By Kalle Korpela
Rag Week 2011 kicked off as College returned after the Christmas break. The week involved students raising money for the VDP, VTP, S2S, Suas, FLAC, Amnesty, Cancer Soc, and the Student Hardship Fund.
This year’s Rag Week took a different approach to previous weeks, with students encouraged to set up individual projects in order to raise money. The Trinity Ents team also scheduled a week’s worth of events to encourage the student body to donate.
Kicking off the week, Monday afternoon saw live music being played in the Junior Common Room, followed by the Three Legged pub crawl in the evening.
On Tuesday, ‘Pie your Sabbats’ saw the five Student Union sabbatical officers standing in Front Square to receive a barrage of pies from anyone willing to donate. Onlookers, including a group of perplexed tourists, hollered in delight with every successfully administered pie splatter.
One of the most popular events of the week was the infamous Iron Stomach competition. Wednesday afternoon drew a sizable and expectant crowd at Front Square. From drinking four litres of milk to eating from nappies, contestants were determined to see the event to the end, eliminated after each round by the audience.
Further entertainment on Thursday and Friday took place in the form of the Beer Olympics, a Slave auction held in the Pav, and a scantily clad Fun Run. But in the end the Rag Ball with Republic of the Loose, Bipolar Empire and Killer Chloe stole the show by putting on a spectacular performance.
Throughout the week various individuals carried out their own charity events including Rachel Barry’s Gumball challenge, Ents Officer Darragh Genockey dressing as Mario, Ryan Bartlett swimming 20km in the Trinity pool and Jenny Doyle doing a 51.5km Triathlon trek.
Genockey called the week a success, with initial counts showing that over €12,000 was raised for charity. He praised the new format for RAG week saying, “we have finally found a formula with which Trinity RAG Week can grow and raise more for charity.” He commented that “Collaborative Ents is something I believe will feature heavily in the future of Trinity Ents and could change the entire dynamic of entertainment in Trinity College.”
Daniel Farrell of the VDP was also very pleased with the amount of money raised during the week. A definative final figure will be announced over the course of this week.
