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Sitting on a sofa is now a charitable act!

When you are thinking of raising money for charity, all kinds of things spring to mind however sitting on your sofa is not traditionally the first activity. With the number of charitable organizations and events vying to capture hearts and wallets, the pressure is on to think of ever more inventive and headline-grabbing methods of raising the funds. The current vogue is for naked calendars, as immortalized in the film ‘Calendar Girls’, but the staff of one Watford pub came up with a far more simple and without doubt less energetic method.

In their efforts to raise money for this year’s Comic Relief Appeal, the team at the Essex Arms employed various tried-and-tested fundraising events. These included that pub staple, the quiz night, a car wash, and a Red Nose Ball (the Red Nose is not an obvious accessory for a ball gown, but then charity events are all about having fun). The pub staff did not stop at there, however, and found perhaps the most enjoyable event possible (except a sponsored session of kissing George Clooney, which would probably have raised more money than all the other Comic Relief events put together). For what could be more pleasant – and indeed appropriate for a pub – than a sponsored session of sitting on a sofa?

Fortunately, the onerous task of occupying the couch was shared by the various staff members of the Essex Arms, thus avoiding a nasty case of numbness of the posterior. As manager Kelly Herridge explains, ‘At no point has there been no one sitting on it’. Besides, if the idea was to have the sofa constantly occupied, the 48-hour marathon would have been extremely uncomfortable for a single individual. One might even say tortuous, with the pub toilets tantalizingly close, perhaps even within view of the sofa.

None of the couch potato fundraisers were required to stay awake during the night shifts, as the sofa did double duty as a bed. At the end of the marathon session of sofa sitting, the team expected to raise £150 towards their estimated total of £500. Judging from the variety of events that they came up with for this year, it will be intriguing to see if the staff of the Essex Arms succeeds in outdoing themselves with inventive ideas for the next Comic Relief. It can safely be assumed that, in the name of responsible drinking, that ‘How many pints can you drink without falling off the bar stool?’ will not be among them.