21 Days Later

On the 7th February UL RAG Society was officially established.

21 Days on and the success of the society is clear for everyone to see!

Thats the amount of money UL Raising & Giving Society raised approximately in its first month. We ran Sky Lantern Launch in aid of Sean Lyne Cancer Treatment Fund (€700), 50 by 50 in aid of Serve Solidarity (~€600), and The Nearly Naked Nearly Mile in aid of the big four Charity Week charities (~€1000).

50 BY 50 FOR SERVE 

We challenged YOU the students of UL to fill the UL RAG outline with your spare change in a bid to raise funds for volunteer Katie Griffin to go to Zambia and work in orphanages for the summer. Between Monday 29th and Wednesday 22nd February UL RAG and Kates band of volunteers raised in excess of €600 to help her move ever closer towards the total amount needed.

NEARLY NAKED NEARLY MILE

This year saw UL RAG's first ever Charity week and boy was it an eventful one. After weeks of meticulous planning UL RAG succesfully pulled off must see event of the week - "The Nearly Naked Nearly Mile". Through sponsorship alone the event raised over €480 and it was estimated that the total haul collected via buckets during the event was ~€400-500.

The "You Cant Look Stupid Fighting Cancer" guy pictured above however gained some negative press in the Irish Daily Sun the following day. We at UL RAG have applauded his efforts in raising money for charity and found the gross misrepresentation of his positive efforts to be frighteningly immoral. We hope UL RAG can go on and continue to help change the public perception of students and that negative, stereotypical and misinformed journalism such as that in the Irish Sun is coming to a close!

Here's a video of everyone in action. Absolute heroes.

THE GREAT RACE

Team RAG

 VICTORIOUS!! 

A huge shout out has to go to Adam Leahy, Tom Feehan, Paddy Hands and Nigel Kelly who managed to claim the coveted Great Race Title. They sacrificed a whole weekend of their lives to help spread the good word  of charity all over the country. It just goes to show that helping charity can come in many shapes and sizes. Fair play lads :D

GROUP HUG: Adam Leahy, Nigel Kelly, Tom Feehan & Paddy Hands with Late Late Show Host Ryan Tubridy.

Shave or Dye... WHY!?

Here is Kevin Bolger (Chairperson) trading in his curls for charity. After receiving a number of death threats having not shaved his head Kevin felt it necessary to honour his commitment early Friday morning of charity week. He regretted his decision immediately.

There is loads still to come from UL RAG this semester and these blogs will be updated much more regularly from here on in!

You stay classy UL,

I'm Ron Burgundy??

UL RAG Launch Report

Whats up! So we've finally made it. We've launched the most exciting new society on campus. But how did we fair? Did we do enough? Well here is a run down of everything to date!

Facebook

On the 3rd of February we launched our facebook page. After just 2 hours we had 400 likes.

Flash forward to sunday evening and we've managed to hit the 1,000 mark.

Come friday 10th february - just one week after we launched we had over 1,400 likes. Giving us the largest facebook audience of any club or society and making us the 7th largest University based facebook page.

1^st University of Limerick Students Union (8,024)

2^nd Overheard in UL (7,155) 

3^rd Stables Club (6,943) 

4^th   University of Limerick (6,257)

5^th UL FM (1,871) 

6^th University of Limerick First Seven Weeks (1,683)

We're fast growing and this means we have a huge audience to broadcast our message having a peak viral reach of over 36,000 facebook users! We could not have asked for a better start for our facebook page!

C & S Council

On the 7th of February 2012 UL RAG were officially ratified by the Clubs & Societies Council to be placed on a 15 week trial. This was the news we were waiting for and finally we could get down to buisness! It was really disapointing not being ratified in time for the recruitment drive, but we are confident we are going to be a huge success this year none the less!



UL RAG's Launch Event
On Wednesday 15th February 2012 we had our launch event - a Sky Lantern Release in aid of Sean Lyne Cancer Treatment Fund for this man here in the video below.

The event was a huge success! We helped raise over €650 for the Sean Lyne Cancer Treatment Fund! The final count will be released Wednesday. We hope this money helps him reach his goal. We wish Sean all the best :)

Pics are available here on our Flickr account

AGM

On the 14th February we had our first ever AGM. This was a momentous occasion for the society! We voted in our first official committee and set in place our plans for the future!

Here is our official committee for Semester 2, 2011/12

Senior Chair - Kevin Bolger

Junior Chair - Vacant

Secretary - Annetta Hardiman

Treasurer - Niamh Ní Ghoill

P.R.O - Tom Feehan

Events Manager - Ruadhan O'Fennedhe

Campaigns Manager - Michelle McHugh

Projects Manager - Rebecca O'Hare

External Liaison Officer - Eva Kelleher

Multimedia Officer - Nick Kenneddy

Social Media Officer- Una Roddy

Development Officer - Jordan Balfry

Canvassing Officer - Adam Leahy

Marketing Officer - Vacant

Volunteering Facilitation Officer - Ella Harrington

Also huge shout to the help and support of Deirdre Wilson over the past few hectic weeks in the society who acted as treasurer, secretary, external liaison officer and just all round mammy of the society.

Mammy of the Society - Deirdre Wilson

We hope that together we can take UL RAG to the next level and make the society reach its potential!

Upcoming events that were discussed were the Underwear Mile, 50 by 50, disposable camera project etc.

Neighbourhood Talks

We are delighted to announce our new found affiliation and collaboration with Neighbourhood Talks. Our first adopted community based social project. Neighbourhood Talks aims to increase community relations with students and residents in the Elm Park area. You can find more information about this amazing project here on Rebecca' website or the facebook page.

Some of the projects we discussed at the first meeting were a disposable camera project called "document your charity week" that would run in week 6 and the possible painting and creation of a community space/ mural near the Kilmurry Church area.

ULFM, Limerick Leader, an Focal, College View & UL Corporate Affairs

                                     

This week just gone (Week 4) was a huge week for the society in terms of press coverage!

On monday afternoon chairperson Kevin Bolger and PRO Tom Feehan represented the society on ULFM with Kelly O'Brien! The interview went well and lasted around half an hour. We have been asked to return to ULFM with Jason Kennedy the Monday of Charity Week to discuss the society

Thursday morning the society awoke to the news that we had been published in the Limerick Leader and that UL had broadcasted the article on their facebook page. The article marks a great step forward for the society in getting our message out there and it is this kind of positive news that will help the society flourish.

On top of these we also have an upcoming article in the UL student newspaper an Focal as well as been asked to contribute to the DCU student newspaper the "College View" about our society and our launch event.

Not least of all the society were contacted by UL Corporate Affairs about permission to use photos from the Official UL RAG Launch event to use in promotions and advertising for the University of Limerick!!! WOW. This is the impact we are making and it's clear to see after these hectic first few weeks that we not only have the ability to impact change - but that we are already delivering it at a very high level!

CONGRATULATIONS to all involved over the last few weeks. And lets look forward to continuing this success throughout the semester!