered by any sports club at the University. We raised over £4,430 for HDA this year, which is a charity particularly close to the heart of our former President and Social Sec Joe Randall – you can read more about why we’ve chosen to partner with HDA on our website.
We’ve also used this past year to innovate and create new events, such as a Charity Shop dress up Circle, a Tape Ball Tournament, Premier League and Champions League Last Man Standing Competitions, and a virtual poker night during lockdown – which were all extremely popular. We also participated in Movember, a charity that is essential for Men’s Health Issues, and this was wholeheartedly embraced by the club. Despite our complete lack of ability as a club to grow convincing facial hair, Movember proves to be a fun and enjoyable way to raise money for a very important cause. Every year clubmen are determined to participate in some shape or form, whether it means growing what facial hair we can or bringing the dodgy bhangra and cutting some questionable shapes to regain our rightful CMD Title. Overall, we were able to raise an astounding £1,660 supporting a we were proud to aid as we do every year.
We have also involved ourselves with the Mental Health Charity, It Takes Balls to Talk (ITBTT). This is also a campaign that is vital to us, as mental health is something of great current importance. We arranged a suicide prevention training session in October where Alex Cotton MBE, presented an important talk which helped to recruit more volunteers from several other clubs. As a result of this session, we were able to bring onboard volunteers from clubs across the university with over 30 people attending the training session, including clubs such as Women’s Hockey and Swimming.
We pride ourselves on always emphasising on expanding our volunteering in the local community to include a greater variety of after school clubs and create a larger and more tangible impact. Last year, some members of the club organised and taught weekly coaching sessions for children in St Pauls CofE Primary School in Leamington Spa. As coaches for these children, we achieved an increased interest in cricket and sport in general. We also hope these sessions encouraged children to join local cricket clubs and improve their skills. We did this alongside the Women’s Cricket Club in order to encourage more girls to engage with the sport at a younger age.
We have continued to include a charity element to our International Tours, and in 2019, our twenty-two tourists ran coaching sessions and donated cricket kit at the Foundation of Goodness. This is a charity that worked extensively following the 2004 tsunami that devastated the lives of thousands of Sri Lankans, and offers cricket coaching to children who lost everything. As a club, we also hosted a charity quiz before the tour in order to raise money for the Foundation of Goodness and were able to raise £229.41. This is a fantastic charity, and we have already seen our fundraising have an impact, with photos of the donated kit being sent to us, and money going towards improving their facilities. This is the start of a hopefully long lasting relationship with the charity, and the start of an annual tradition of increased charitable involvement on our International Tours.
As a club, we hope to continue to find new and exciting ways to get students at Warwick involved in charity events. Last year, we hosted a very successful 24 hour One Hand One Bounce Cricket match, where clubmen took shifts luck for the coming year, we hope to see you involved as much as possible. General Secretary Ed and Third Year Taran both to play for the entire 24 hours! An achievement that will surely go down in UWMCC folklore, and can hopefully be matched by many others this year!
At the club, we celebrate all the talents of our members (not just cricket) and try to be as inclusive as possible for all abilities. As such, this side of the club is a thoroughly enjoyable way to get involved in university life in general. This year, we aim to continue pioneering new charity events to increase involvement and increase the level of output and service to the less fortunate that we can achieve. As well as continuing many of our successful cricketing and non-cricket related charity events, we aim to introduce for the first time: a Charity Concert, full of live music and entertainment performed by our members; a plethora of Charity Bar Crawls and more exciting events.
Finally, a huge thank you to our outgoing Charities Secretary, Shiv Gupta , who organised this side of the club to great effect last year, raising almost £7,000 across the year for multiple charities. This was despite the pandemic leading to the cancellation of multiple events including the Half Marathon, Karaoke, Football/IPL Sweepstakes, a further Tape Ball Tournament and devastatingly the ‘much anticipated’ return of the Freshemon barcrawl. Our efforts this past year invluding the innovating new events (Tape Ball, Premier League / Champions League Last Man Standing Competitions, a lockdown poker night and the South Africa Perimeter Challenge), community volunteering, and winning back our rightful CMD Let’s Dance For Sport Relief title led to us being named the best sports club at the University for Community and Fundraising at the 2020 SU Sports Awards.