Jailbreakers return breaking past records
Turns out people really want to get away from Imperial
As another year nears its conclusion so does another Jailbreak challenge. This year’s annual travelling competition, organised by IC RAG, broke the previously held record for participation, as well as for distance travelled by a single team. The winners Ayush Dharap and Rohan Prasad from team Brownian Motion, managed to reach Bali, Indonesia, a whopping 12,500km away (or a return trip to the centre of the Earth) raising £355.88 In the process.
The key to their success, they claim, was planning. “As soon as we committed to doing Jailbreak we were set on breaking the Imperial record of Singapore. We thought preliminary fundraising would be a good opportunity to test the waters, and to get a headstart on raising money for our charities... We noticed how few people carried cash on them – because of this we set up a separate online donation page for the day of Jailbreak. Using technology was an effective solution, and we raised £200 from here.”
On the day of Jailbreak, Brownian Motion hit the busy London streets and managed to raise £700. This allowed them to book flights to Dubai only to almost immediately cancel the tickets to buy flights to Bali, a good 7,000 km further away yet still within budget (return costs were covered by the Jailbreaking teams). Almost 24 hours later, Brownian Motion checked themselves in a luxurious four star hotel, having broken the previous Singapore record.
But Brownian Motion weren’t the only team to achieve impressive distances this year. Over half the participating teams reached the 1,000 km mark, and over a quarter of the teams surpassed the 2,000 km mark.
In not so close but equally astonishing second place, rip harambe travelled an impressive 4,515 km, managing to reach Gambia in the process. Team rip harambe, consisting of first year medic Benjamin Jones and his climbing partner, second year Southampton computing student Samuel Law, achieved their mission by identifying the destination with the best distance to price ratio the night before. (“Our dreams of Kazakhstan were dashed by a long stopover in Moscow”).
2016’s Jailbreak challenge went a lot smoother this time round. Last year, one of IC RAG’s Jailbreak teams got pulled off a flight to Turkey after terror suspicions (it was all a misunderstanding). Despite the lack of drama this year, there were still surprises. “I spent £36 on 3G sending a Snapchat, which was fun”, says Jones of team rip harambe, who we hope will think twice next time he enables data roaming in Gambia.
Though Jailbreak is often criticised when donation money is spent on travelling expenses, teams are expected to pay for their journeys back and they usually also acquire sponsorship per mile travelled, so in the end, despite travel costs, the fundraiser yields significant proceeds. RAG chair, Cynfelyn Nancarrow-Lei, said “ [We tried] to create a per-mile sponsorship form prior to the Jailbreak, so that you raise more for Charity after the Jailbreak (when you know how many miles you have travelled) than you do for flights during the event. I really pushed that this year in the presentation I gave and in emails and social media. Unfortunately the winning team didn’t adopt this method. If they did they could be raising a hell of a lot more. Most other teams will however did take our advice.”
The top two teams (distance-wise), Brownian Motion and rip harambe, have so far raised £355 and £435 respectively. In total this year’s jailbreak has raised £10,000 so far but is expecting to raise somewhere between £15,000 and £20,000 by the end of term. Donations will be split equally between ActionAid, The British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, and Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice.
Honorable mentions include: Dora the explorers, consisting of Lindsay Reid and Priya Gupta, who raised £500, yet only managed to cover 3.6km (I cover more distance during my commute to work).
The High Five (who ironically consist of four members, as the fifth member forgot to register online) managed to raise £ 1,936 yet only travelled 6.7km, bagging the top fundraising team prize in the process.
Teams The Hitchhiking Honey’s and Shallow End Club who travelled the furthest in the UK and exclusively via hitchhiking respectively (that’s the spirit). Tequila Mockingbird, Teletubbies, and Gimperial also scored points for their excellent name choices.
Celebrations will take place next week (info to be released on IC RAG’s Facebook page). Due to the event’s success this year, another round will be taking place in Spring.
