I have always considered myself quite a charitable person, from being a Girl Guide to a university student. A lot of my spare time at university has been dedicated to the Student's Union fundraising strand Raise and Give, RAG for short, as a student committee member which I volunteer my time for. My role on RAG Committee involves planning and executing numerous fundraising events and activites throughout the year alonside other student volunteers and working closely with the SU staff to make our ideas a reality. Background done, every year we try to arrange an overnight stay in a UK city where students volunteer to raise money for a national chairity; which we call RAG Raids. This year we teamed up with Cancer Research UK and headed to Manchester to raise funds for the charity and raise awareness of Stand Up To Cancer day, which aptly took place on the day the TV show was being aired on Channel 4 later that evening.
With 22 students signed up to the RAG Raid, my alarm was set for 3:30am to get myself up and ready to meet at the SU for 5am to catch the Megabus. Oh, the Megabus. 4 hours of what felt like death. I'm not the best long distance traveler, I can't sleep very well on a moving vehicle; and running on only 4 hours sleep- the journey was dreadful. But once I stepped off the bus at 9:30am, I was absoloutley fine! We dropped our overnight bags off at the hostel we were staying at, collected our buckets for the money and got our fancy dress on before heading out into the city of Manchester.
I've never been to Manchester before, so I was excited to see what the city had to offer. It took quite a while for me to get my barings as it was so busy and there was trams running left, right and centre. Luckily I decided to team up with my mate who knows the city fairly well and I left him incharge! It really is a lovely city. There is always something going on; from a variety of different resturaunts, street entertainment and little boutique shops, there is something for everyone. I really loved how the city was getting into the spirit of Halloween with pumpkin decorations in the trees while Selfridges already had their Christmas trees outside their store.
I was impressed with the little market stalls close to Picadilly
Gardens; with stunning pastries, hogroasts on the go and sweets I had to
buy something. But karma struck when I decided to treat myself to a
Nutella cupcake with frosted icing, breaking my diet and then I dropped
it. A moment of scilence please... Can you imagine my heart break. I
nearly cried. We tried to overlook the tragedy by focusing on what we were here to do, collect for Cancer Research. We tried various locations in the city to see if people would be willing to donate their spare change, our best location was outside Picadilly train station where everyone felt very generous towards us. They probably felt sorry for us tbh...
We then decided to stop and have our lunch and my friend decided to take me on a tour of the gay scene in Manchester, in hope that we would all end up there at some point on our big night out. He said he knew a nice little park where we could sit and eat and when we got there there was actually alot of history behind the place the sculpture that was built there. It was quite facinating. However it was also here where I was able to reflect on the negatives of the city, there is a serious homelessness problem in Manchester and it is really sad. I felt guilty about collecting for a cancer charity knowing there would be a homeless person less than 100 metres away searching for leftovers in a bin. But we kept our focus, and after lunch set out to see how generous Manchester is.
We had alot of fun fundraising, the beauty of these trips is that you get to see a new city and experience their culture. There is alot of similarities between Manchester and Newcastle, but you know where your home is when someone donates their spare change and says "Are you from Newcastle? I recognise your accent". And then you see where all the money goes and the difference it makes to peoples lives, it makes it all worth it and you get that warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing that you have done something good to benefit others.
But our visit wasn't over, we agreed to go on the barcrawl that our hostel was hosting to get a taster of a variety of different bars and clubs in Manchester, including the gay scene which i got a tour of earlier in the day. Ofcourse I didn't last long, by midnight I had been awake for nearly 21 hours and considering I was on my feet all day, I was knackered. I still enjoyed myself in the 3 bars I went to, but in the back of my mind I knew i wouldn't be able to enjoy myself properly because I was so tired. But hey-ho, it means I need to come back and do it properly!
The next day we had the freedom to explore the city some more before getting the Megabus back to Newcastle. Of course I had to take a visit to the Hard Rock Cafe to buy one of their shot glasses to add to my growing collection; I have to admit I was quite dissapointed with the size of the Manchester branch. The primal focus was on the resturaunt and bar and the gift shop was barely a counter with a poor girl stood behind it with the merchandice surrounding her. Still got my shot glass though. I also regret not buying a Taco Bell from the Arndale shopping centre food court. I just got paranoid that I would be getting a megabus the next day... (Awks). And then before we knew, it was time to go back home.
I really did enjoy Manchester, and it is a place that I would like to go back to to explore some more; I think my Mam will like it there. But for what it's worth, we raised just over £728 for Cancer Research UK which is fantastic. I'm so proud of how well we did and all our hard work had definetely paid off. While I was there, I took a GoPro camera with me and managed to record our experience in the city with RAG will use to promote future RAG Raids which I will insert below. But for now, back to reality!
With 22 students signed up to the RAG Raid, my alarm was set for 3:30am to get myself up and ready to meet at the SU for 5am to catch the Megabus. Oh, the Megabus. 4 hours of what felt like death. I'm not the best long distance traveler, I can't sleep very well on a moving vehicle; and running on only 4 hours sleep- the journey was dreadful. But once I stepped off the bus at 9:30am, I was absoloutley fine! We dropped our overnight bags off at the hostel we were staying at, collected our buckets for the money and got our fancy dress on before heading out into the city of Manchester.
I've never been to Manchester before, so I was excited to see what the city had to offer. It took quite a while for me to get my barings as it was so busy and there was trams running left, right and centre. Luckily I decided to team up with my mate who knows the city fairly well and I left him incharge! It really is a lovely city. There is always something going on; from a variety of different resturaunts, street entertainment and little boutique shops, there is something for everyone. I really loved how the city was getting into the spirit of Halloween with pumpkin decorations in the trees while Selfridges already had their Christmas trees outside their store.
We then decided to stop and have our lunch and my friend decided to take me on a tour of the gay scene in Manchester, in hope that we would all end up there at some point on our big night out. He said he knew a nice little park where we could sit and eat and when we got there there was actually alot of history behind the place the sculpture that was built there. It was quite facinating. However it was also here where I was able to reflect on the negatives of the city, there is a serious homelessness problem in Manchester and it is really sad. I felt guilty about collecting for a cancer charity knowing there would be a homeless person less than 100 metres away searching for leftovers in a bin. But we kept our focus, and after lunch set out to see how generous Manchester is.
But our visit wasn't over, we agreed to go on the barcrawl that our hostel was hosting to get a taster of a variety of different bars and clubs in Manchester, including the gay scene which i got a tour of earlier in the day. Ofcourse I didn't last long, by midnight I had been awake for nearly 21 hours and considering I was on my feet all day, I was knackered. I still enjoyed myself in the 3 bars I went to, but in the back of my mind I knew i wouldn't be able to enjoy myself properly because I was so tired. But hey-ho, it means I need to come back and do it properly!
I really did enjoy Manchester, and it is a place that I would like to go back to to explore some more; I think my Mam will like it there. But for what it's worth, we raised just over £728 for Cancer Research UK which is fantastic. I'm so proud of how well we did and all our hard work had definetely paid off. While I was there, I took a GoPro camera with me and managed to record our experience in the city with RAG will use to promote future RAG Raids which I will insert below. But for now, back to reality!
Have you experienced Manchester? Where do you reccommend I visit when I come back? Let me know in the comments or Tweet Me @Elisa_A__
Elisa :-) x
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