Last week's CGCU RAG Slave auction has raised over £1,500 with bids being chased from donors (if you haven't paid up yet get on with it!). After a slow start, the first two slaves going for £8 and £20 respectively, the money started totting up as rival Media Editors bid against each other and Mech Eng Senior Tutor, Shaun Crofton, took the bidding to a colossal level.

Media Rivalry

The higest bid of the night came as Felix Editor, Jovan Nedic, went under the hammer. Bidding against Live! Editor, Kirsty Patterson, who wanted Felix to be rebranded as Live! for one week, Nedic bought himself for the price of £375.

The Felix News Team got their own back however as Patterson was up for auction later in the evening as Live! Editor and CGCU HonSec. Bidding along similar lines the news team wanted Patterson to rebrand Live! as Felix for the rest of the academic year. Felix Editor, Jovan Nedic, commented that he wanted to take home a Guardian Student Media Award and that rebranding Live! was the easiest way to do it. Not having any of that, Patterson bought herself out of the deal for £350 which is just short of the total available in the Live! SGI currently.

G20 Summit

A Motor Club Syndicate originally bid for Mech Eng Senior Tutor, Shaun Crofton, to sabotage ex-Live! Editor, Dan Lehmann's, 1900 De Dion Vis-a-vis in the VCC London-Brighton Run (which is also attended by Boanerges, the Guilds Motorised Mascot, and Crofton's own De Dion). However an opposing Mechanical Engineering Syndicate pushed the stakes higher with a proposal to send Crofton to a rally at the G20 summit which will be held in London in April. Clearly finding a weak spot in Crofton's sensibilities the price was raised to £300 for Crofton to complete the task along with a clothes swap.

Mascotry

CGCU returned RAG Mascot, Chris the Collecting Tin, with a promise that £200 would go to a charity of their choice. Current suggestions from the Guilds Team are Prostate Cancer or Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief (RedR). RAG discovered earlier in the evening that Spanner had gone missing from their secure hiding place in ESocs Shed and the suspicion was immediately placed on the RSMU. Confronting the Miners in the Union Bar VPFS, John James, got an 'admission' from RSM President, Adam Baldwin, that Spanner was indeed in the possession of the Mines Committee and a swap was negotiated. James later bid £100 for Spanner and Bolt to be returned when Baldwin went up for auction. Baldwin was relieved that James outbid other members of the RSM who had wanted him to do a naked yard and Quad run in the Union that evening.

Feeling a bit cut out by all this 'swapping' rather than coughing up cash, there was a failed attempt by the RAG Committee to claim Davy, the Mines Mascot, from CGCU VP's Matthew Taylor and John James. After a confused call for abort the RAG Mascoteers were prevented from relieveing VPA Matthew Taylor of the lamp and his fingers given the mascot was chained to his wrist. Taylor later claimed 'they were going to cut my fingers off with those bolt cutters.'

The 'swap' was to take place on Queen's Lawn at 11:00pm. A large hoard of Guildsmen turned out to protect Davy and RAG came along to watch. The result was over 50 people stood in the cold on Queen's Lawn waiting for the RSM to return the 'stolen' mascots. The last laugh was on Guilds though as RSM didn't have the mascots and were merely taking advantage of the fact Guilds had automatically jumped to the wrong conclusion. Bolt was still in ESoc's Shed having been overlooked by the RAG Committee and Spanner had been buried in Hyde Park by a member of College Staff who had 'stumbled over it' earlier in the day. The mascots were eventually returned on Thursday, just in time for the CGCA Annual Dinner, after a ransom of £200 was paid to RAG by CGCU.

Naked Run

The readiness of Imperial Student's to show a bit of flesh for charity was once again rife in this year's Slave Auction with CGCU President Mark Mearing-Smith and Links HonSec Richard Parasram both being bought for Naked Kamikaze Parachute Jumps (otherwise known as the Harrod's run). Mearing-Smith is to complete his carrying Spanner with RSM written on his face in lipstick. VPA Matthew Taylor, Guilds RAG Coordinator Alice Rowlands and DPEW Hannah Theodorou were also bought for other nudity related tasks with Taylor to appear in Felix in his Y-fronts, Rowlands to streak at Varsity and Theodorou to cook dinner in nothing but an apron for Council Chair Afonso Campos.

The slaves, masters and tasks to be performed are outlined in the handy table below. For being the only person to sell for less than £10 VPFS, John James, was also treated to a hit from the RCSU Hit Squad, not that he is a stranger to getting pied by RAG.

RAG has raised over £6000 so far for it's chosen charities which are Barnardo's, Shelter and the Rainbow Trust.

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