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!
Friday, 22 April 2011
Leading meetings, winning over sceptics and discussing significance, all without back-up!
Our meeting today was the first time I'd lead a meeting in Langport without Melita to keep me on track, eek!
The first issue that came up was that our planned venue for the meeting was closed and locked because it was Good Friday. This was quickly resolved by moving to a pub garden, so silver-linings all round.
The meeting, whilst not following the planned agenda very closely, actually went very well, early on we met with a young person who came to the meeting opposed to the project but after a short introduction to who the CCT were and why we were developing a project in Langport, they soon became a supporter and a new member of the core group, success!
Our core group, which is growing every week, enjoy a bit of progressive thinking coming up with future use ideas for the church. This really makes me happy because we're actively engaging in the idea of regenerating the church, we're exploring the wants and needs of the community, and we are a group of young people sitting round a table discussing how the grown-ups have messed it all up and what we're going to do to remedy that.
The only problem is that this part of the project development should be happening weeks and months later on, in tandem with community consultation, so that we're having informed discussions on the wants and needs of the whole community, with documentary back-up, rather than the wants and needs of 6 people around a table.
The upshot of this is that we're all getting excited (myself included) about the possibility of a music and performance venue *idea*, and coming up with very legitimate reasons why the community needs it and how it could fit sustainably and with multi-purpose effects in the church (as well as reasons that people might not like it). What we can't do is get carried away with this idea and push it forward without properly researching how it might fit into the community. Having said all this, enthusiastic young people with big ideas and conscientious thinking are not to be sniffed at!
The second half of the meeting was spent inside the church, discussing ideas of value and identifying what was seen as highly valuable and less valuable (I identified the aspect of the nave from East to West, in my eyes it would be heresy to chop the nave in half with a stud wall), other areas that were identified as valuable for different reasons were the space around the altar and the Chancel in general due to its spiritual significance, the monuments on the walls and floor slabs due to their local resonances, and the 'hunkypunk' grotesques due to their sheer number and uniqueness to Somerset. All in all some good, useful discussion.
Next meeting we're working on filling in the HLF application with young people, and coming up with a name that stands out a little bit more than 'All Saints Langport Youth Project', woooooo! After discussing today's meeting with Melita, she's going to scribe the next meeting whilst I lead it, so that I can practice some techniques for holding on to a meeting that enjoys going off-piste.
The first issue that came up was that our planned venue for the meeting was closed and locked because it was Good Friday. This was quickly resolved by moving to a pub garden, so silver-linings all round.
The meeting, whilst not following the planned agenda very closely, actually went very well, early on we met with a young person who came to the meeting opposed to the project but after a short introduction to who the CCT were and why we were developing a project in Langport, they soon became a supporter and a new member of the core group, success!
Our core group, which is growing every week, enjoy a bit of progressive thinking coming up with future use ideas for the church. This really makes me happy because we're actively engaging in the idea of regenerating the church, we're exploring the wants and needs of the community, and we are a group of young people sitting round a table discussing how the grown-ups have messed it all up and what we're going to do to remedy that.
The only problem is that this part of the project development should be happening weeks and months later on, in tandem with community consultation, so that we're having informed discussions on the wants and needs of the whole community, with documentary back-up, rather than the wants and needs of 6 people around a table.
The upshot of this is that we're all getting excited (myself included) about the possibility of a music and performance venue *idea*, and coming up with very legitimate reasons why the community needs it and how it could fit sustainably and with multi-purpose effects in the church (as well as reasons that people might not like it). What we can't do is get carried away with this idea and push it forward without properly researching how it might fit into the community. Having said all this, enthusiastic young people with big ideas and conscientious thinking are not to be sniffed at!
The second half of the meeting was spent inside the church, discussing ideas of value and identifying what was seen as highly valuable and less valuable (I identified the aspect of the nave from East to West, in my eyes it would be heresy to chop the nave in half with a stud wall), other areas that were identified as valuable for different reasons were the space around the altar and the Chancel in general due to its spiritual significance, the monuments on the walls and floor slabs due to their local resonances, and the 'hunkypunk' grotesques due to their sheer number and uniqueness to Somerset. All in all some good, useful discussion.
Next meeting we're working on filling in the HLF application with young people, and coming up with a name that stands out a little bit more than 'All Saints Langport Youth Project', woooooo! After discussing today's meeting with Melita, she's going to scribe the next meeting whilst I lead it, so that I can practice some techniques for holding on to a meeting that enjoys going off-piste.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
More young people and *Action* for the project
We had two exciting achievements by the end of today. We were down in Langport again for another recruitment meeting, and we also wanted to take our current group to the church to have a first look with a critical eye.
The first achievement was a brand new young person who's enthusiastic about the project, and very Arts-minded, so I'm looking forward to having him at future brainstorming sessions for ideas for the regeneration project.
The second was that we were filmed! The CCT are so excited by the project that they want to use it in a video that will be shown at fundraising events. Very exciting indeed! Catherine and Selvyn who work for RandalFox (who have done work for the CCT before) came down and filmed a meeting and some interviews with young people, including me! Whilst we thought it was a little early in the lifetime of the project to be filming young people with big ideas about the church (we're still really at the recruiting stage), our young people really stepped up to the plate, even the one who turned up for the first time today!
Quite apart from making it a little bit different and fun, I think this also sends a message to our young people, and Langport, that we're excited about this project, and we're taking it seriously, so whilst it felt a bit rushed and a ad hoc, and took over our meeting a little bit, we got a lot out of it as well! (Plus I get to be on telly!... well, video...)
We're hoping that initial recruitment is sorted now and we can start meeting with our young people, as the core team, to start building the HLF project application, so next meeting we're exploring the church in a bit more detail, and thinking about the core team as a consolidated group ... could be interesting!
The first achievement was a brand new young person who's enthusiastic about the project, and very Arts-minded, so I'm looking forward to having him at future brainstorming sessions for ideas for the regeneration project.
The second was that we were filmed! The CCT are so excited by the project that they want to use it in a video that will be shown at fundraising events. Very exciting indeed! Catherine and Selvyn who work for RandalFox (who have done work for the CCT before) came down and filmed a meeting and some interviews with young people, including me! Whilst we thought it was a little early in the lifetime of the project to be filming young people with big ideas about the church (we're still really at the recruiting stage), our young people really stepped up to the plate, even the one who turned up for the first time today!
Quite apart from making it a little bit different and fun, I think this also sends a message to our young people, and Langport, that we're excited about this project, and we're taking it seriously, so whilst it felt a bit rushed and a ad hoc, and took over our meeting a little bit, we got a lot out of it as well! (Plus I get to be on telly!... well, video...)
We're hoping that initial recruitment is sorted now and we can start meeting with our young people, as the core team, to start building the HLF project application, so next meeting we're exploring the church in a bit more detail, and thinking about the core team as a consolidated group ... could be interesting!
Monday, 4 April 2011
Meetings meetings meetings, Go&Sees go&sees go&sees!
Today was spent cramming as many meetings as humanly possible into a day in Bristol. I met with Circomedia, Heritage and Community, and The Station. Circomedia and The Station have been earmarked since very early stages of the project as potential Go&Sees to take our group of young people on and meet people from nearby exemplar projects, so these meetings were crucial to get right! (and there was no Melita this time to ask all the experienced and informed questions!)
These Go&Sees will be undertaken by two groups of people (the first being Melita and myself, the second being Melita, myself and the young people), and fit into three categories (Heritage, Community, and Youth), a lot of which overlap. We aim to provide the project with as wide a range of research and inspirational visits as is viable, so these Go&Sees are undergoing some fairly extensive research!
I've already written about The Station here. Circomedia is a Circus School that is celebrating its 25th birthday this year. It recently started using St Paul's church (the first Regeneration Taskforce project) as one of its venues and training spaces. This soon became the Regeneration Taskforce's flagship project, fulfilling its' roles of securing and maintaining the building, and making steps to regenerate the surrounding community.
Whilst this picture does look great, it doesn't really do justice to the experience of watching a performance with trapeze artists swinging between pillars, people climbing 30m high ropes to the ceiling, and generally using the whole space so creatively. At today's meeting I managed to convince Circomedia that they wanted our young people looking round during one of their BTEC classes, which is fantastic because that huge space is going to be a hive of activity. This will undoubtedly get some creative juices flowing around ideas for All Saints'! Hooray.
The meeting at The Station had the same good conclusion - they were happy for us to bring our young people to see the site and talk to the people involved in planning their project (which includes some Bristolian young people, ooooh). The difference with this Go&See is that The Station is currently derelict, and when we visit it, it'll be an enormous building site. We're going to make the most of this opportunity to see a restoration and regeneration project mid-development (rather than see shiny pictures of one that's yet to commence, or a shiny building thats already been completed), so this summer/autumn our young people are going there!
John from Heritage and Community is no stranger to the CCT and its' exploits, having covered posts during maternity leave in the past, so it was very useful to have an informed but external point of view on the project. He also recommended another local project for a Go&See, that he worked on - Tyntesfield is a National Trust property, which utilises young volunteers in similar (and different) ways to our project, so that's definitely one to keep fresh in our minds. It was certainly good to pick John's brains about his experience of that project - what we should watch out for and what we don't need to be panicking about just yet!
A very long day, but very very useful, and with some great outcomes!
These Go&Sees will be undertaken by two groups of people (the first being Melita and myself, the second being Melita, myself and the young people), and fit into three categories (Heritage, Community, and Youth), a lot of which overlap. We aim to provide the project with as wide a range of research and inspirational visits as is viable, so these Go&Sees are undergoing some fairly extensive research!
I've already written about The Station here. Circomedia is a Circus School that is celebrating its 25th birthday this year. It recently started using St Paul's church (the first Regeneration Taskforce project) as one of its venues and training spaces. This soon became the Regeneration Taskforce's flagship project, fulfilling its' roles of securing and maintaining the building, and making steps to regenerate the surrounding community.
The meeting at The Station had the same good conclusion - they were happy for us to bring our young people to see the site and talk to the people involved in planning their project (which includes some Bristolian young people, ooooh). The difference with this Go&See is that The Station is currently derelict, and when we visit it, it'll be an enormous building site. We're going to make the most of this opportunity to see a restoration and regeneration project mid-development (rather than see shiny pictures of one that's yet to commence, or a shiny building thats already been completed), so this summer/autumn our young people are going there!
John from Heritage and Community is no stranger to the CCT and its' exploits, having covered posts during maternity leave in the past, so it was very useful to have an informed but external point of view on the project. He also recommended another local project for a Go&See, that he worked on - Tyntesfield is a National Trust property, which utilises young volunteers in similar (and different) ways to our project, so that's definitely one to keep fresh in our minds. It was certainly good to pick John's brains about his experience of that project - what we should watch out for and what we don't need to be panicking about just yet!
A very long day, but very very useful, and with some great outcomes!
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