ONE OF the great traditions of Newton Abbot came to an end this week with the last full-scale Seale-Hayne Rag Week.
At its launch on Monday, Rag chairman Jay Halford said that the committee wanted to make it the best ever, and had set a target of raising £10,000 for charity, £5,000 more than last year.
Although the campus at Newton Abbot will stay open to 2004, after which students and staff will relocate to Plymouth, academic restructuring for 2003-4 means that next year's Rag will be held over four weekends, rather than a week.
Three local charities – the John Parks Unit and Child Link at Torbay Hospital, and Devon Air Ambulance – will benefit this year, as will three national ones: the RNLI, the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI) and Breast Cancer Care.
Louise Moorhouse, RABI's South West Field Officer, and herself a former Seale-Hayne student, said that Rag Week fundraising made an invaluable contribution to the charity's work with farming families facing hardship.
Piers Le Cheminant, for Devon Air Ambulance, said: 'Seale-Hayne has been a very good supporter of our work since we started in 1992. We have a new aircraft on order for 2004.'
Chris Hoey, for the Newton Abbot branch of the RNLI, said that they were very pleased to be beneficiaries.
The deputy mayor of Newton Abbot, Cllr Allan Vizor, said that the last full Seale-Hayne Rag Week was a sad occasion.
'But we're still fighting their corner, and we're hoping to get the relocation decision changed,' he said. 'Seale-Hayne's departure would leave a big hole in the town and have a significant knock-on effect.'
The deputy mayoress, Peggy Vizor, said that they had come to cheer the students on.
'It's brilliant what these young people do for charity,' she said.