1) Budgets are hard
... or rather, if you're leading a project you don't have to know every detail of every aspect of the project. You panicked because you had no previous experience of building and managing a budget and in your mind that meant that the project would fall apart and it was your fault for not knowing enough. In reality everything was fine because Peter and Melita both have more than enough experience of successfully wrangling budgets for projects and had everything under control without you understanding what Full Cost Recovery is... you still don't and that's absolutely fine!
2) Young people enjoy working hard!
This shouldn't be so much of a revelation for a hardworking young person, but New Saints has done such great work individually and as a group already. You've always rallied against anyone who automatically precedes 'student' with 'lazy' and the preconception about young people is just the same, yet here you have a group of young people voluntarily dedicating time, effort and brainpower because they want to, hooray!
3) Ask stupid questions.
Actually, ask all questions, you'll soon find out whether they're stupid or not... even then, don't stop asking questions, its all another tick in the box of Things I've Learnt Today. At the very least it'll remind people that you're very new to this and should be allowed leeway when you need it.
4) Accept praise.
Don't just blush and brush it off, no-one's going to praise you unless you definitely deserve it, so allow yourself to feel good when someone tells you you've done well. Otherwise you'll never escape that 'flying by the seat of your pants' 'only just managed by the skin of your teeth' feeling!
5) DON'T PANIC!
You're only 22, and this is your first taste of real life work after years in a lovely uni bubble of lovely. By a lot of others' standards you should be sitting in the corner of a dark office doing nothing more responsibility-laden than endlessly putting numbers in excel spreadsheets, or phoning people and finding out just how much they don't want to talk about car insurance, so enjoy working on something you actually enjoy doing!
If anyone's got any comments/suggestions for learnings they've had in a similar situation, drop us a comment :)
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Monday, 23 May 2011
Making a name for ourselves
Our last meeting on Friday was a huge success, we got a lot covered and a lot gained.
Our committee group is now called 'New Saints'. I like this name as it works in a couple of ways:
1) It uses part of the dedication of the church (All Saints)
2) It overtly shows that we're new (young) people, coming up with new (exciting) regeneration means, methods and mideas.
3) New Saints also works very closely, phonetically, as 'nuisance' - our group, and this whole project, is challenging the perception that young people could only cause problems if given a voice. (No-one's actually expressed this perception, but its a good view to work against anyway).
4) It doesn't sound too 'church-y' or 'youth club-y'. There's nothing wrong with sounding church-y or youth club-y, but its not the impression we want to give on funding applications/press releases/word of mouth promotion. We want to show that we're about young people, opportunities, skills and networking, new ideas, and (by no means least) saving the building.
Also during the meeting we got a couple of our members, Joe, Alice and Paige, to start thinking about a logo for New Saints. I can't tell you how excited I am by the prospect of headed paper right now...
Another way in which we have been making a name for ourselves: Melita was contacted last week by Andrew Lee from the 'Langport Leveller' asking for a description of the project so that they could write a story about it! Exciting times! I've written a press statement (something else to add to the CV) in conjunction with the rest of New Saints, and its currently being scrutinised by Peter before it goes to press. Prepare for a hastily scanned and excitedly published newspaper clipping! :D
A second outcome of our super-successful meeting is that New Saints members agreed to a guest spot each on here so you can view their hopes and dreams (well, plans and expectations) for the project from the horses mouth, so to speak, look out for them over the next few weeks too!
Our committee group is now called 'New Saints'. I like this name as it works in a couple of ways:
1) It uses part of the dedication of the church (All Saints)
2) It overtly shows that we're new (young) people, coming up with new (exciting) regeneration means, methods and mideas.
3) New Saints also works very closely, phonetically, as 'nuisance' - our group, and this whole project, is challenging the perception that young people could only cause problems if given a voice. (No-one's actually expressed this perception, but its a good view to work against anyway).
4) It doesn't sound too 'church-y' or 'youth club-y'. There's nothing wrong with sounding church-y or youth club-y, but its not the impression we want to give on funding applications/press releases/word of mouth promotion. We want to show that we're about young people, opportunities, skills and networking, new ideas, and (by no means least) saving the building.
Also during the meeting we got a couple of our members, Joe, Alice and Paige, to start thinking about a logo for New Saints. I can't tell you how excited I am by the prospect of headed paper right now...
Another way in which we have been making a name for ourselves: Melita was contacted last week by Andrew Lee from the 'Langport Leveller' asking for a description of the project so that they could write a story about it! Exciting times! I've written a press statement (something else to add to the CV) in conjunction with the rest of New Saints, and its currently being scrutinised by Peter before it goes to press. Prepare for a hastily scanned and excitedly published newspaper clipping! :D
A second outcome of our super-successful meeting is that New Saints members agreed to a guest spot each on here so you can view their hopes and dreams (well, plans and expectations) for the project from the horses mouth, so to speak, look out for them over the next few weeks too!
Monday, 16 May 2011
Our first day on Twitter
We kicked off our Twitter account last week and had a really great response. Our twitter account is @allsaintsyouth (there's also a link over there -------> to it), at the moment its me writing tweets, but hopefully before long all the young people involved will be tweeting!
Here's a storify of the last couple of day's exciting points:
Edit: Since May 11th, Tom Dyckhoff (tv history presenter) has also retweeted one of our tweets! yaaaaaaay :)
Another Edit: We've also just been retweeted by Amanda Vickery!! :D Awesomesauce
Here's a storify of the last couple of day's exciting points:
Edit: Since May 11th, Tom Dyckhoff (tv history presenter) has also retweeted one of our tweets! yaaaaaaay :)
Another Edit: We've also just been retweeted by Amanda Vickery!! :D Awesomesauce
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
A Langport meeting, feedback from the HLF, and a meeting with an award winning website
Last Friday we had our most recent meeting with young people. We started thinking critically about a name for the group, which is good as it means we can start submitting some of our mix-funding applications before we go for the big one for phase 1. We also got two new members turning up, both of whom are girls! (it was starting to be a very male project), and one of whom is on the Town Council which could be a very useful connection
The challenge here is that we need a striking name that will stand out from other applications, and reflects how innovative the project is. We also need to stand out from other local projects so that any visitors are well aware of who we are and what we're doing. Whilst I was eager to get the name down there and then, it was decided that we should give the young people a fortnight to brainstorm ideas and bring some concepts, logos and taglines along to the next meeting. This will be good as it means that the members local to Langport can have chance to roadtest their name ideas with other locals to make sure their name ideas fit the criteria.
Yesterday I got the long-awaited feedback phonecall from the HLF South West following our pre-application. Whilst there was a fair amount of constructive criticism and scepticism about the scope of the project, they were also willing to hold a meeting to discuss our application. I was slightly disappointed that they weren't skipping round the office encouraging us to submit the application ASAP so that they could throw money at us because our project was entirely what the HLF were looking for from a Young Roots submission. On the other hand it was very useful to hear that feedback in a process prior to submitting the application, if that process hadn't been in place we would have failed our first funding application!
Today I'm going to meet Rakhee from Eastside Educational Trust. This is a children's charity established in 1994, focussed on arts, culture and heritage in London, who are very good at using social media and the internet to inspire, motivate, interact with, and promote to young people. So good that they've won awards! I'll be showing Rakhee this blog, and the plans for the whole web-presence network to see what she thinks, what she can suggest and learn from her experiences. I'm really looking forward to seeing what she's got to say - I've been blogging and tweeting for a few years, but I don't just want to stagnate at the level I'm at, I want this project to be at the cutting edge (something not many heritage projects can claim to be!)
Other than this, Melita and I are also readying our funding application to Somerset Crime Beat for our mobile office, and working on another application to fund building and training to run our website! Exciting times!
The challenge here is that we need a striking name that will stand out from other applications, and reflects how innovative the project is. We also need to stand out from other local projects so that any visitors are well aware of who we are and what we're doing. Whilst I was eager to get the name down there and then, it was decided that we should give the young people a fortnight to brainstorm ideas and bring some concepts, logos and taglines along to the next meeting. This will be good as it means that the members local to Langport can have chance to roadtest their name ideas with other locals to make sure their name ideas fit the criteria.
Yesterday I got the long-awaited feedback phonecall from the HLF South West following our pre-application. Whilst there was a fair amount of constructive criticism and scepticism about the scope of the project, they were also willing to hold a meeting to discuss our application. I was slightly disappointed that they weren't skipping round the office encouraging us to submit the application ASAP so that they could throw money at us because our project was entirely what the HLF were looking for from a Young Roots submission. On the other hand it was very useful to hear that feedback in a process prior to submitting the application, if that process hadn't been in place we would have failed our first funding application!
Today I'm going to meet Rakhee from Eastside Educational Trust. This is a children's charity established in 1994, focussed on arts, culture and heritage in London, who are very good at using social media and the internet to inspire, motivate, interact with, and promote to young people. So good that they've won awards! I'll be showing Rakhee this blog, and the plans for the whole web-presence network to see what she thinks, what she can suggest and learn from her experiences. I'm really looking forward to seeing what she's got to say - I've been blogging and tweeting for a few years, but I don't just want to stagnate at the level I'm at, I want this project to be at the cutting edge (something not many heritage projects can claim to be!)
Other than this, Melita and I are also readying our funding application to Somerset Crime Beat for our mobile office, and working on another application to fund building and training to run our website! Exciting times!
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