ST EDMUND HALL COMMUNITY & GIVING WEEK
1-8 March 2026
There are plenty of ways to get involved, find out how below!
- Join the Edmund Bear Challenge.
- Check out completed challenges.
- Give to the Hall.
- Check out our ‘Meet the Community’ video interviews on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Find out how to join the Community & Giving Week Prize Draw.
- Check out events in College and find out What’s On
Supporting Community & Giving Week
Whether it’s £20 or £2,000, every donation makes a huge difference to the College and the student experience. Make your gift using the buttons below:
International donors can make tax efficient gifts from outside the UK. Find out more here.
By donating to the Hall during the Community & Giving Week period (5 February – 8 March), you will be automatically entered into our exclusive prize draw.
Join the Edmund Bear Challenge
Inspired by Edmund Bear, a friendly symbol of Teddy Hall and our community, we invite you to get involved by completing a creative or personal challenge that reflects your connection to the Hall.
Take your favourite teddy bear, to represent Edmund Bear, with you into your everyday life or your favourite Hall traditions. Go for a walk with Edmund, write a poem or short reflection inspired by him, include Edmund in a rehearsal, training session, or study day, bake or create something Edmund might enjoy, or capture Edmund in a place that matters to you.
You can follow one of these ideas or create your own – there’s no one way to take part. You can complete your challenge with family and friends, or fly solo. However you choose to get involved, Edmund Bear is a way to share what Teddy Hall means to you.
Be sure to document your Edmund Bear Challenge and send your submissions to us via this form. We’d love to see your photos and videos, read your writing, hear your musical interpretations – whatever Edmund means to you!
By taking part, you help celebrate our community and strengthen the spirit of the Hall. Every challenge sent in before 12pm on 8 March will enter you into an exclusive prize draw to win your very own Edmund Bear and other unique Teddy Hall prizes!
Got a question? Please contact alumni@seh.ox.ac.uk.
Completed challenges
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Get Involved: Join the Edmund Bear Challenge! |
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Submit your Edmund Bear Challenge or make a gift to help support Community & Giving Week and be entered into our exclusive prize draw. |
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Elisha Ainsworth (Access and Outreach Coordinator, St Edmund Hall) Today, we were delighted to welcome a school from one of our link regions to St Edmund Hall for a visit to College. During the day, students learned more about student life at Oxford, explored the costs of university, and had the opportunity to ask questions about studying here. They enjoyed lunch in the Wolfson Hall and a tour of College led by some of our fantastic Student Ambassadors, who shared their own experiences of life at Teddy Hall. Before heading to the Earth Sciences Department for a subject taster session, Edmund Bear joined the group for a quick photo to mark the occasion! It was a wonderful way to celebrate our Access & Outreach work and to share a little bit of Teddy Hall with students considering their futures.
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Luke Maw (Outreach and Admissions Manager, St Edmund Hall) Edmund Bear helped Luke out with his school visit to The Hinckley School in Leicestershire as part of the Access & Outreach programme.
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| Denis Mustafa (1983, Engineering Science) has started an annual regular gift to the Aularian Fund. Make Your Gift Today. |
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Sophie Madden (Regular Giving Officer, St Edmund Hall) Outside of her office hours, Sophie is a classical singer. During the Community & Giving Week period, she is bringing Edmund Bear with her wherever she sings. So far, Edmund has enjoyed:
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Claire Parfitt (Communications Manager, St Edmund Hall) Edmund Bear has been helping the Communications Manager co-edit the College newsletter, Ted-E-News. He’s been paws-ing over punctuation and clawing through the copy, all to make sure every story is bear-illiantly written!
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| Fergus Heaton (1984, PPE) made a donation to the Sports Fund. Make Your Gift Today. |
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John Mabbett (1967, English Language and Literature) “My Challenge took place back on 16 May 2024 ready for this year (bear-faced lie). Sudden holiday plans meant I could not attend the reunion lunch that five of us (matric.1967) had booked in London. Leaving my own bear to supervise my study as usual, I had fearlessly crossed the Bay of Biscay to Bilbao, then hared along the terrifying Basque motorways (country lane curves but habitually driven at M1 speeds) until we reached the familiar calm of French autoroutes and Bayonne. There I met the pictured Teddy Bear (‘nounours’ en francais) sitting outside a shop. Thus, thanks to Mrs Mabbett, I was able to email my Aularian friends a cheery Aquitainian wave by way of apology.”
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| John Mabbett (1967, English Language and Literature) made a donation to the Aularian Fund. Make Your Gift Today. |
Need some inspiration? Here are some Edmund Bear Challenge ideas to get you started:
Take your Teddy on a walk and enjoy the first signs of spring. You could take a few laps of the quad, or head around the Botanic Gardens. You could even stop for a quick pint at The Bear Inn.
A Day in the Life of Edmund Bear:
Take your Teddy with you on your day, whether that be studying, working, or travelling. Document your day together, in a video, photos or writeup, and give us an insight into a day in your life! Whether you’re a current student, an alumnus in an intriguing career, or a member of staff keeping the Hall running, we love to see what our community are getting up to!
Bake a Bear Cake:
Bake with help from your Teddy, or in the shape of a Bear! You could make a bear cake, gingerbread bears, Teddy cookies – get together with friends and get creative. Be sure to drop a couple of slices off at the Development Office 😉
Write about Edmund Bear:
Write a short story, reflection, essay or poem about Edmund Bear. You could relive Edmund of Abingdon’s pilgrimage to Ponigny from the perspective of your Teddy, or write a poem including as many gratuitous bear puns as you can muster. If you can bear it…
Write a Teddy Song:
Write an original song, or write some reimagined Hall-themed lyrics for the ‘The Bear Went Over the Mountain’ or ‘Teddy Bear’s Picnic’. We want to hear you making some noise!
Get Edmund Bear Moving:
Take your Teddy on your workout – to your dance class, to your erg session, on your weekly run – send us a evidence of you getting active together!
Teddy Creations:
Paint, draw, collage, photograph or sew a visual representation of Edmund Bear. Knit your Teddy an Edmund Bear pullover! Paint a Teddy in the style of Van Gogh. Make a digital drawing of Teddy Hall Front Quad. We’d love to see your visual interpretations of something meaningful to you about the College.
A Bear-y Generous Gesture:
Commit to making a new donation to St Edmund Hall – whether that be your first one-off gift, setting up a new regular monthly donation, or making your biggest gift to date. Every gift, no matter the size, takes us one step closer to reaching the goals of the HALLmarks campaign.
Community & Giving Week Prize Draw!
Here’s what you could be in for a chance of winning:
- A complimentary ticket for yourself and one guest to attend the 2026 HALLmarks Gala Dinner: Alumni Summer Reunion on 27 June, 2026 (alumni only)
- A free formal hall ticket for yourself and one guest (students only)
- A complementary overnight stay at the Hall (alumni only)
- Exclusive Edmund Bear Teddy Bears
- Copies of the College book ‘St Edmund Hall: A College Like No Other’ (edited Keith Gull)
- Teddy Hall historic artwork prints
- St Edmund Hall pin badges
- Bottles of Teddy Hall Beer
- A bottle of Teddy Hall Port
- A St Edmund Hall scarf
The prize draw closes 12pm on Sunday 8 March, and winners will be announced the following week. You can double up your entries by making a gift and joining the Edmund Bear Challenge.
All gifts and submissions made during the Community & Giving Week period (5 February – 8 March) will be counted towards the prize draw. You can opt-out of the prize draw by emailing alumni@seh.ox.ac.uk.
What’s on during Community & Giving Week?
The Main Event – Teddy Bear’s Picnic!
Tuesday 3 March, 11:00-12:00
We’re inviting all members of the College to drop by the Front Quad (or Well Bar in the case of bad weather) to join us for a Teddy Bear’s Picnic!
Bring your favourite Teddy Bear and grab a pastry on us. You’ll see some familiar Teddy mascots around, and will have the opportunity to whack a Teddy Piñata if you submit an Edmund Bear Challenge!
This is the main event of Community & Giving Week and we hope to see lots of you there! We’re also helping to promote existing College events this week, so take a look below to see what’s on.
Take a look at what’s on in College during Community & Giving Week. The events listed below are College events, independent from Community & Giving Week, but promoted through our channels.
Sunday 1 March |
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Choral Evensong, sung by the Choir of St Edmund Hall 18:30, St Edmund Hall Chapel Open to all, free admission |
Monday 2 March |
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JCR LGBTQ+ History Month Speaker Event – Katie Burke and Eszter D Kovacs 19:00, St Edmund Hall Old Dining Hall Open to members of St Edmund Hall, free admission & drinks provided |
Tuesday 3 March |
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Teddy Bear’s Picnic – bring your favourite Teddy Bear and join us for a Teddy Bear’s picnic party to celebrate Community & Giving Week. Pastries and piñatas provided 11:00-12:00, St Edmund Hall Churchyard (Well Bar if wet weather) Open to members of St Edmund Hall, free admission (drop-in) & pastries provided |
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Bears of St Edmund Hall Exhibition 10:30-16:00, St Edmund Hall Old Library. Repeats Friday 6 March. Open to all, free admission |
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Talk by Professor Jonathan Yates on St Edmund Hall’s Art Collection 19:00, St Edmund Hall SCR Open to members of St Edmund Hall, free admission & refreshments provided
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Wednesday 4 March |
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Poetry Reading with Kevin Crossley-Holland 17:30, St Edmund Hall Old Dining Hall Open to all, free admission |
Thursday 5 March |
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Compline in the Crypt, sung by the Choir of St Edmund Hall 21:30, St Edmund Hall Crypt beneath St Peter-in-the-East Open to all, free admission |
Friday 6 March |
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Bears of St Edmund Hall Exhibition 10:00-17:00, St Edmund Hall Old Library Open to all, free admission |
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Philip Geddes Memorial Lecture, Stephen Bush (Associate Editor, Financial Times) discusses “What do journalists owe the open society?” 17:00-19:00, South School, Examination Schools, 75-81 High Street Open to all, free admission. Registration required. |
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Sip and Paint 20:30, St Edmund Hall College Bar Open to current students of St Edmund Hall, free admission |
Sunday 8 March |
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Choral Evensong, sung by the Choir of St Edmund Hall 18:30, St Edmund Hall Chapel Open to all, free admission |
- Hallmarks Campaign Total £50m 46%
