Following the success of last year’s event, on Saturday 6th November, at 7:45 pm, the College Prefects will be embarking on a 24 hour Charity Run. The 18 willing pupils will be running around College Lawn in shifts throughout the day and night - a huge challenge for a very worthwhile cause. This year, they will be encouraged in their attempts by Harry Shenton, the Student Ambassador from the National Star College, and they hope to complete part of each lap in a manual wheelchair.

The National Star College was selected as the College Charity for 2010/11 at the end of June, after presentations by various short-listed charities. It is based in Cheltenham and offers great support and help to severely disabled and handicapped people aged from 16-25, whilst educating them at the same time. The main aim of the Star College is to aid the students to become as independent as possible, whilst helping them to gain qualifications that could help them with jobs and projects in the future. Currently, the College is home to 140 full boarders, and 30 day students. Some of the facilities are in drastic need of an update. With help from this event and other charity initiatives, the National Star College would, amongst other things, be able to edge closer to their fundraising target of £7 million. This would enable the installation of vital equipment to facilitate such tasks. However, with no government funding, the only way of raising this amount is through public donations and contributions.

Last year was the first year that Cheltenham College ran an event of this type, and year the prefects hope to make it even better. A number of activities will take place on Sunday 7th November, including a live radio broadcast by pupils throughout the day, and also a 5-a-side football tournament. Please do feel free to come along and support at any point throughout the day - there will also be a café set up on College Field- any support or donations really would be greatly appreciated.

If you would like to contribute, please visit www.everyclick.com/cheltcoll24hour or www.justgiving.com/cheltcoll24hour and follow the instructions.

If you are interested in finding out more about the National Star College, please take a look at their website: www.natstar.ac.uk for further information.