Neither rain nor nor hail nor sleet ... Sunday 9 April 2006

... nor snow nor dark of night shall keep our callers from the swift completion of their appointed calls.

And indeed, rain and hail and sleet and snow greeted our callers when they ventured from their homes to head towards Aston University and the afternoon shift. Despite the dreadful weather here in Brum, students arrived at the call centre to begin their 5-hour shift.

Voices of competing barber shop groups drifted through the hallways. All the bright costumes were almost reminiscent of the Tolkien convention late last year. Except no hobbits or elves among this lot.

It was another around-the-world trip on the phones, as students rang alumni in the the UK, Greece, Turkey, USA, Canada, Switzerland, Cyprus, France, The Netherlands, and Germany.

Despite the number of answerphones encountered (there must have been better weather somewhere else!), it was an excellent session with more than £5,300 raised, bringing the campaign total to almost £77,000!

Best moves this afternoon were from the pool players ... Sasha pictured above.

Best quote from student notes: "This graduate visited Aston a while ago on a Saturday, but the security guards wouldn't let him in ... he said he even dug up his old Aston campus card just to show them that he was actually a student here..." Hmm, sounds like the same guys are still running the security booth downstairs, eh Rihan?