Being a Karni Rep

We’ve taken you across the UK on RAG Raids, on the 7 Legged Bar Crawl, to London and Ocean on Megaraids, organised Pub Quizzes and we’ve paved the way for you to trek across the world for Charity. But sadly for Karnival 2015, we have to hand over our infamous red polos to the newest intake of reps. Across every hall on campus, not one rep will deny that they have had incredible fun this year. Not only have they befriended freshers from their halls, but on socials and at Foxy’s after RAG, there is a whole new social sphere to be explored.

The incredible events that our Events team have organised so far from the St Patrick’s Day Bar Crawl right up to Winter Wonderland this Tuesday are all free events for Reps; although work is completely voluntary and Reps receive no commission on sales, there are countless perks and handy tricks awarded.

Oxfam also offered Karnival places to volunteer at Glastonbury this year, which is an incredibly sought after program – Glastonbury for free! Trust us, once the end of term and post-exam Ocean events kick off, you’ll be glad to have a queue jump. Not only does Karnival provide Reps with a great social life but it is invaluable when applying for internships, graduate schemes and jobs. Being able to claim that you have volunteered literally hundreds of hours of your time assisting freshers collect tens of thousands of pounds for no monetary gain impresses the employer no end.

Karnival is the biggest Student-run Charity organisation outside of North America. We’re a big deal, and we’re an exclusive resource to the University of Nottingham. Admittedly, university seems to be far more pressure than it used to due to fees and competitive job markets so you may be concerned about your workload in the coming year. Although reps would be the first to admit that it is intense, a balance can definitely be found. Ask your current hall reps what they’re on track for; most that we know of are on a 2:1 or higher from a range of courses. In our opinion, Karnival is what you make of it. If you put the effort in, Karni gives back.

We have faith in the upcoming fresher groups that you can continue Karnival’s legacy into 2016 and continue to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for some hugely important causes. Applications are now open and are different from hall to hall: find your Karnival Reps on Facebook or within your hall and clear up any issues you may be worried about.

Clare Rennie, Cripps Hall Karnival 2015

Kontact

Since we all became reps, we have had opportunities to do some amazing volunteering work within the local community.
In Karni we call this Kontact, and it’s one of the best things about Karnival because rather than putting money in buckets and sending it to charities (which is still amazing!) you get to physically see the difference you’re making to people’s lives. Here are some examples and stories of opportunities we’ve had through Kontact.

Young carers day: in May this year, Karnival organised a Young Carers day. Young Carers are children whose parent’s are ill, disabled or otherwise unable to look after themselves, and they have a great responsibility from a young age to look after their parents. We planned a day of fun and games so they could forget their worries and spend a day being a child again. Karni reps joined with societies such as NerfSoc and Dodgesoc to create an environment where the children could focus solely on having fun. It was amazing to see so many smiles on their faces, and you could hardly tell they had any problems at all. It was a fun day for everyone involved, and it was very fulfilling knowing we’d helped people in the local community.

Gardening trip: this February we went to a local children’s hospital and refurbished the garden. We revealed our inner artists and painted fences, replanted flowers and made what was a run down garden into a children’s paradise. The children absolutely loved seeing people renovating their garden and ran around taking photographs. After we’d finished, we went inside and met some of the children and it was really lovely to see how excited they were about what we’d done. They even wrote us thank you letters!

Hospital trips: every Wednesday, Karnival organise a trip to take some reps to the QMC to visit children’s wards and brighten their days. This is definitely the most rewarding because it’s inspiring to see how children in these situations can still keep a smile up and get on with fun activities, and the activities we organise such as painting autumn leaves and reading stories can really provide a break for children who are in there for long periods of time.

We hope everyone will get involved with Karni at some point, whether it’s collecting money for charities in fancy dress or helping out at a local school, making a difference to people’s lives is what Karnival is all about.

By Nightingale Karnival

Charlie & The Summer Reading Challenge

In an attempt to prevent myself from doing nothing for 3 months – other than binge watch Netflix and attend over-priced coffee dates, I decided to volunteer at my local library this summer. I took part in the Summer Reading Challenge Volunteering Programme in 2013 so I was welcomed back by the staff, and was excited to discover that I received not only a badge this time round, but also a Karnival-red t-shirt.

My job consisted of convincing any children between the ages of 4 – 11 to sign up for the challenge of reading 6 books over the summer holiday. Being an English student, encouraging young people to read is something I find particularly rewarding. Once signed up, I helped them to log their progress, review what they had read, as well collect stickers and take part in activities related to the ‘Record Breakers’ theme.

A further aspect of my volunteering involved interacting with the other volunteers as we sometimes carried out tasks together, such as creating displays. Meeting other volunteers from many different walks of life was also interesting and helped to develop my communication skills.

The library also ran several events over the course of the holiday. I volunteered at the ‘Mad Hatter’s Tea Party’, which involved about 30 children coming into the library to take part in Alice in Wonderland themed games, arts and crafts. I enjoyed helping them to create their own ‘mad hats’ and to ‘pin the tail on the Cheshire cat’. A particular highlight for me was when a parent came into the library the day after the event, and told me that her son hadn’t stopped talking about ‘Charlie from the library’.

Another exciting event during my volunteering experience was when the library was presented with a ‘Library of the Year’ award for North Yorkshire. Various governors, special guests and a photographer from the local paper were present and most importantly, it was used as an excuse to have biscuits.

Overall, I’m glad I decided to volunteer at the library this summer as it benefitted my local area and allowed me to aid children in developing their literacy skills, often through encouraging them to read some of the same books that I loved as a child.
Charlie Byrne, Derby Hall Karnival

Eleanor & Mission Zambia – Summer 2015

Eleanor Plews is a Karnival rep from the Medics team. She wrote this blog entry about the incredible experience she had this summer with Mission Zambia.

Becoming a Karni rep has encouraged me to take up many of the charity and fundraising opportunities offered to me, one of which was Mission Zambia. I went the information meeting merely out of interest but saw on the screen something I wanted to be part of.

Fast forward six months and I sat at Heathrow, ready to go through security checks and start my journey to the village of Mwandi in Zambia. I had no idea what to expect; but I was not expecting to have such an eye-opening experience that will stay with me forever. I ventured off the plane and met the founder of the charity Home for AIDs Orphans, Paula. We the loaded up the land rovers and began the two hour drive to Mwandi.

There is one main shopping street in the Mwandi; with different shops lining each side, it had the feel of a sandy wild west. From bars and a takeaway to general stores and hairdressers, Mwandi had quite a lot to offer, despite the limited variety of stock throughout the village (the team could not stop eating these ‘Eet-sum-mor’ short bread biscuits but thankfully they were stocked at nearly every shop in the village!). Whenever the team walked out into the town the local children would run up to us and stop for photos; this would leave the whole group with smiles mirroring those on the faces of the children. So cute!

On Monday morning our first stop was at the small village hospital. The hospital was basic; as a medical student myself, I am used to entering hospitals and hearing the beep of monitors and the whir of machines, however there was nothing of that sort here. What this hospital provided was medical expertise; treatment was dependent on both what resources the hospital had and what resources the patient had or could afford themselves.  This led to some very upsetting circumstances: when the hospital did not have the resources but the patient could not afford the cost of travelling to another hospital where they may. It became apparent that even the best doctor is ultimately limited by the resources that are available to them.

The rest of our days in Mwandi were then spent on the project that we had travelled out to Zambia to help with. We were building houses for families who could not afford to rebuild their own grass roofed huts, often as it was elderly grandparents left to look after grandchildren whose parents had been lost to AIDS. During our time in the village, the team of ten Nottingham students that I was part of helped with the building of four different houses. Some of the team dug the skeleton of the house into the ground and I helped to put in the framework of the building, but most of the work we carried out involved ‘mudding’. As bricks are so expensive in this part of the world the most cost effective way to build a house is by using layers of mud to build the walls up. This basically involved the team spending days throwing clumps of mud at the framework of the house! We all found this task surprisingly therapeutic (at first anyway!). The house that we spent the most time working on was going to be the home to a 72 year old woman and her three grandchildren. Although she didn’t speak a word of English she mucked in with the team, carrying buckets of mud that we could only manage between two of us.  The team found working the six hour days hard but the moment that really brought it home to me was when we were able to give the women the keys to the house that we had built. The strength and determination of this woman was formidable; the waiting list for having a house built by this project is long and I wondered what her new home would mean to her and her grandchildren.

On my last day, I went to the village pre-school to help the teacher, Aunt Beena, with her classes. When I arrived at the school I was shocked to find that Aunt Beena was teaching her classes from the front part of her own one room house, with only a curtain hiding her bed from view. However, school was taken very seriously, all the children were in varying forms of school uniform and the class of 30 four year olds would sit in silence patiently waiting for Aunt Beena’s next instruction. What struck me was that these children were from the poorest part of the whole village and yet, when it came to break time, they wanted to share everything they had with me and their classmates. This was a stark contrast to how the children I look after in Oxford behave at break time!

The project Mission Zambia has allowed me to experience things that I never thought I would. My outlook was challenged and the things I saw upset me at times. The project took me to a part of Africa that I probably never would have otherwise visited, and being dropped in a place where poverty is so normalised, it made me ask myself what more I can do to help narrow that development gap between countries such as Zambia and the UK. I will never forget my time in Mwandi and the people I met there; I hope their ambition will motivate me, even as I stand collecting money on rainy Saturday for RAG.

Eleanor Plews, Medic Karnival Rep 2015

Karni Sleep Rough for Shelter

• On the 16th June, around 30 of the Karnival team took to the concrete for a cold night sleeping under the stars in an effort to bring awareness to the everyday struggles of the homeless and raise money for Shelter. Shelter is a charity which helps millions of people every year struggling with bad housing or homelessness, and they campaign to prevent it in the first place.

  For a lot of people, the thought of sleeping on a concrete bed for one night is understandably undesirable and avoided at all costs, but it may not be seen as entirely ‘difficult’ to do – once you actually get to sleep, of course.

  

  But imagine not having the luxury of returning to your home, having a nice hot shower and collapsing into bed the next day. Imagine not having foil blankets, which were graciously provided to us, and instead having to make do with whatever clothing you had, and if you’re lucky maybe a blanket or two. Imagine having to count the pennies and the minutes until your next meal, without the fortune of being able to bring pre-prepared food from home to much on in the middle of the night.

  We were lucky enough to have lighting, hot drinks, bathroom access, foil blankets, wifi, a secure location and cover in case of rain when we took to our concrete beds outside the Portland building – these are all things which we regularly take for granted. Things which the homeless of the world do not have easy access to.

  

  It was a long, cold night but we made it through, and that one night made us all realise just how hard it can be for those around us who have no home to return to – and for them it’s a day-to-day reality, not a single night.

  If you’d like to get involved in the campaign, you can still donate to Shelter here: www.everydayhero.co.uk/event/concretebed.

  To find out more about the work Shelter does for the homeless in England, visit their website here: http://england.shelter.org.uk/.

  By St. Peter’s Court Karnival

Young Carers Day 2015

On Sunday the 10th of May, a group of young carers came to the University of Nottingham looking for an escape from their day to day life looking after their parents. The community outreach section of Karnival called Kontact planned a day of activities for them, called Young Carers Day, so they could forget about their worries and relax and have fun. Young carers are children whose parents are ill, disabled or otherwise unable to look after themselves. Young carers have a great responsibility from a young age, which is not how a child should grow up. While their friends are out playing football in the park or playing pretend family, young carers have an actual responsibility of care and have to use up a lot of their time looking after their mother or father, checking that they’re taking the right medicines at the right time, making them breakfast, lunch and dinner and putting them to bed. It’s almost as if the typical family roles have been reversed. A lot of us look back on our childhoods and think, ‘I wish I could go back and have no worries again,’ so it’s hard for us to comprehend how it must feel to have a life dependent on you at that age. It’s also hard for us to imagine being able to have fun in that kind of situation.

That’s where Karnival comes in. Being a charitable organisation based in Nottingham, we care a great deal about the local community and helping those around us. We decided to plan a day of fun and games with some university sports societies for these children who have lost their childhood so young, and create an environment where they could focus solely on being a child and having no responsibility.

In the morning, a group of Karnival reps and some members of the exec met with the Dodgeball Society (DodgeSoc) and played some dodgeball games in the sports centre. Already we could see that the children were really lightening up and enjoying themselves. Later on, after having a nice lunch, Karni reps took the children on a walk through the beautiful campus and saw some of the wildlife that has taken residence by the lake. After this cool down it was back to the fun and games, and the children learned how to juggle and played some juggling games. In the afternoon, NerfSoc came and set up lots of activities for the children to enjoy, giving them and the Karni reps free reign of their nerf guns. This was an incredibly fun part of the day, and we could really tell that the children had forgotten about any worries they might have had at home. It was also really nice to work with some other societies within the university, especially if it meant helping people in the community out. The last activity of the day was a quiz, in which the children fully took part and prizes were given out to the best answers. Throughout the day, the young carers were having so much fun we could hardly tell they were young carers at all. It was a very fulfilling feeling knowing we’d helped some local children to forget their problems and really make a difference to their lives. In one day, we made a positive impact on someone’s life who needed our help, and this, ultimately, is what Karnival is all about.

The first Young Carers Day was a huge success and Karnival would like to thank everyone who made it possible, including the Karni reps, the societies that came to help and the staff at the sports hall and a huge congratulations to our Kontact Director, Fran Vella for making it possible. 

By Phoebe Brown, Nightingale Hall

Fundraising for Challenges Made Easy!

With each challenge that has been announced by Karnival this year, we’ve seen a lot of anxious faces worrying about putting down a non-refundable deposit and then being unable to meet their fundraising targets (particularly for the more expensive challenges like Kilimanjaro and Machu Picchu). Now, after having just announced the Barcelona marathon 2016 in support of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, those faces have once again emerged, and we want to help calm your nerves and allow you to participate in and enjoy these fantastic events across the globe. With that in mind, we have put together a (non-exhaustive) list of fundraising ideas that could aid you in meeting your targets:

Bake sales – at uni, children’s hospitals, schools.. But make sure you get permission first! (If you can’t bake, check out Krispy Kreme’s fundraising prices – who doesn’t love a doughnut?!)

Film nights – could be organised with your JCR. Charge a few pounds for entry, provide snacks/drinks/etc

Street collections – the most obvious and usually most rewarding, decent fancy dress and a decent location gets you crazy $$$$$

Sober challenges – particularly successful if you’re known as a big drinker/smoker in your social circle. Alternatively, every night you go out during your sober challenge, put the amount you would normally spend into your fundraising!

Raffles/bingo nights/pub quiz – get a decent prize(s), sell tickets to your friends/family/course mates/etc, easy peasy!

Talent shows – get yourself and/or a bunch of your friends with mad skills to put on a little show, charge for entry 24 hour challenges – e.g. trampolining, cycling, rowing – obviously don’t do a straight 24hrs yourself, but get your friends/family to join in and take it in turns!

Holiday-targeted selling – e.g. roses for valentine’s, eggs for easter, etc Coffee mornings, pudding nights, etc – charge a certain amount, use a portion to reimburse the cost of the food (if you want) and put the remainder towards your target

Donations – alongside street collections, this is usually the biggest way to raise money – get your friends, family, family friends, colleagues, employers, whoever to donate to your online fundraising page. You could even ask for donations for birthday/Christmas presents! (Basically, good old-fashioned begging does the trick!)

Sweepstakes – target upcoming sporting events and run sweepstakes where a percentage of the pot is prize money

Fancy dress – turn up to uni one day dressed as something hilariously outrageous and collect from everyone in your lectures (and set yourself up for becoming a BNOC if that’s your kinda thing)

Car boot sales – throw together all that stuff you swear you need but never actually use and see what you can get for it!

Clothes sales/swaps – get your old clothes (yes, even that dress you swear you will wear one day but know you never really will) and weigh them in, sell them, or even organise a clothes swap scheme for a few quid per ticket!

As I said, this list is non-exhaustive and there are hundreds of other ways to raise money for such good causes. Don’t let the figures put you off these once-in-a-lifetime experiences, you will seriously regret it! And if at any time during your fundraising you get stuck, don’t forget there will be Karni reps, exec and your challenge’s charity ambassador to help you along so don’t despair!

Karni love xxx

By Bethanie Merryweather (St. Peter’s Court Karnival 2015)

 

“Not drinking has never stopped me from having a good time”

Hassan is a 2015 Karni rep that has made the decision not to drink alcohol at university. We inteviewed him to ask if this decision has in any way affected his experience with Karnival. Here’s what he said…

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What hall are you in and what course do you do?

I’m a fresher at Southwell hall on Jubilee campus and do computer science.

The 2015 Jubilee Karnival Team

What made you want to become a Karni rep?

I wanted to participate in one of the biggest student run charitable organisations in the world and also thought it would be a great way to meet new people and have fun whilst raising money for a good cause.

Are you enjoying being a Karni rep?

Yes, I love the rags as I get to go to loads of different cities weekly and I actually love raising money for charity and knowing that I have made a difference.

 What are you most excited about for being a Karni rep?

I’m really looking forward to the Snowflake ball at Christmas and seeing the total that’s been raised by all of the reps, execs and Freshers this academic year and also to see if Jubilee has bettered the total from last year. I decided to become a rep during this years Snowflake ball as I was fed up of Southwell almost always being last and wanted to be the person to change that.

What do you feel that you have gained from the experience so far?

I’ve met loads of amazing new people almost on a weekly basis, raised loads of money for charity and felt great doing it. I have something amazing to add to my CV and also travelled around the country!

What are you opinions about the stigma of the ‘drinking culture’ attached to Karnival?

I don’t think there’s any point in denying there are some Karni reps that like a good drink but I find it really frustrating that there is a negative stigma attached to it. We do so much good not only for the university but also the greater community. People don’t appreciate how much of a difference the charities we represent make upon peoples lives until someone comes up to you to donate money during a rag and tells you how that charity impacted and often changed their life. Karni raise a huge amount for charities every single week and still get criticised for working hard and playing hard… Doesn’t make sense to me.

What are your reasons for not drinking alcohol?

In my house no one else drinks although that is mainly for religious reasons and even though I don’t share their strength of belief in religion I have never really started drinking and don’t feel the need to as I don’t believe alcohol will better my night. I am a naturally outgoing, confident and social person and now I’ve left home I don’t see the point in starting to drink as not drinking has never stopped me from having a good time.

 Do you think that not drinking alcohol affects your experience as a Karni rep in anyway?

 No I don’t think it does. It hasn’t changed my experience of any of the Karni events, rag raids, socials or anything else so far and I feel that I not having a limited experience at all.

By Hassan Khan

A Week in the Life of Hugh Stewart Karni..

A couple of months ago we brought you an article from Florence Boot’s Karnival team, entitled, A Week in the Life of FloBo Karni. Well 6 months on, amid the busiest semester you can experience as a rep, a few weeks ago we asked one of the Hugh Stewart team to pen us a piece describing a typical week in the life of a rep…

“This week has been a unique one for Hugh Stewart’s Karnival team. Despite the grand things that have happened over the past seven days such as the release of Chris Nolan’s epic sci-fi thriller (Interstellar), Britain’s owed money to be halved from £1.7 billion and One Direction’s latest world tour dates; our Karni team can personally boast a date with one of our joint two favourite exec, Becky Welton and a full team strong sign up to the Kilimanjaro trek in aid of HOPE for Children. Obviously a week like this didn’t go unnoticed; it wasn’t long before we were contacted by Hannah Schejbal (not to be confused with Hannah Chabal, the French rugby player) to write up our week in the life of Hugh Stewart’s Karnival team.

 Sunday started like any other Sunday, our minds and our bodies weren’t quite on the same wavelength after a succesful rag raid and an enjoyable social, but we had to strive on regardless. The idea of a Kilimanjaro trek info meeting looming over us felt a bit like one of those huge alien ships in Independence Day. This wasn’t due to the subject matter of the talk but rather due to fatigue, overnight just isn’t time enough to recover from the physical and mental excursion that a Rag Raid asks of a Karnival rep.

However, fast forward a few hours and there we were; melting in to our seats like lumps of lard in a frying pan. Within ten minutes of the talk kicking off our fragile bodies became impregnated with a ludicrous idea…the thought that maybe our 6 very average bodies could struggle up the highest free-standing mountain on Earth seemed a plausible idea. Before we let ourselves think it through we signed ourselves up. As is the case with most Karnival related events from the highly regarded rag raids that collect money for charities, to the local community volunteering ‘Kontact events’ there is always a deeper importance to all the fun Karnival offers us students.

The Kilimanjaro Trek challenge is no different. It will help raise thousands and thousands of pounds for Hope For Children, a charity that support orphaned and homeless children in developing countries to regain their childhood. Despite the pain that we will suffer due to muscles ripping and our bones being crushed to dust on our trek up the normal Earth’s equivalent of Mount Doom we should constantly remind ourselves that we are changing lives with every step…comparable to Frodo and Sam’s trek to destroy the One Ring. 

Monday morning 9 a.m. lectures weren’t quite as painful as usual this week due to what we knew Karnival had in store for us later. After our accumulative 33 hours of lectures ended we headed to Browns for a seven-way date with Becky “Queen of Karni” Welton. In a previous incentive based competition, we had won the chance to go out for a fabulous dinner with any member of Exec and we had chosen Becky.

 Dress code was a little muddled with very different understandings of smart casual on show. The ladies of the table were the only ones with clear previous knowledge of date attire and etiquette (despite Adrianna’s table manners making us all think otherwise). The best-dressed award would have had to go to Becky with her fantastic pair of heels and leaving the faint but lovely aroma of Chloe Eau de Parfum wherever she went. After the initial unnecessary confusion over whether we should have white wine or red wine with our meat dishes; a debate which lasted, in my opinion, far too long due to the quite obvious conclusion: red wine compliments a meat dish far more than a white and considering the current climate, cold and wet, a chilled white was simply a ridiculous choice; the rest of the meal went swimmingly. I do hope that Becky’s dates from henceforth go as well as ours did. Had it been a one on one I do believe there is a chance we may have fallen in love.

 

Between Monday and Thursday the team sold Kilimanjaro and Rag Raid spaces faster than Maxs Pizza, throwing money and tickets around like it was nobody’s business. But like the cool breeze of Thursday morning rolling down the hills of Nottingham there came change. Lorenzo had to be off for Art History consolidation week trips and the rest of the team embarked on Mega Raid. Having been trained by the late Henry Bennett (former Hu Stu rep) on how to be the best at everything ever, the four most capable members of the team raised at least £6 billion, breaking every record ever set since humanity began on Earth!

On their return people considered hailing them in to the city with palm leaves similar to that time Jesus returned to Jerusalem. However, the Karni exec were too tired from having organised a very successful Mega Raid to provide enough palm leaves, so this unfortunately couldn’t happen.

Then as any usual week ends with Karnival’s dark horse of a team we embarked on a Rag Raid, this week to Lincoln, to wrap up seven days full of hard work, man sweat and woman tears.

 Despite the fun and games that we all have as a Karnival team it should be stressed that the work we do is hard but extremely rewarding. To know that you have raised hundreds of thousands (in our case billions but I’m attempting to speak in more relatable terms for the general Karnival population) for good causes around the UK and, in some cases, the world is just unbelievable. To be part of something bigger and life changing is something we as a team will never forget. Karnival has made us better people…except for Lorenzo…he is still an awful person.

 If our week was all 100% true I see no reason why we wouldn’t win team of the week…or just give ours to Derby again.”

If you are interested in becoming a rep and have anymore questions, please talk to your reps as applications are going on now! As anyone will tell you, being a rep is one of the most fun things you can do with your time at Nottingham, as well as being a tremendous boost to your CV, so why would you not..?

Written by the Hught Stewart Karnival Team

 

 

Why should you apply to be a Karni rep?

“The experience of being a Karni rep is what you make it, but you can be rest assured that what ever you put in you will get ten times more out.”

As you already know, being part of Karnival as a fresher is a fantastic experience. You can enjoy all the best parts, such as Rag Raids, 7 Legged and Snowflake Ball; but have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes, and how such a relatively small organisation manages to make such a huge impact in the world of student fundraising every year? If your answer is yes then you should think about applying to be a Karni rep for your hall.

First and foremost, being a Karni is huge amount of fun! Whether that’s leading a bus full of freshers out on a rag raid, getting to go on some awesome socials or meeting other reps that will be friends for life, being part of Karni is an experience you will never forget from your time at University. As our treasurer said the other day, it’s like being part of a big family, as you will be able to find plenty of like minded people. But aside from the fun there is so much you can take from the experience that will help you in later life.

It gives you the opportunity to form efficient working relationships in a team, which is so important for life after university. It is most probable that in any career path that you chose to take, it will be such a helpful trait for you to have. You will have to work very closely with the rest of team as Karni rep, meaning that you should be pretty good at it by the time you graduate. Having a shared objective with the rest of your team brings you together and will hopefully lead to you enjoying one of your proudest moments of the year; the total amount of money you raised as a hall for charity this year.

Not only that but as a Karni rep you will be able to put on your CV that you took part in over 1000 volunteering hours, which will give you so much to talk about in interviews! Karni can add a completely different dimension to your time at university, as it seems that these days, graduating with just a degree is not enough. Many companies and employers take a huge interest in Karni, as they understand the skills needed to be effective rep, such as marketing, sales and business skills.

Karni chooses the charities that they support throughout the year, but as a rep you have the opportunity to support charities personally close to you and your team through Karni community support programme, Kontact. Hospital trips in Nottingham are open to reps; where we visit the children’s ward at the QMC, doing arts and crafts and building relationships with them and their families. As a regular student at Nottingham, you see it as a student city, but being a rep allows you to see it as a community and meet people other than students.

You can tailor your experience as a rep, choosing as a team to focus on Kontact or challenges aboard such as the Machu Picchu Trek or climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Nightingale chose the Josh Carrick Foundation as our hall charity as we had personal links with them, so we supported them by selling charity merchandise and partaking in various challenges, including the Yorkshire Dales 3 Peak Challenge, and a sober month. As a rep, you will find the world of fundraising is completely opened up to you and you may find yourself doing incredible things that you may not have had the chance to do otherwise, such as skydiving.

 

Last year, Karnival raised £1.7 million for charity and being part of Europe’s biggest student run charitable organisation is truly fulfilling. Even though being a rep is hard work, it does not go unrewarded and we enjoy regular renowned socials throughout the year, including trips to other parts of the UK. You will find some of your best friends at university will be the people you have worked so closely with throughout your time in Karni.

The ultimate reward is Snowflake Ball at the end of the year, where all your hard work is revealed in one incredible night. Motivations for being a good team and raising lots of money lie behind the pride of winning a cup at Snowflake for your hall.

If you have any questions about becoming a Karni rep, speak to your current reps in halls who will be more than happy to discuss the application process with you and their experiences of being a rep.

By Lucy Flynn, Nightingale Karnival