West Goes Around The World in 80 Ways for Charity

On Saturday 26^th April, the girls of West House spent an afternoon and evening taking part in 80 different activities to cover as much distance as possible ‘around the world’ in order to raise money for charity. Activities included swimming (with events from the more conventional freestyle and backstroke, to doggy paddle and ‘granny breaststroke’), running, marching, hopping, skipping, leopard crawling, badminton, football, hockey, netball, three-legged races, pogo-stick jumping, back-flips and cartwheels to name but a few.

With real house spirit on show, all the girls put in a huge amount of effort as they took part in the events at different locations around the school campus. By the end, all seemed to agree that the challenge had actually been far tougher than they imagined that it would be, especially as many pushed themselves to achieve personal targets, whether it was swimming a mile butterfly, completing 1000 step-ups, or just managing the one cartwheel. Although some of the maths had to be a little creative at times, it was estimated that the activities ultimately covered nearly 2000km – enough, we believe, to get from Cranleigh to Morocco or Croatia! It is no wonder that everyone enjoyed the BBQ afterwards.

Thanks to some very generous sponsorship and the sale of charity T-shirts, the girls’ efforts have raised in the region of £6000 for a number of charities. Each year group selected a charity that they wished to raise money for, with the fourth form supporting Cancer Research, the lower fifth Great Ormond Street Hospital, the upper fifth the National Autistic Society, the lower sixth Beyond Ourselves, and the upper sixth Tildy’s Trust and Children with Cancer UK.

A huge amount of credit must go to Hannah Wallis, this year’s charity rep, who came up with the idea in the first place and put a huge amount of effort into the creation of the T-shirts and the organisation of the day. Thanks too to all the girls for their efforts, to all sponsors for their generosity, and to all the tutors for giving up their time to make this event possible.

SLW