Hello, welcome to our summer edition of Key Notes. We've had such an exciting few months here at Keyfund. In March we distributed over £60k to 162 groups of young people. This was our best month ever in Keyfund's history! We are taking this momentum into 2010-11 and look forward see those groups progress even further through the four stages.
I'm excited to tell you that we've been successful in gaining new funding from Esmee Fairbairn and the John Paul Getty Trust. It's to support the roll out of our social licensing model and to build upon our impact analysis work.
Tom from our Board came up with a brilliant new idea called 'Keyfund Blast'. A Blast lasts 1 week. It involves training or refreshing facilitators on Monday (who all have a Keyfund group in mind), providing a venue, computers, phones and support for the next three days for facilitators and their groups to come and go, as they do their Keyfund planning. The finale is a big panel event on Friday for all the groups who are ready. The Frederick Milburn Fund are backing our first one. It'll be held in the summer holidays for young people living near the River Tyne. Contact Nicola to find out more.
Finally, we were successful in winning a North East Business Award for Best Not-for-profit Organisation. How pleasing!! We were up against some fantastic organisations, including many from the public sector, so we are delighted and honoured to have won. None of this would have been possible without the fantastic work and support of our partners, licensees, facilitators and of course the young people. Thank you all!
Take care, Hannah
Young People were invited to attend the 'Youth Voice', planning event, hosted by the regional Youth Work Unit North East (RYWU) and funded as part of Keyfund's Big, Bigger, Biggest project. The event was held at Darlington Football Club on Tuesday 16th February. Groups of young people supported by an organisation could apply for funding to run their own local event with young people. Up to £3300 each was available for 5 events.
Around 130 young people attended the event and 12 groups presented an event pitch to a 'Dragon's Den' of young people. The successful groups have now hosted their events and all were a great success. Congratulations again to the below:
- Bishop Auckland College in South West Durham
-
Darlington North East Council for Addictions Services
- Young People's got talent from UK Youth Voice
- Mish Mash from Jack Drum Arts based in County Durham
- JUST - Unicycle club based in Stockton on Tees
To find out more visit our website
It's out with the old and in with the new!
We have redesigned the facilitators Documents Pack which was uploaded and is now available on Keyfund's website.
We encourage all facilitators to begin using the latest version. If you have any questions or concerns please contact Keyfund.
The Keyfund team is growing & we welcomed three new staff members in the new Year. Lorraine Donaldson commenced as Operations Manager to cover Marie Mumbys maternity leave. Lorraine brings with her extensive experience in the charitable sector and has worked predominately with young people. Sarah Soteriou also joined the team as Client Services Manager and will manage Keyfunds contracts and licensees. Erin McVittie commenced as Operations Officer and is responsible for all financial management for Keyfund. We welcome them all to Keyfund.
A dream birthday for Hannah Seeber would comprise of a weekend away with her best friends, attending a fashion show in Birmingham & visiting Cadbury World. Hannah along with her best friends who all attend Ponteland High school registered their stage two project with Keyfund to do just that.
The group obtained quotes for hotel rooms, arranged mini bus hire, purchased tickets to the fashion event and made restaurant reservations. All worked to their strengths and saw it as an opportunity to gain further skills and confidence. Lucy's maths skills came in handy to assist the group to budget, Kate's artistic flair & creativity was called upon and Hannah used her communication skills to obtain most of the quotes and costs via telephone. If the group could have changed one thing in retrospect, they all laughed and advised "We wouldn't let our facilitator Angus navigate again, he got us lost"
After the success of this second stage project, the group is now in full swing to organise their stage three project which may include an exchange with a community based youth service in France. We wish them the best of luck and congratulate them on completing two successful keyfund stages.
Keyfund currently has a vacancy for a part time Facilitator Support Manager. The ideal candidate would have knowledge of and experience in the Youth Sector. The job is centred on working amongst our facilitator networks and the young people who utilise Keyfund. If you are interested and wish to find out more about this exciting new opportunity please visit the latest news section of our website www.keyfund.org.uk
