Boxing Club rolls with the punches during lockdown
Students from GCU’s Boxing club made the most of their time at home, raising money for charities and keeping the team spirit alive through virtual challenges
With a year of restrictions on all sporting activities across the UK, GCU’s Boxing Club (one of over 100 clubs and societies operated by GCU Students’ Association at the University) were forced to throw in the towel for the foreseeable when it came to training together on campus. However, the group decided to use their time during lockdown to virtually team up and raise money for a number of different charities, whilst keeping their community connected.
The club started their fundraising journey by taking part in the Black Lives Matter movement - encouraging members and other GCU students to sign petitions that began to circulate the web earlier this year.
Society President Elisha Lees said; “When George Floyd was killed, there was a lot of things going on about how you could help support the BLM movement.
I knew many of our members were sharing information and trying to spread ideas of how people can help so I tried to think of how we could bring boxing into it and how we could involve the club.
We decided we would do an AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) challenge and set the time of eight minutes and forty-six second in honour of George Floyd. We encouraged everyone taking part to either donate one pound and/or sign a petition for every round they completed”
Society member Sarina Vlaytchev added; “In this day and age for you to have a platform and a voice and not use it is a bit ridiculous.
We have this club and this community and we wanted to make sure we were using it for the common good… we want to make sure that we are using our voices to spread positive messages and try to contribute to positive change”
After the success of the team’s AMRAP challenge, the club continued to work together virtually to raise awareness and funds for other charities as lockdown restrictions continued. They went on to host a Pride Zoom Class in July, raising £154.90 for LGBT Youth Scotland.
As well as keeping the team motivated and connected, the fundraising activities the group have carried out over this period have allowed the group to grow and develop into a much more established university society than it had been at the start of the year.
Elisha explained; “When I finished third year it was kind of make or break for the club. I was in a position to take leadership of the society or it was at risk of being cancelled completely.
Laura and I have been on the club for two years now and we just thought it always had a bit more potential especially when we compared ourselves to some of the other sports clubs at GCU.
Now we’ve had all this free time to look at how we can build it up and make this team the best it can possible be – lockdown has been a blessing in disguise for the club.”
Connect with the GCU Boxing Society here.
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