Heres an Animoto film from the recent training Kirsty & Maria organised with Staffordshire Youth Forums….
Tags: events, Films & Social Media
I sent the final YoMo mail out earlier today notifying subscribers that at the end of this month YoMo Community Interest Company will cease trading and the company will begin to wind down. The actual decision was taken earlier this year. There are a mixture of reasons - its been difficult to develop the business side of things effectively on my own after we parted company with Steve Green at the start of the year and then later in the year when Ezra Nash decided to go travelling (he’s currently in Australia). Kirsty and Maria have done a brilliant job of leading up training throughout the year supported by various volunteers, but the training was never a problem - finding a way to keep funding it unfortunately was. If we’d been in the position we were this time last year I’d maybe have tried to brave out another year, but with a business that’s already struggling to keep going I think it would be silly to carry on knowing that next year is likely to be difficult for all businesses and in mind that training events for young people (rightly or wrongly) aren’t likely to be a priority for budgets.
Originally I had hoped to find funding to develop our own subsidised programme similar to the Young Movers programme from which YoMo was formed. This never happened - partly because I was too tied up with other aspects and partly because there just doesn’t seem to be much in the way of funding to support very small organisations to deliver national initiatives. This is a great shame because we did have a lot to offer and the interest in YoMo whenever we attended events was obvious. I had hoped that even though funding was primarily going to large organisations and consortium’s it would still filter through to organisations like YoMo but in our case it rarely happened, it seemed if we weren’t in the big boys club we weren’t to be involved.
Besides that I’m not cynical - I’d have hated to have not given it a go and the experiences I’ve had over the past 8 years have been incredible. I look at Kirsty, Ezra, Maria, Jono, Vivienne, Niall and all the volunteers that have been involved with us and think how amazing to have been able to deliver training to people in all sorts of different areas here in the UK, in Ireland and Africa. Of course their own contributions have made that possible - YoMo would never have existed without them, and so many others. I’ll look back on the courses, the AGM’s, the sponsored cycles, the work in Africa with very fond memories and I’ve no doubt many others will too.
Some of the work will continue in different forms. Kirsty and Maria have both indicated they wish to continue to deliver training and I’ll support them to do so where possible. Some of us will be continuing to support the projects in Malawi through The YoMo Foundation which is an independent charity. Most of the resources I designed based on training methods over the years will be available next year through the Incentive Plus catalogue (and I assume their website).
Personally I’ll be available for some consultancy work and maybe delivering the odd bit of training and workshops. Mostly though I’m going to turn my attention to exploring ways that web resources can be used to support young peoples development and community involvement. I’ve really enjoyed starting to put together the Digital Youth Work Programme which has been very similar to the early days of designing courses for the Young Movers programme. Hopefully next year some youth groups will make use of the courses that get developed through that and I’m looking forward to shaping them based on real feedback. I’m planning to enrol on an Open University Course for e-learning methods and in the meantime am busy brushing up on my web development skills. I’ve spent some years hacking sites together and creating a website is no problem, but what I’d really like to do is begin developing new stuff. For that I need to get to grips with creating things from scratch, although no doubt I’ll still end up mostly hacking as there’s so much good stuff already available!
So please do keep in touch if you’ve been involved in past events in whatever capacity. If you want to sign up to the new mailing list to be kept informed about things I’ll be working on next year and also the work of the YoMo Foundation you can sign up here. (The old YoMo list will no longer be used so unless you sign up to this new list you won’t receive any more updates). You can also subscribe to this blog by clicking the orange buttons at the top - and if that confuses you watch the mini film in the bottom right column!
Tags: events
This week myself and Bekki travelled (a long way!) to Chelmsford, Essex, to deliver training for a Youth Forum, Widening Horizons. The group responded really well to the training, in particular to some Forum Theatre techniques which we used to explore issues that young disabled people may face. We used Prospective Sheets throughout the day whereby the group explored aspects of their community, finally deciding upon an action they will take to adress an issue using their interests and talents. The group decided they would become involved in an “Inclusion project” which their workers Debbie and Anne created, delivering sessions around schools on issues such as bullying. The group felt they would like to take an active role in this and help deliver the sessions to their peers, maybe drawing upon drama as a tool to do so. The group and workers were a real pleasure to work with, and myself and Bekki felt it was a very worthwhile experience!
Tags: activities, events, volunteering, youth work
Animoto clip from the recent training with MORLO up in Anglesey who are planning a newsletter on regeneration in their local area.
Tags: activities, events, film, Films & Social Media, social media
Last week myself and Becky travelled (for ages) to Essex, and worked in a weird place called Witham. The hotel was actually in a place called Kelvedon, so after a 6 hour train journey we arrived at a small village with ducks and a few local pubs, only to find out they have no taxis or manners for that matter. Northerners are definitely the friendlier sort! Anyway, this meant we had a 45 minute walk with laptops, cameras, equipment and clothes uphill, along strange streets and across the A12, only to learn that Kelvedon is weirder than we first thought! (Have you ever felt that everyone you meet are just actors, and your being filmed? Truman show me thinks!)
However, we were working with 7 very normal teenagers who were a pleasure to work with. The aim of the first 2 days was to equip the volunteers with the sessions and facilitation skills they needed in order to run their own course for the following 2days. We did a range of activities from storytelling to session structures, ensuring they not only knew the sessions, but could deliver and support them too. One thing I found difficult was judging how much responsibility we actually give the volunteers. On one hand you don’t want to pressure them with running and planning sessions on their first time, but on the other if they’re enthusiastic and competent to do it- why not?! I think we all went on a mad journey the first two days, from confidence and enthusiasm to last minute nerves and session planning. This reminded of the feelings i used to get in my early stages in volunteering- when your keen but not fully sure if your good enough, if i ask a question will they doubt me, I’m i saying the right thing etc etc. And of course the nerves- which I still get now which is definitely a good thing!
Of course the plan changed immediately the next day due to times and group sizes, so luckily we expected this and didn’t have to rely on our original plans. “Always have a back up plan!”I believe the volunteers couldn’t have done a better job, the energy they demonstrated was amazing, and considering the long days we had they were still smiling at the end! It was also great to see the guys actually taking on board the skills we explored the first few days, and asking questions and using their initiative. There was never a point where they had run out of things to do! They worked very hard and made us proud, so thanks to:
Rachel, Arron, Stu (hya son), Chelsea, Joe, Sax and Dan.
Tags: Education & Skills, events
3 training courses which were run back to back with young people from Donegal, Ireland
Tags: events, film, Films & Social Media, social media
Five banners down, 40 new people, Five 3D maps cleared, 80 odd pictures and a sandwich spread later- and its only day one!
Myself and 3 volunteers began training in Letterkenny, Ireland today as part of a Leadership through the arts project. We will be running the one-day course for 3 days, with 6 new groups every morning, so we will meet and work with over a hundred different people! Apart from a slightly delayed flight and a forgotten driving license, we got off to a good start this morning with a new idea we were piloting.
The idea came from the current resource we use, prospective. Prospective aims to make participants consider and make a link between their community, the people and resources in it, issues those people face and opportunities which would allow them make a positive contribution. We decided to take a more practical approach to this method incorporating arts to have participants create a 3D sculpture for their map and then using a bit of social media by way of films to present the different aspects of their area. There were positive and negative aspects to this method in comparison to the resource so this has allowed us to identify what works best. Thats why it’s great we are doing it again tomorrow!
Due to the late arrival in Ireland and the extremely early start, unfortunately we haven’t had much time to enjoy Donegal, so hopefully tomorrow we’ll be more up for a mission! As for traveling out here alone, everythings gone to plan so far (apart from a few currency worries!!), so the long term planning and folders full of addresses, bookings, session notes etc paid off!!
Tags: events, Resources, social media, soft skills, volunteering
I responded to a blog on the Innovation Exchange about the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council who are apparently interested in setting up a programme that brings together groups of young people within the UK to share ideas & experiences etc. The idea in fact sounds exactly the same as what we were doing on the Young Movers programme for the past 7 years.
Incidentally my reply hasn’t actually appeared on the Innovation Exchange Site - and incidentally too the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council have yet to reply to a query I sent to them on a separate matter last week so if anyone picks up this please ask somebody to reply!
The ‘coming together’ of groups from different areas is a powerful experience - people get to appreciate they aren’t suffering their problems in isolation and very often realise that perhaps (more…)
Tags: events, volunteering, youth work
Mike Amos-Simpson is the author of several resources designed to support young peoples personal development through participation in community activities.
Previously he designed and managed a national youth programme providing practical training to inspire young people living in areas of deprivation to organise community projects and activities.
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