Community Service

The annual tea party for elderly local residents: Dec 2 2009A Community Service scheme has been running at Winchester College for nearly forty years. Having started with a handful of enthusiastic boys, the scheme now involves 300 boys and a wealth of activities.

The ethos behind Community Service (CS) at Winchester has remained unchanged over the years. The boys are given a chance to develop new personal skills and gain contact with the 'real world' outside School, a valuable opportunity for boys in a tight-knit boarding school community. Through these activities, the boys come to appreciate the value of service, both to those being served and themselves, and the importance of a sense of community to all those in society.
  
Community Service can also provide an outlet for the boys' own creativity. Imaginative new activities have frequently arisen from their own ideas and enthusiasms.

Aims

 To provide 300 worthwhile activities for enhancing boys' social awareness in and around Winchester and more widely.

 To promote a caring ethos amongst all pupils 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

Resources and governance

Director of Community Service: Mrs Clare Talks

Academic staff support: Mr Douglas, Miss Ovenden, Mr Finigan, Mr Salimbeni, Dr Follows, Mrs Quinault, Miss Waterford, Mr Falconer, Dr Hebron, Mr Shorter, Mr Savory, Mr Steven, Mr Nickerson, Dr Cornish, Dr Cramer, Dr Salwey, Mrs Lombardo, Mr Freeman, Mr Eyre, Mr Chee-A-Tow, Reverend Burt, Reverend White, Mr Rowe, Dr Cullerne, Mrs Foster, Mrs Dowell, Mrs Townsend, Mr Taylor, Mr Fox, Mr Newsholme, Mr Hunt, Dr Cai, Mr Watson, Mrs Inglis, Mr Giddings, Dr McManus, Mr Burridge, Mr Wolff, Miss Copin, Mr Newsholme, Mr Mackinnon, Mr Russell, Mr Wolff, Mr Cawston, Mr Crossland, Mr Hunt, Mr Atkinson, Mr Taylor, Mr Nash, Mrs Mendelsohn.

Developing Community Service for the future

  • Develop links with Winchester Charities Group
  • Annual Community Service project to Romania, supporting the work of the Libra Foundation to help disadvantaged and disabled Romanian children.  A team of Wykehamists is going to Romania in July, 2010 to spend two weeks supporting Libra's work in an orphanage and day centre.
  • Establish an annual Summer Camp in the Isle of Purbeck for local disadvantaged children
  • Initiate a project supporting an AIDS orphanage in Uganda in 2011.  A former Chaplain of the College is based in Kampala.