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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Monday Jul 28, 2008

Sleep, glorious sleep.

I´ve been working from 9am til around 10pm most days and that eventually took its toll on me. I left C Venues early yesterday to get some sleep and have just woken up, 16 hours later. I don´t think its exhaustion-sickness though as I have a bad cold as well and one of my flatmates has been violently ill for the last two days.

Bleeeeergh

Posted by Mei ( 11:22 AM )
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Sunday Jul 27, 2008

I've been injured!

I dropped a scaffolding pole on my nail a couple of days ago and its now turned purple and tender but I'm not too fussed. Quite a few people are wandering around with bandaged up fingers, plasters all over them, ankle supports, etc. I lost all feeling in my left toes 3 days ago and its still numb!

I'm still working at C Main (left) and C Soco (right):

Two days ago, I helped to build a shed in the Urban Garden. It's the most DIY-sorta thing I've ever done in my life so here's a photo:

I also did a LOT of shovelling. We've built a beach in the Urban Garden (looks quite nifty) but this involved a lot of pushing sand around in the baking heat (whomever told me Edinburgh was an icicle LIED). That's me on the right, wearing a high-visibility jacket so I don't get squashed by an over-enthusiastic digger:

So, after a hell of a lot of hard work by everybody, the Urban Garden has transformed from this to this in about two days:

It's got to be ready for the big launch party tonight though.
(I've been told I'm working til 1am, dressed in a grass skirt. I hope that was just an evil rumour).

Last night, a load of us volunteers went to the cinema to watch The Dark Knight and it was good to have some time wherein I wasn't expected to hold a conversation for once. Being surrounded by people throughout the day and back at the flat is fun but incredibly exhausting.

Right, lunch break is over and I need to get back to drilling hinges onto some stairs. Goodbye.

Posted by Mei ( 1:09 PM )
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Thursday Jul 24, 2008

Nearly complete

 

Yesterday I went into SCVS to meet with Felicitie and work on the newsletter. I only spent 2 ½ hours at the office but I would have to say it was quite a productive afternoon! I hadn’t been able to show Flik the newsletter for a few weeks, so it was a good opportunity for her to see what I’ve been doing at home.

The newsletter is progressing well and so far we have 10 complete pages. We aren’t far off our target amount which is 12 - if we have 12 pages it will be easier to put the booklet together.  I am fairly confident that we’ll be able to find some additional information for the remaining pages.

At the office, I spent most of my time filling in a few spaces that were left in the existing pages. I found out more about the opportunities the Global Xchange volunteers are involved with and put that information alongside the two volunteer profiles. I also put together an article about Gwirforce and GwirVol, and finished another page about the Swansea Youth Bank.   

While I’m excited that the newsletter is nearly complete, I am also aware that this is the last issue I’ll be working on as my gap year is coming to an end. Until then, I’m going to continue to enjoy volunteering on the newsletter!  

Posted by Catherine ( 2:07 PM )
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Wednesday Jul 23, 2008

A few teething problems

Tonight marks Day 6 of my time in Edinburgh but this is only my first entry since I arrived at the Fringe. Through no fault of my own, I hasten to add! I have been surprisingly diligent about recording my tired/excited/fed-up/happy rambles onto the audio device that Chris from TheSite.Org kindly provided me with, but despite my best attempts, I can't find a computer here which will allow me to send the files to him.

So instead! You get me typing and a few photos.

The trip up here from London wasn't too bad. It was 10 hours long and I couldn't sleep, but I'm sure it could've been much worse, somehow!

I'm sharing a flat with eleven people at the moment, but there are 5 double bedrooms and a sofa bed/matresses in the living room. We are seem to get on fine so far - hopefully it'll stay that way!

I've been working with a company called C Venues. I've spent the last 5 days at their main building, the aptly named C Main, helping with a variety of odd jobs, mostly painting, drilling, etc.

Here is the Broadway Bar section of C Soco (another venue of C Venues), which I painted white as a base coat, with the help of Ben:

This is the Urban Garden, which is the back outdoor area of C Main. As you can see, it´s majoritively scaffolding and work-in-progress at the moment, but its changing each day.

There you can see a team of volunteers doing their best ant-march impressions with 16 ply wood.

DJ and Francesca stapling carpet to black-out panels to block out outside light and noise pollution from wrecking people´s dramatic stuffs

And here, you can see our black-out panel on the left and in the background of the right, some other panels already in windows:

I´ll upload more piccies soon. :)

Posted by Mei ( 10:41 PM )
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Friday Jul 18, 2008

Volunteering from home

 

I haven’t been able to go into the office for a few weeks so I’ve been volunteering at home. I’ve been busy working on the layout of the newsletter and making any necessary changes to the articles.

Last time I met with Felicitie she showed me an old edition of the newsletter which had been made into an A5 booklet. Our newsletter is usually printed back-to-back on A4 and then stapled together. Sometimes it’s also sent out via email to cut down on printing costs. We were really impressed with the way that the newsletter looks in booklet form, so we’ve decided to produce the summer edition as an A5 booklet.

Since I started volunteering as an editor last October, I’ve also been in charge of the layout of the newsletter. At first this was rather daunting as I’d never designed any before! Initially, I spent a lot of time creating a template which we have used for two editions so far. I decided it was best to have a simple design and not use too many distracting colours. Most of the newsletter is composed of two columns, with a narrower one to the left of the page and a larger one to the right. This format works quite well as it enables us to put our own columns, and any volunteer opportunities on the left of the page, and then focus on the main articles in the larger column. Hopefully our readers agree!

Now that the newsletter is to be in booklet form, it means changing the layout slightly. The only stipulation about the design is that the font must be size 12 for ease of reading. According to Yk, the technical wizard at SCVS, the A4 newsletter will need to be reduced into a booklet, and this means that the font must originally be size 17. As you can see, I have no idea how to make the newsletter into a booklet! Due to the larger sized font and compact design, the space available for articles has reduced. This has meant press releases have had to be edited to fit the pages and ideas have had to be expressed in fewer words. At the moment, there are some spaces throughout in the newsletter that don’t have enough room for substantial articles. We’ll have to find some interesting things to fill the spaces.

Aside from working on the layout, I’ve been emailing Felicitie regularly about my progress.  We’re hoping that our illustrator Lindsey will be able to draw something to go with my article on elephants. When I first began volunteering, we didn’t have many photos or pictures to put in the newsletter, so we’re very lucky to have an illustrator to liven things up!

Also, in my last post I mentioned the article I was writing about Global Xchange. Well, it’s finally complete and Felicitie has sent it to the editor of the Millennium Volunteer newsletter in Wales! Hopefully it will be included and other MVs in Wales will be able to find about what’s happening in Swansea.

Posted by Catherine ( 2:51 PM )
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Monday Jul 14, 2008

Meeting the volunteers

In my last post, I mentioned I was hoping to meet a group of volunteers who are visiting Swansea with the GlobalXchange programme. The group have already spent three months in South Africa and are spending a further three months in Swansea. Flik and I recently attended one of their weekly citizenship days, where they were discussing human trafficking, and talked to two volunteers about their experiences so far.

I talked to Keenan from South Africa who is volunteering with Peace Mala and Discovery. Keenan is finding the second phase of the programme more challenging now that he's away from home and he's already noticed some big cultural differences between the two countries. Keenan is passionate about youth volunteering at home and has found that young people in Britain aren't as enthusiastic about getting involved in their communities. He also talked about attitudes to alcohol and was shocked at how easy it is for young people in Britain to get it.    

After having spoken to Keenan and seeing what the volunteers get up to I'm quite envious! I think that other Millennium Volunteers in Swansea will be interested to learn more about the programme and those involved in it. I'm hoping that the feature will go on the front page.

I’m off to write up my article now!

 

Posted by Catherine ( 11:45 AM )
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Sunday Jul 13, 2008

The pre-festival party

On Wednesday 9th, I went to Canal 125 bar in Old Street, London for the pre-festival party - a little get-together for nervous volunteers!

We were told a bit more about the Fringe festival where there'll be  over 2,000 shows, ranging from comedy acts, dances, musicals, plays, operas, ballets and children's shows. One show takes place entirely in a swimming pool!

I'll be sharing a flat with 6-12 other people, but there are over 150 volunteers in total. I'll be helping in twelve theatre venues, doing everything from selling tickets, leafleting, painting sets, costume repair, working as bar staff, helping actors and companies with odd-jobs.

Over the six weeks, I'll be there from 'fit-up' to 'get-out'. This means that the theatre spaces literally begin as empty rooms, and I'll be helping to build sets and stages, before completely dismantling everything when the Fringe is over

The party was a chance to meet loads of great people and listen to some live music. Here's a photograph of the event.  I apologise for how pixelated it is! I have no idea how to shrink the image without it doing that.

My first ever attempt at an audio post will be up soon, covering the same event and you can hear a bit of that live music for yourselves.

Posted by Mei ( 4:45 PM )
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Monday Jul 07, 2008

A little introduction is in order.

Hello all,

I'm an 18 year old female who, having just left college and reluctant to speed off to university, is embarking on her gap year. Of course, the clever thing to do would be to get a shop job or bar work and earn as much money as physically possible to fund my travels - But that wouldn't satisfy my self-imposed criteria of a "fun and varied" gap year.

So, despite the inevitable complaints my bank account will be making a few months down the line, I'm spending my summer volunteering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, working eight to twelve hour shifts everyday in return for accommodation and free access to the shows.

I'm not new to volunteering. For my Gold Millennium Volunteer award, I wrote for a magazine called Evolve, taught Tae Kwon Do to schoolchildren, spent two weeks at the Vitalise holiday centre for disabled people and raised funds for WarChild as part of the Envision committee. However, this is the first time I'm volunteering for my own selfish enjoyment and I'm looking forward to it!

Over the next few weeks, I'll be updating this diary with photographs and hopefully videos of my experience at the Fringe, as I spend six weeks building theatre sets, helping with drama rehearsals and hanging out with dance troupes before we tear the whole place down again, ready for next year.

Take care, Mei

Posted by Mei ( 2:09 PM )
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The summer edition

Last week I went into the office to meet with Felicitie (the Volunteer Support Officer). As I'd been away travelling for three months it was a good opportunity for Felicitie to update me on the things I'd missed. Felicitie told me that she'd sent the spring newsletter to the MV coordinator in Wales, who had sent it to GwirVol – a panel of young volunteers who live throughout the country. I found that very exciting as the coordinator was obviously impressed with the newsletter!  

I also found out that I had completed 50 hours of volunteering and as part of the Millennium Volunteers' scheme I received my first certificate. A rather embarrassing photo shoot then ensued of me receiving my certificate from Felicitie! I've decided to use the photo in my column.

At the moment I'm in the process of collecting articles for the summer edition. So far it's going to include features on the success of Volunteers' Week, Global Xchange visiting Swansea, and an article I've written about volunteering with elephants. At the office I read press releases for Volunteers' Week and the Global Xchange programme, and began to adapt them to suit the newsletter. Felicitie also gave me some pictures of Volunteers' Week and I chose which ones to use with the article.

In the next few days I'm going to meet with the Global Xchange volunteers. They're from South Africa and England and will be volunteering in Swansea for 11 weeks. I'm hoping to get some more information about the scheme and see if they want to write some articles about their own experiences.

Posted by Catherine ( 9:14 AM )
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Hello from Swansea

Hi, my name is Catherine and I’m 23. I volunteer with Swansea Council for Voluntary Service as a newsletter editor. I’ve been volunteering with the organisation since last October and in this time I’ve helped to produce two editions. After graduating from university last summer, I decided to take a gap year and spend my time doing evening courses, volunteering and travelling.  Volunteering is very important to me because I’m pursuing a career in journalism and it’s a great way to get some experience. It’s also a lot of fun!

I volunteer from home as well as going into the SCVS office. I often go to the office to meet with Felicitie Walls who is the Volunteer Support Officer. Felicitie tells me about upcoming events and new volunteering opportunities, and we discuss what’s going into the next edition. At home I often arrange the newsletter on the computer. One of the first things I did when I began volunteering was to create a new template for the newsletter.  We don’t have any fancy programs available to us so we use Word.  

When the newsletter is complete it’s sent out to Millennium Volunteers in Swansea. For those not familiar with the scheme, Millennium Volunteers is a nationwide programme that recognises the contributions of young people aged 16-24. Volunteers are awarded certificates for every 50, 100 and 200 hours they spend volunteering.  The aim of our newsletter is to create a community amongst MVS in Swansea and keep them informed about new opportunities. We encourage MVs to contribute to the newsletter and often feature personal accounts of volunteers’ experiences.

At the moment I’m working on the summer edition of the newsletter. I think the newsletter has come a long way since I began volunteering. More MVS are getting involved and we recently acquired an illustrator and a new writer!

Posted by Catherine ( 9:10 AM )
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