Opportunity Fund
Giving more opportunities at Warwick
Your donations make life better
The Opportunity Fund provides bursaries up to £1,000 in value to clubs, societies and other groups of students as well as individual students to help fund extra-curricular activities.
They are one-off contributions aimed at supporting unique activities that will benefit the individuals involved and help enrich their Warwick experience. The Opportunity Fund exists solely as a result of donations from Warwick's alumni and friends.
Last year we had 61 applications and made 26 awards, totalling £13,500 in bursaries to clubs.
Some of their stories can be read here:
Skydiving Club
The Skydiving Club was awarded funding for an Automatic Activation Device (AAD) for one of their parachutes. This is a lifesaving electronic device which is mounted inside the parachute. It is a backup device which measures the skydiver's change in altitude over time, and then uses these measurements to deploy the reserve parachute if the skydiver is too low to the ground and has failed to deploy it himself. It is required by law for a parachute to have an AAD for it to be in use.
“Thank you so much to the Warwick Benefactors who so generously helped us to buy an Automatic Activation Device for one of our parachuting rigs. This will keep the rig in use meaning hundreds of skydives can be enjoyed using this rig in the future by many of our members. We would not have been able to afford it without you!”
Warwick Mountains
Eight members of Warwick Mountains travelled to the National Park of Killarney and the surrounding area in order to attempt the longest ridge walk and scramble over 3000ft in the British Isles Macgillycuddys Reeks. The bursary from the Opportunity Fund enabled the tour to go ahead and especially helped those students who could not have afforded the ferry costs.
“Thank you for giving the members who went on the tour the opportunity to develop their mountaineering skills in a whole new environment. These skills will undoubtedly be passed on to future members, therefore the whole club will benefit from this experience. Without the bursary this would not have been a viable option for many students, so we thank you again for allowing us to broaden participation and offer these great new experiences to many of our members, as well as inspiring the rest of the club to widen their horizons and seek out new challenges.”
Conference Bursaries
Just under £3,000 was awarded in four bursaries which included funding five students to attend the British Conference of Undergraduate Research and two students to attend the IAMSE (International Association of Medical Science Educators) Conference.