Community Service
Winchester College' s Community Service programme involves a diverse range of activities for 300 boys, from visiting hospitals to drama with Mencap.
Through these activities, the boys come to appreciate the value of service, and the importance of a sense of community.
Aims
To provide over 300 worthwhile activities for enhancing boys' social awareness within the city of Winchester and beyond.
To foster a caring ethos by engaging in weekly commitments of service to others.
To nurture strong relations with the wider community.
Activities
- Conservation volunteering work with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust
- River keeping: enhancing the River Itchen SSSI and chalk stream habitat
- Providing environmental services in the immediate vicinity of St Cross
- Assisting Royal Hampshire County Hospital Radio
- Royal Hampshire County Hospital Visiting
- Working alongside staff at six local primary schools and assisting children with individual reading and collective sporting activities
- Running a ‘Science for Schools' programme
- Providing support at a local Special Needs secondary school
- Running two external Chess Clubs for local primary school children
- Annual Primary Schools Concert in New Hall
- Annual Primary Schools Christmas Pantomine in Queen Elizabeth Theatre
- Visiting the Elderly in six local care homes
- Visiting the Brothers of St Cross
- Training a group of ‘Entertainers' who regularly visit local care homes
- Gardening for the Elderly
- Annual Christmas Party for the Elderly, held in School
- Supporting dons with a range of on-site activities including Aikido, Boat Club, Football, Fencing, Basketball, Fives, Racquets, Gardening, Kenneth Clark Society, Art School, music recording, theatre work, production and editing of Quelle and the Wykehamist
- Assisting with weekly Disabled Swimming sessions at River Park Leisure Centre
- Serving in local charity shops
- Sorting clothing and toys at Naomi House warehouse
- Football for the Homeless from Trinity House
- Supporting the Winchester Night Shelter for the homeless by preparing meals every evening during term-time
- Supporting local churches with organ playing on Sunday mornings
- Assisting with voluntary work in the Cathedral Refectory
- Summer BBQ in Warden's Garden for organisations who assist the programme
Director of Community Service: Mrs Clare Talks
Developing Community Service for the future
- Bi-annual Community Service project to Romania to help disadvantaged and disabled Romanian children.
- Annual Summer Camp in the Isle of Purbeck for locally disadvantaged children
- Initiate a project supporting an AIDS orphanage in Uganda. A former Chaplain of the College is based in Kampala.
View the 2010 Romania report here and the 2011 CS Summer Camp report here.