Whether it's stewarding at a festival, writing for a magazine, or producing works of art, volunteering for creative projects is bound to get those juices flowing.

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Saturday May 05, 2012

I Heart Writers Groups

Stepping out of your comfort zone and trying something new is always nerve wracking. But it wasn't until I'd worked my way through every Creative Writing group on the internet (or so it seemed at the time!) that the doubts really began to kick in. What if no-one was interested in contributing? What if no-one even replied? Thankfully, people can be a little bit awesome sometimes, and they did reply. Actually, the response has been nothing short of amazing!

Writers' groups who'd never heard a peep out of me before were only too happy to pass my request along, and everyone from libraries to local art galleries have gone out of their way to put me in touch with local poets. My inbox has been so flooded, I've had to decipher how to use Google Mail on my phone just so I can keep up! The quality of the submissions too, has been great. Some have made me laugh; some have been experimental and made me wish I'd thought of doing that first; and some that have been really poignant. I've had poems sent to me by people whose lives have been directly affected by cancer, and who want to help other people who are in a similar position. I'm grateful to have discovered so many lovely and talented people through this project.

Of course, it isn't all exchanging emails with newfound buddies. Inevitably, I'm facing some tricky decisions about the anthology. I'm greedy, and I want it to be all things to all people - I want to make people laugh with clever rhymes, throw a few arty curveballs, and to include some of the beautiful tributes that have been sent in. The only question is, how do you squeeze all that between two covers? And how do you put such wildly different poems into any sort of logical order? I'm currently sat with a right old tangle of a possible running-order, a biro and a rapidly approaching headache! Reckon I'll be burning the midnight oil tonight....

Posted by Jessica ( 12:47 PM )
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Monday Apr 30, 2012

Greetings from Sunny Sheffield

Hiya! I'm Jessica, a rapidly-approaching-the-wrong-side-of-25 wordsmith from Sheffield. I'm going to go all Troy McLure now and say "you may remember me from such blogs as the Environment and Heritage blog that's also on Do-it.org.uk," where I used to write about odd-jobbing around Heeley City Farm. After making myself useful painting the farm's school room and helping to clean out the animal pens, I somehow managed to land a job as a real-life writer, working for a German software journalism company that specialise in reporting about Java technology. A bit of a leap, but that's what Wikipedia was invented for, right? A couple of years later, and I'm still in the tech-writing industry, which is way more fun than it sounds (no, really!) The only downside, is that after spending all week cooking up new and exciting slants on software configuration management tutorials, my brain is too fried for leisure time spent at poetry readings, or even going all guilty-pleasure and curling up with the latest Dean Koontz. I miss reading, and sometimes I miss writing things that don't involve computer algorithms.

I still find time to volunteer though, so when the idea of signing up for the Master Cutler's Challenge was being batted around the office, I put myself forward. The Master Cutler is an annual fundraising drive where companies and individuals sign up and receive a £50 investment, which they then have to turn into as much cash as possible. Basically, if you spend every Wednesday night shaking your head in frustration at this year's Apprentice candidates, then this is your chance to prove you have more business sense than the team who were trying to flog seven quids worth of Basics pasta at a footie match the other week (what were they thinking??) Even better, this year all the money raised goes to help the Cavendish Cancer Care Centre, a fantastic local charity that offers free emotional support to those affected by cancer across Yorkshire and Derbyshire. (You can find out more about the great work the Cavendish does at http://www.cavcare.org.uk/)

So, after the first meeting with my fellow fundraisers I went home, wondering how I could contribute to all the grand plans they'd already laid out - a game's night, bake sales galore, an Alice in Wonderland themed garden party, and even some talk of abseiling down our office building. Flogging some raffle tickets to my mum suddenly seemed really lame. How could I make myself really useful? I experienced a feeling of downheartedness not even watching videos of cats falling over on YouTube could alleviate. Then, I had an idea. How about a fundraising book? A charity anthology made up of poetry by local people, with all the proceeds going to support a great local cause - I could even get it professionally published (erm, somehow) and to boot, it would force me to fall in love poetry all over again! After asking a few writer friends and spending a few hours on the computer, I came upon Lulu, a company who will publish your work as a book, without taking any money upfront, which meant I wouldn't even have to break into our £50 investment - take that, Apprentice candidates!

So, I've made up my mind: charity anthology it is. Now I just need something to put in the anthology. I've made a list of creative writing groups I am praying won't ignore my emails, and have made a big cup of tea. No time like the present, right?

 

Posted by Jessica ( 5:23 PM )
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Wednesday Jan 04, 2012

Let's connect!

Let's Connect is a project set up by High Oak Youth Group working with Enlight Youth Group and is a Youth In Action project.  Enlight is a youth group formed by young people, community members and professionals from Dudley in the West Midlands. Enlight aims to create innovative programmes to engage young people in order to allow them to have new experiences, gain qualification and skills, become active citizens in their communities and make a positive difference to their lives and the life of others around them.

As part of many projects designed to help young people gain experiences and new skills, Let's Connect was set up. The main aim of the project is to help young people learn about social networking and media in a safe environment.  We want young people to be able to understand how social media is used in today's world and how it can be used in a positive and creative way to help them and others in the community.

As part of the project young people will work with trainers to develop Facebook pages, podcasts, blogs, twitters and videos which will be shared amongst other young people. We have already created Facebook pages and twitter accounts for our youth group (Enlight Youth Group) where we share information and put new announcements. We have also done videos of other projects we did throughout the summer and all this help us connect with more people showing them all the good work we are doing for the community.

In the future we aim to use 'Let's Connect' project to share our social media skills and experience with other young people across the UK and around Europe.

Created by Chris (Enlight Youth Group)

www.Enlight-youth.com

 

Posted by Enlight Youth Group ( 12:10 PM )
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Wednesday Jun 01, 2011

The Bafta event

Hello, it's Helen - Do-it blogs editor here. I'm posting this on behalf of Centrepoint as I had the pleasure and privilege of going to the final event to watch the film that the volunteers produced. I also had the chance to hear them talk about the experience and have collected some photos from the team to give you a taste of the evening. 

The film One Step Away that you've heard about in most recent posts in the Media and Arts blog was put together by a group of volunteers as both a learning and awareness raising exercise. The volunteers had the opportunity to work with professional mentors and it really was an all-round rewarding experience.

The most impressive part of the film in my opinion was most certainly the characterization. The volunteers involved had created stories and people based in part on personal experiences and I could certainly relate to the issues that the film depicted. What happens to a young person who has experienced domestic abuse and needs to find a new home urgently? What happens to a young person who is fully independent and can no longer afford to pay their university fees and is trying to hold down two jobs? What happens to a young person who's best source of advice is from a stranger on the street? Through my work for Do-it's sister website, TheSite.org - I've heard about young people in our online community experiencing these scenarios and so it's great to see them being dramatized in this way. 

Finally, it was really great to hear the volunteers talk of the benefits in terms of working alongside BAFTA members, award winners and practitioners. This was an unexpected opportunity for many of them who gleaned experience in camera work, acting and writing and a reminder of how valuable volunteering can be for all involved.  We also had the pleasure of hearing one of the volunteers play a live acoustic version of a song from the film that he produced and has now been signed to Round House for. (pictured above) Also, if you've never been to BAFTA, it's a great venue and my colleague spotted Jonathan Ross' wife on the way out!

Posted by Centrepoint ( 12:32 PM )
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Wednesday Mar 30, 2011

Getting out of homelessness

I wanted to tell people, how difficult it is to get out of being homeless. I went to university to study sports science, but I struggled with money. I had to leave my course because I couldn't afford it. The university was going to help me with my fees but the money didn't come for ages. Lot's of students get jobs while they are studying, but this makes life difficult. I had to leave university and live in a hostel.

In this part of the film, it highlights the issues of people trying to escape the "homeless trap" by going to university or college and struggling due to the other pressures they face, such as being able to afford it.

I wanted to tell people, how difficult it is to get out of being homeless. I went to university to study sports science, but I struggled with money. I had to leave my course because I couldn't afford it. The university was going to help me with my fees but the money didn't come for ages. Lot's of students get jobs while they are studying, but this makes life difficult. I had to leave university and live in a hostel.

Stephane.

Posted by Centrepoint ( 3:31 PM )
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Monday Mar 21, 2011

Homeless women

We agreed that we should have a girls part, as we wanted to show that girls can become homeless too. Charmaine agreed to play a girl that had been abused by her step-father and had ran away from home. We also wanted to show that it's not always easy to get housing as there's too many homeless people.This character ended up going to stay with someone she didn't know and while she was sleeping he came into her room (although we thought the audience should guess what happened then - but it wasn't good).

We now have 3 characters and have to work with an editor to see how we can put them together. We might do some interviews to let people know why we wanted to do these characters. We haven't decided yet if we are going to do more characters.

Posted by Centrepoint ( 9:35 AM )
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Wednesday Mar 09, 2011

Our character David

This Monday we had the opportunity to start exploring another Character - David, David is a posh character, who hasn't got a job or doesn't go to college. His Dad gets angry with him for smoking weed and throws him out. He hasn't got any where to go so goes to be with his mate. His mate takes him to a party - where there is going to be nice girls, drugs and lots of alcohol.

We had to make a room look like his parents house for one scene and then went outside to shoot a scene in a park.

Posted by Centrepoint ( 4:37 PM )
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Meet Charlene

My name is Charlene I am volunteering for Centrepoint. I'm going to tell you about our first all day session at the Bafta filming project so far we have been discussing our first scene and how we would go about shooting that part. Trez and Stephan were rehearsing the first scene and the group was helping them find the truth to the scene.

It was funny and interesting to see how it started to take shape with ideas being thrown in by members of the group. Then we were ready to get the cameras rolling and find a suitable spot to film outside by a bus stop, with Mohamed as camera man, Billy as director and Trez and Stephan as the actors in this scene. It was very productive and turned out well.

After lunch some of us were interviewed for the Bafta mentoring video where we were asked a series of questions on how well we have done so far and how we feel we have gained experience and skills so far in this project. We then set up for the final scene "Smoky's House" and after another brief rehearsal, shot the scene.  I was going to play the part of Smoky's mother but we all decided there was no way Stephan could be my son so they pretended to speak to the mother on the phone instead. I am yet to have my starring role! But all in all the second scene went really well and we finished off by cleaning up the rooms we had used for filming.

Posted by Centrepoint ( 4:13 PM )
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Developing characters - work in action

Posted by Centrepoint ( 4:01 PM )
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Wednesday Feb 23, 2011

A new venue

 

With the weekend out of our systems and Monday, rolling in the bafta film project was upon us again. With a very productive session last week behind us, anticipation was high and the group was eager to crack on with their film.  With a few absentness due to various commitment there was a small group, which allowed for extreme focus during the session and a lot was achieved we also had a few new members joining our circle which really helps with creative ideas!

The session began with a very vital issue concerning the group. With it widely decided that three hours on a Monday is not long enough to fulfil the needs of the group a new venue has been found in Southwark, which will allow the group to have much longer sessions on a Monday and therefore make much more progress with their film. When this idea was put towards the group the reaction was of a unanimous one with everyone agreeing this move was a positive step and could only help the project move forward. With that out of the way and minds eased, the session really got into full swing. With character profiles sorted, we began by assigning actors to play the roles of the characters due to the many budding actors within the group this was not a problem. We then moved on to handing out vital crew roles, of course there did a lot of debate on the role of director with various people want to take the helm of this hugely anticipated film! Finally, Bafta film mentor Baz talked the group through various filming rules and procedures to aid the cast and crew when the shooting begins which culminated in a short piece being shot than played back to the group. This gave the group hands on time with the camera and its capabilities, which generated excitement in the group. Everybody is buzzing for next weeks instalment where there will be a change of scenery for the group and the filming will finally begin! See you next week.

By Phil

Posted by Centrepoint ( 10:07 AM )
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Monday Feb 21, 2011

Phil's diaries

Young volunteer Phil has been keeping an account of film antics so far.

Monday 31st January

On 31st January, a group of around 13 young budding filmmakers got together at Centrepoint head office for the very exciting BAFTA film project.  The young people involved have a timeline of 10 weeks to complete their film project, which involves the whole process of filmmaking from scriptwriting to the finished edit. At this stage, we have a range of different ideas, which when we meet next week we will decide on the final idea to then go on and begin shooting on. The session began with a small icebreaker where the group made a circle and threw the ball to each other, with each person they threw the ball to they had to remember the persons name, this was a great way to bond in a relaxed way but it was also really difficult! The group then split into two teams to answer the question "Why am I here?" from this question came a variety of interesting and thought provoking answers. We then got back together to compile a team agreement, which the team must follow throughout the duration of the project. Then came the bit everybody was waiting for as everybody got together to brainstorm ideas for the film we wanted to make. With so many ideas and creative juices inside the young people mind we came up with some great ideas full to the brim with potential, now all that's left is to pick one of them in next weeks session. I'm going to leave you know on a cliff-hanger like one of my favourite directors Alfred Hitchcock,  stay tuned in anticipation for next weeks blog where the plot of our film will finally be revealed...

Monday 7th February

This Monday our budding filmmakers met up for the eagerly anticipated second meeting of the BAFTA film project. There was a great turn out yet again, two new members coming into the team showed the great level of enthusiasm, and potential this project has to offer. Continuing from last week's brilliant session the group set about on the arduous task of finalizing their film plot and developing their character profiles. After a heated debate from passionate young people, the group finally settled on having four main characters in which the film will focus on at various points. With advice from the BAFTA mentors, the team split into four groups each assigned with breaking down a character each. A flurry of ensued within the four groups followed by some furious pen scribbling and we had our characters. The characters all at various different stages of homelessness will meet at one event in a twist of fate that will change some of their lives forever. So with things starting to gel together, with the plot painstakingly decided and our characters ready to be bought to life we all wait with baited breath for next weeks session.    

Monday 14th February

Valentine's Day bought session 3 of the BAFTA film project into full swing. After last weeks, wonderful session anticipation was running high and everybody wanted to crack on with the development of the four main characters. After some passionate debate it was finally decided upon that the best way to develop the character profiles and see which person suited each character best was to run a "hot seat improve". A hot seat improve is a dramatic technique designed solely to help an actor get into their character. A chair is placed at the front of the room while the audience gets into a circle and takes it in turns to ask the actor portraying his character a question. With some very interesting questions being put forward and the information being safely written down and recorded the group collectively managed to flesh out an advanced character profile for each of the main characters (Jermaine gave a superb improve of the snobbish David T Dulwich which had the whole room in fits of laughter). Next weeks instalment looks very promising as now we have the profiles of the characters we can now pick actors from the group to play them, and even more exciting than that we can finally set the ball rolling and begin the process of writing the first draft of out script! See you next week readers for the next BAFTA blog!

 

Posted by Centrepoint ( 1:51 PM )
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A new film project for young people - first the background

A team of young people from Centrepoint, are volunteering to create a film exploring issues around homelessness. This film project is part of the BAFTA and Media Trust joint Youth Mentoring Programme, which provides young people with the opportunity to work alongside BAFTA members, Award-winners and leading practitioners.

This project has been supported by, the national youth volunteering charity.

Centrepoint is a national charity working to improve the lives of socially excluded homeless young people. We provide a range of accommodation based services, including emergency night shelters and short stay hostels, specialist projects for care leavers, ex-offenders, young single parents, foyers and supported flats and floating support services. From these accommodation based services, Centrepoint helps young people to turn their lives around by gaining essential life skills; tackling physical and mental health issues and moving into education or employment. For more information visit www.centrepoint.org.uk

Posted by Centrepoint ( 1:16 PM )
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Monday Aug 30, 2010

Summer's nearly over - so the fun can start again

It's been a long while since I've been at Wilton, but even though the club has been closed for summer, we've still been working behind the scenes. And apart from some big changes in my voluntary life, I've also gone through some big changes in my personal life. Strangely, they connect rather well...

So to start with, the big news about Wilton. We got the funding! It's not as much as we applied for, but it's still a hefty sum considering the tight budget we were running on before. As with local authorities across the country, Hackney Council is currently experiencing funding cuts that will affect all their voluntary sector projects. Fortunately, the council have been really supportive and instead of saying "no" to us, they helped us reach a compromise.

Together with advice from Hackney Council, we managed to re-write the application and re-balance what we were asking for. This means that we can still run the music and media projects we were planning, just over a slightly longer time-scale and with less equipment. In a couple of weeks I'll be going back to Wilton to start the media project with Helen. I hope loads of the kids will join in since school will have started again and they'll need something to do indoors when the weather gets worse.

Helen has organised for Headliners to come in and do a taster session so we can establish what sort of journalism the kids will want to do: print, video, photography or radio. I've been to a Headliners taster session before so I know it's a fantastic organisation. They train young people in media skills and then, for some projects, actually get the stories featured in the national media. As all people in the youth sector know, it's notoriously difficult to get young people's views heard in the mainstream, so their role is really admirable. I'm sure the kids will get stuck in straight away and I'm really glad they're on board.

In my last blog, I also mentioned that I was writing for the Hackney Council Voluntary Services magazine, Spark, as a volunteer. I did this because I wanted to find out more about the voluntary sector and also to get some more journalistic experience. I went part-time from my job as a press officer for a youth charity in July so that I could start freelancing as a journalist. I wrote an article for them about their new strategy for the voluntary and community sector. It was interesting to learn how the private, voluntary and third sectors all interact in a borough and what changes are coming as the Government sets its new policies. You can read the article on the Spark Summer 2010 issue on pages 8-9.

And the big news about me? Well, I've got a new full-time job. In a couple of weeks I'll be starting work as a journalist for Children & Young People Now magazine and I'll be covering youth work. I'm so lucky that I'm going to be able to combine so many of my passions: youth issues, politics, writing and youth work. It sad to be leaving YouthNet, which is obviously the home of Do-it, but since I'm staying in the sector I'll still be in touch with all my old colleagues and I'll still be blogging about Wilton. I'm just another of the many bloggers here that demonstrate how volunteering can aid your career, and that's something I want to continue to promote.

I'll be back in a couple of weeks with news of how the first day back has gone. In the meantime, I've got to sort out my CRB certificate and see if I can still remember all the kids' names...wish me luck! 

Posted by GabyJ ( 2:19 PM )
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Friday Jul 02, 2010

Good things come in threes

This week has been an extra special one from the perspective of volunteering. We reached the end of our ten-week music and film project at Wilton, I've started volunteering on another project and we have been interviewed by Hackney Council Voluntary Services (HCVS) about our funding application. It's been crazy busy but very exciting.

On Tuesday, Rolling Sound organised an awards ceremony for everyone at the youth club. After ten weeks of learning how to shoot videos, edit film, produce music and interview each other, everyone deserved recognition for their hard work and improvements. The kids were really over excited about it and couldn't keep quiet all the way through. We lined up the chairs in rows like a real ceremony, and Colin from Rolling Sound was reading out the prizes at the front, BAFTA style. Each time a category was announced everyone shouted out who they thought it would be. It is so loud when they all shout at the same time and it was impossible to keep them quiet! Each person got a certificate and had their picture taken. Even thought they were rowdy, you could tell they enjoyed it and some of them genuinely looked surprised and beamed when they heard their name.

The second part of the evening was to watch the films they'd made. We handed out popcorn to make it a bit special and watched the short clips they'd put together. Honestly, I was so impressed by the quality of their work and the results were really funny in places. Mostly they were just interviews with each other about career choices or their lives, but with the music they made playing over the images, they really came to life. It was an exhausting session trying to control the kids' excitement, but a lot of fun.

On Wednesday I finally met Gillian, a member of HCVS, who I'd been in touch with about writing for Spark, the organisation's magazine. We met at Wilton back in April, and finally she called last week to ask to meet to talk through what I can do. I was really grateful as I'm currently changing my career direction and going back to journalism. I'm still going to work at YouthNet part time, but otherwise I'll be trying to develop myself as a freelance journalist. So writing for Spark will be great practice and a chance to meet more people.

Instead of meeting in a café, Gillian invited me to an art exhibition put on by one of the projects they support. It took me a little while to find it, cycling around on a sweltering day, but it was so wonderful. The walls were covered in beautiful, colourful pictures created through an art therapy project for children and young people in the local area. There were some really interesting speeches about how it all works and how the therapy can benefit people, as well as a raffle and many friendly, inspiring people. It was so much fun and a great introduction to the kind of events I will hopefully be covering for Spark in the future. First of all, they want me to write a piece about budget cuts - something nice and juicy to get stuck in to. I'm going to get started as soon as I'm back from holiday.

So finally, this week we heard back from the council about our funding application. It got through to the next level and they wanted to interview youth club members about our ideas for a magazine and music project. I couldn't go to the meeting, but Joe (another Wilton volunteer) reported back that it had gone really well. I'm off on holiday for a week now, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed on the beach! It would be so amazing to get that support and do some great work with the kids. One thing working with Rolling Sound has taught me is that they really love getting on with things, and if you can provide them with the right equipment, they produce so much. I really hope to have good news later in the month.

Posted by GabyJ ( 6:15 PM )
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Saturday Jun 12, 2010

We're setting up a magazine!

The last thing I wanted to do as a volunteer was paperwork. I do enough of that in my day job to last me a lifetime. So when the other volunteers at Wilton began talking about a meeting to discuss a funding bid, I wasn't overjoyed. That is, until I found out what it was for.

This week, all the volunteers, Sheila (who runs the club) and I have sat down to put together an application for money that will enable us to create a magazine for the young people, and a proper music project. Brilliant! As a trained journalist, it's exactly what I want to do. So putting a few hours into a document now will be completely worth the reward if we get the money. I can't wait!

A magazine is something Helen, who is the volunteer coordinator, has wanted to do for some time. We want to get some Mac Books so we can do proper design work, digital cameras, dictaphones – everything the young people need to become journalists. If we only get a little money, then we'll publish the magazine online. But if we get more, then we can actually print and distribute issues around the local area. It's a great way to improve the image of young people and integrate the estate into the community. It's also incredibly beneficial to the young people, who will learn new skills and have something to show for themselves when they're applying for jobs or education courses.

I'm also quite relieved that I can work on something I really know about. The plan to do drama workshops would have worked out, but I would have had to do a lot of research. Whereas this is something I'm truly passionate about and know exactly how it will work. I really hope we get the money, because young people are so creative and have such good ideas - I know they could produce something original and engaging.

Because I've never set up a publication before, I decided to get some help from an expert. I spoke to Andy, who set up Haringey's award-winning youth publication, Exposure. Andy gave me some excellent advice and invited me to visit their offices. I'll definitely take up his offer as it will be invaluable to see how they operate. The organisation has been going since 1996, and in that time has published over 100 copies of the magazine. Pretty impressive.

The bid took ages to write, and it was all thanks to Joe (who is one of the musicians at the club) that it was completed on time. His ideas for the music project would really transform what the young people can do. He wants to get new instruments, production software and, thankfully, soundproof one of the rooms at the centre. Definitely something we need! We have to wait six weeks for the results of our application - fingers crossed...

So I'm really enthusiastic about Wilton at the moment, and my experiences as a volunteer so far show that it opens up massive opportunities. I've met some great people, we've got a great plan, and if we get the money, I'll be able to teach young people how to be journalists. There's nothing I'd rather be doing with my spare time.

Posted by GabyJ ( 12:00 AM )
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