Vocational business students from Richard Huish College hosted a number of fundraising events to raise more than £1,200 for Love Musgrove. The charity helps support projects at Musgrove Hospital beyond what the NHS covers.
The second year students worked together to conduct charity events as part of their assessment of their event management module of their Extended Diplomas. Course Manager, Sharon Williams, said: “We are immensely proud of what they have achieved and during the stages of planning and conducting the events they have developed many skills that they will be able to transfer to future opportunities such as; confidence, customer service, contingency planning, budgeting and marketing.” 
The first event was a bingo and raffle evening that was well attended by the local community. For their events the students approached businesses to donate prizes and were delighted at the generous response they received.
Planning the event was made more complicated this year due to the current challenges the pandemic and changing restrictions presented but the teams worked hard to ensure the necessary safety measures were in place. Among other guidelines, guests were asked to complete lateral flow tests ahead of attending and households were seated together so all could enjoy the event comfortably.
Later in the week, students raised funds with a further raffle and Bake Sale for their fellow students and hosted a staff wellbeing coffee morning. The coffee morning was supported by Huish musicians providing some festive tunes whilst staff enjoyed hot drinks, cakes and brilliant customer service from the event team.
Dan Varley, Community Fundraiser for Love Musgrove, visited the college to reveal to the students they had collectively raised over £1,200.
He said: “I was so impressed with the teams of students and their event planning skills, especially having to deal with changing COVID restrictions! Donations of this size make an incredible difference to patients, their families and our colleagues at a time of extreme pressure, and will allow us to take that extra bit of care of them during the festive period!”
Joe Bennett, Assistant Principal, Business and Creative Industries at Huish, added: “I have been really impressed by the energy and enthusiasm shown by our Vocational Business students in their organisation of fundraising events for the Love Musgrove charity.
“They should be hugely proud of all that they have achieved. I would also like to extend this thanks and praise to the Business teaching staff who put in many hours of hard-work to support the students in the organisation and running of these events.”
If you’d like more information about studying vocational business, registration is now open for the Huish Open Event on February 9, 2022 – https://www.huish.ac.uk/event/open-event-spring-2022/.
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