Every year in our small town a new class of 1st year students arrive, and the 3rd year students scramble to find the best kids of the bunch! Some go for quantity and others for quality, but the culmination and ultimate bonding experience between parents and children comes with Raisin Weekend.
I remember my own Raisin as being preceded with trepidation, and full of weird encounters that could only have happened on a day as crazy as that. From 10 am onwards you can see inebriated freshers roaming the streets on scavenger hunts or performing tasks. As a child, I loved my Raisin treasure hunt; as a parent, I used the interval to clean and recuperate!
Whether you are participating this year or not, you will no doubt have heard that Raisin Weekend is under threat if we do not behave. Simple common sense is all that is needed to continue this tradition for the next 600 years. Don’t do anything illegal! Don’t encourage your children to do anything illegal. We have to save Raisin because it doesn’t happen anywhere else.
Think how many dinner party stories you can get out of your Raisin Weekend experiences. Think about how in St Andrews incest is not only allowed but actively sought after by some (note: only the academic kind). Would Raisin be the same without the foam fight in the quad? No, it wouldn’t. It also wouldn’t be the same without the safety talks in halls beforehand. This is what we could lose if we misbehave, so just don’t do it! I promise, it isn’t worth losing our best and weirdest tradition over!