UCL RUMS Badminton Team raise £1,530 for SANE
In January, RUMS Badminton organised an event called “Blue January”. Participants were asked to exercise during the whole month to raise awareness of mental health and fundraise in aid of SANE. The students raised £1,530!
Everyone at SANE thanks the students of University College London (UCL), particularly the UCL Badminton Team known as RUMS, whose captain is Molly Cumming, for their incredible support.
“Our team knew we wanted to support a mental health charity from the start,” said Molly. “We came across SANE when researching. We were taken by the importance of raising public awareness while also helping all those affected by mental health.”
It is well known physical activity improves mental health, so it seemed a brilliant idea to combine physical activity and raising money for SANE.
Molly Cumming, captain of UCL RUMS Badminton Team
Pledging to exercise every day
Molly continued: “January is the hardest month in terms of self-motivation and the impending exams we face as students. This made me want to focus our charity drive towards helping others as well as ourselves at this time. We wanted to push ourselves and so as a team we thought that pledging to exercise every day of January would be a great thing to do. We didn’t feel this at the time!”
Below are just three ways in which their fundraising can be used to help SANE’s beneficiaries:
- £10 – provides a vulnerable person in need with 5 personalised text messages
- £30 – enables a professional to moderate SANE’s online forums for 2 hours
- £50 – allows five people to receive in-depth personal call from a professional
Through their event, RUMS Badminton’s Team helped to create an awareness for their peers whereby they could combine exercise with studies, thus promoting a better mental and physical health.
Nevertheless, it takes determination to stick with such a decision and the students’ commitment to help people with mental illness won in the end. Molly recounts how hard it was for most students in the beginning.
Finding the energy
“The month was far harder than we thought. We unanimously agreed that it tested us far more mentally than physically. I struggled for several days to find the motivation to get out of bed and see myself through the workouts. My days were feeling monotonous and I didn’t see the point. However, by pledging and knowing I was doing a great thing, I found the energy.”
Once the first step was taken and the mind got used to the new hobby, the body responded positively and things eventually got easier for Molly.
She explains a bit further, “I noticed that over the course of the month I began getting out of bed excited for my workouts and feeling awake during the day. I didn’t need as many cups of tea. Working out became my way of breaking up my time, adding variety as well as bonding with my team. It was a great experience we all ended up enjoying.”
A big thanks to RUMS Badminton Team at UCL for your amazing support to SANE.
We hope this feature will inspire you to search for the type of exercising that suits you best. Lessons such as yoga, pilates, tai-chi and home workouts, amongst others, can be found on YouTube, so why not give it a go? Or you could also sign up for one of our Challenge Events.
