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.

All | Carl | Catherine | Rhiannon | Mei | Gaby | Enlight Youth Group | Centrepoint

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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