Celebrating Our Law Charity Initiative – Milking It For Money
Senior Lecturer in Law, Matt Garrett, talks through what Milking It For Money is, where it originated from, and how students and the local community have got involved.
What is Milking It For Money?
Milking It For Money (MIFM) was conceived in the academic year 2012-13. It was initially just a clever name for a fundraising event where participants would be sponsored to perform a ‘milking’. Milking was a meme that broke in towards the end of 2012 and featured people, mainly students, being filmed pouring bottles of milk over their heads.
Contract law students thought it would be fun to see their lecturer (me) participate in the trend, but I challenged them to join in to increase the money raised.
That initial fundraiser ran in April 2013 and led to over £600 being donated to Mind. Given this success, the decision was made on 1st October 2013 to make MIFM an ongoing group within the then University of Chester Law School.
What are the aims of Milking It For Money?
The work of MIFM was widened to encompass raising awareness around issues of mental health and wellbeing, as well as continuing to raise money. Over the subsequent years, MIFM has supported several good causes including:
What has Milking It For Money achieved recently?
From our concerted effort to revive Milking it For Money in 2022, we have had the most successful start to any academic year. Thanks to Dr Niel Gillard, we raised well over £500 when he ran the Chester Marathon in a Milking It For Money fundraising effort in support of Chester and District Samaritans.
We then did something new and different by hosting a charity quiz evening we dubbed ‘Pintless’. There were two aspects to the quiz:
- An open pub quiz element
- Four special guest teams who were playing in aid of good causes and playing to reduce or ideally completely avoid our ‘milking’ forfeit.
To be clear, we do not use real milk, but rather milk bottles that have been filled with water and have E45 Junior Foaming Bath Milk added to them to turn the contents milky.
That evening was a little chaotic, but ultimately great fun with even the teams who got a soaking saying they enjoyed themselves. That event also raised over £500. We have already raised over £1,000, with money being donated not just to Chester and District Samaritans, but the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), Parkinson’s UK and Severn Hospice.
What future plans have you got for Milking It For Money?
MIFM does not intend to rest on its laurels! We have lots more events planned for the rest of this academic year, with the return of the charity quiz evening for the start of the next academic year.
What do the students involved think about the initiative?
Fiza, who’s been volunteering for MIFM for a year and a half, says:
“Doing extracurricular stuff is really good for your CV and the events are fun whilst raising money for a good cause.”
Check out our Law courses to join a learning environment that provides you with the opportunity to give back whilst having fun.