Our first futsal game & CalAid hands-on experience
Hi all! Sorry for this late post. It should’ve been last week but I was waiting for our CalAid activity on Sunday before posting this! Ok, let’s get started.
Like I mentioned before, each of us have 4 electives this term. Three of mine have finished since January, so I had quite a leisurely time last week (I didn’t travel anywhere though, since I had an assignment due on Friday). Some other students also had free time. So last Wednesday we arranged a small futsal match! It was our MSc LSCM group’s first time playing a sport together. Well, it’s not really futsal, as we had 6 people playing on each team. But we had lots of fun! We’re trying to arrange it again, but this time with a variety of sports so more students can join in.
On Sunday, Hendrik and Silvia our LSCM’s faculty members recruited some students to volunteer for CalAid. It’s a non-profit organisation that contributes to society by providing assistance to refugee, asylum seekers and displaced people. We went to Slough, where CalAid’s rented warehouse is located, to sort out and pack donations they had been given. These packed donations will be loaded onto containers and sent to Europe to help Syrian refugees. There were huge loads of donations ranging from adult clothes, childrens apparel, shoes, bags, tents and other necessities.
Around 25 students volunteered and were allocated with different jobs. For instance, some were asked to sort out adult shoes. Some were tasked with quality control and inspection on children clothes (to pick out the usable and clean ones, before handing them over to another function for further sorting and packing). I was in charge of sorting and packing babies and 2-3 year old childrens clothes. The tasks were quite labour intensive, but it was a nice feeling to know that these donations and our contributions will be sent to help those in need. We wouldn’t miss it if we were given another chance in the future!
Here are some pictures of us at CalAid. I’ll leave you guys with these. See you again next time 🙂

The finished pallet (sorted and packed) of men trainers size 41, 42, and 43; done by my friends. So proud of them 🙂

Our alumnus who currently works in CalAid. She briefed us about CalAid before leaving Slough for Cranfield. Thank you!
The Futsal looks like fun. I am really very proud of all of you for helping out on Sunday at CalAid. Go team LSCM.