This past month, as a club, we have been focusing on volunteering, raising awareness and fundraising within both the local and university communities.
Hello Yellow!
We started the month off with our Hello Yellow! campaign, which coincides with World Mental Health Day – Saturday 10th October, but more specifically for Young Minds UK’s Hello Yellow! campaign, which focuses on supporting young people struggling with mental health conditions. As part of this campaign, we created a series of Instagram posts, that took a focus on how to look after yourself while coping with the stresses of university and day-to-day life along with motivational quotes and mantras.
Our Social Class Choreographers, Char and Alice, also ran our annual Hello Yellow! open class to Raye’s “Joy.” The energy in the class was so positive and really helped to show the positive impact that dancing can have on mental health! All our dancers wore yellow to this class, which helped drive home the message and lift the energy in the room even higher.
We rounded out our Hello Yellow! campaign week with the assistance of a range of other UOG Sports Clubs who all wore yellow to training to support our campaign. Huge thanks to the following teams for getting involved: Women’s Football, Gloucestershire Gladiators, Netball, Lacrosse, Women’s Rugby Union and Hockey.
Information regarding Young Mind’s UK and other useful links can be found at the bottom of this article.
Think Pink!
Throughout the rest of the month within the university community, we attended a range of fundraisers, including Volleyball’s Think Pink fundraiser! While we may not have had the most successful outing (we’ll stick to the dance studio for now), we had a great time at the fundraiser and redeemed ourselves from our showing last year! As a club, we also had our Mean Girls “On Wednesdays we THINK PINK” social on the 21st, joining other UOG clubs for a Wednesday night sports night to bring attention to breast cancer awareness.
Information for Breast cancer awareness can be found at the bottom of this article.
Black History Month
This Black History Month, we brought a focus to black history month on our Instagram, focusing on educating individuals about black dance pioneers that are often forgotten or sidelined in dance history in favour of other pioneers. Our chosen pioneers, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878-1949), Katherin Dunham (1909-2006) and Pearl Primus (1919-1994), all had a significant influence in their dance fields leading to the way the styles are taught and danced across the globe today.
Volunteering in the local community
“On Saturday 17th October, our UOG Dance committee members volunteered at a Sue Ryder Charity event which was a 10K walk called the ‘Starlight Hike’. As volunteers, we kept walkers safe, encouraging them along the route and, above all, helped to create a positive atmosphere. We all had an amazing time encouraging the participants to keep at it, sharing motivational words and, most importantly, giving compliments on the bright outfits! We were also given opportunities to have conversations with the people participating and to hear more about them and their stories, which then followed with the chance to talk to the lady running the event! We are proud as a club to say that we had a hand in helping the charity to raise over £105,000 so far! We were also extended the invite to assist at the event next year, which has overall been a brilliant opportunity to connect with the wider community.” – Seren Rees, Community Officer
Overall, this month has been very enriching and rewarding as a club within the community, and we look forward to continuing our work in the university community through our fundraisers as well as in the local community through our ‘Dance In Schools Programme’.
- Cianna Thompson, Club Captain
Young Minds UK - Hello Yellow Campaign: https://www.youngminds.org.uk/support-us/fundraising/helloyellow/
Young Minds UK Support: https://www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/
Breast Cancer Now: https://breastcancernow.org
Think Pink Europe: https://www.thinkpinkeurope.org/en/
Sue Ryder: https://www.sueryder.org