Issue 2. Sept/Nov 2007

Welcome to KEYISSUES, the quarterly Keyfund newsletter.

Again in this newsletter we’ll keep you up to date with what’s happening at Keyfund. We are already looking for stories/articles for the next edition, please feel free to send us any photos or stories we can feature. We also want to air your views and share ideas and any comments on this edition. Thanks a million!

Hannah, Chief Executive

Countdown to the Celebration Event

Hi! My name is Claire. I am a student at Newcastle University and I’m working with Keyfund organising the Celebration Event that is happening on September 6th 2007.

Groups of young people are coming to Durham County Cricket Club to show off their projects and share ideas. It’s been really stressful organising all of the food, decorations and freebies we’ll be giving away. The day should be full of fun and of course the usual Keyfund chaos!

If you haven’t already received an invitation please just come along, I’d love to meet you!

Marvellous Keyfund Groups

Group name: Team Xtreme
Facilitator: Scotswood Area Strategy
Group Location: Deckham, Gateshead UK
Stage: 1
Project: Visit to Bradford to explore ethnic culture

What they did: We went to Bradford to the museum of Film and Photography.

We looked around and got IMAX cinema tickets. The show was at 1.30pm and we saw a 3D dinosaur movie. After the film we went to look for Mumtaz curry restaurant. We all sat as a group and ordered lots of curry, ate some nice food and chilled out.

Comments from the Team Xtreme facilitator Don McDonald: 
The picture of the lads standing in front of the bizarre colours is a picture of them standing in front of a blue screen that is used to superimpose backgrounds on television. In a sentence ‘The lads check themselves out to see what it would be like to be on T.V.’

Reminder about the new amounts

So here are the new amounts (active from May 2007):

• Stage 1 – up to £250
• Stage 2 – up to £500
• Stage 3 – up to £1000
• Stage 4 – up to £2000
  

Recognition  of  3rd  stages 
Well done to the following groups and facilitators who have worked through the stages:

Roker Mad Heads, Oxclose District & Young Peoples Project, 3rd stage, Cook a meal for members of the unit/community.

Love Ducks, Washington Youth Matters, 3rd stage, Hold fun day for young people at the Pit Stop.

Olga Group, Durham City Centre Youth Project, 3RD stage, Girls residential.

Magnificent Mosaics, Woodlawn School, 3rd stage, Renovate other areas in school grounds.

Big, Bigger and Biggest

We mentioned in the last issue that we’ve secured funding from the Young People’s fund at the Big Lottery to hold a huge regional celebration event in each of the next three years.  

We’ve called the events Big, Bigger and Biggest for now but we would like to work with facilitators and young people to plan, organise and hold the events, decide what the themes should be, where they should be held, when, etc etc etc.  

We’re about to start thinking about the first event and we would like any facilitator that’s interested in being involved with a group of young people to contact Rozi Purdy or Chris Nicholson on 0191 2614029.

Accreditation Opportunities
Through our partnership with Changemakers, Keyfund groups have the opportunity to gain an accreditation through the Youth Achievement Awards.

This accreditation can run alongside and complement the Keyfund process and its 4 Stages, The Youth Achievement Awards are a peer education approach to recognizing and accrediting young people’s achievements.  The Awards are designed to help young people take an active role in the activities that interest them. 

They come in 4 levels:
Participation - Organising - Leading activities - Peer support.

Mike Kelsey works with Changemakers and is responsible for accreditation throughout the region.  He is happy to talk with anyone interested about accreditation and can explain the process.   
Mike can be contacted on: 0191 226 7330

Little snippets, facts and 'did you knows'. Here goes...

• Keyfund Federation moves house! We all had mixed feelings about leaving the Pink Palace (Scotswood Area Strategy). We will miss seeing all our friends each day. We’ve forged strong friendships over the last 8 years, we’ve had a lot of fun and tons of laughs. Much joint work has come out of living in the same space, and we will make sure that this will continue into the future. We want to extend a special thanks to Amina and Chris for their fantastic commitment, innovation and their creation of the Keyfund Logo and the Melon Heads cartoons.
  
  Our new address details are: Keyfund Federation, Ouseburn Warehouse, 36 Lime Street, Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 2PQ. Tel: 0191 2614029 
  We’d like to extend a warm welcome to everyone and encourage you to visit us whenever you are passing, the coffee jug is always full!!

	We've moved from here...	...to here
Rozi Purdy Back out there! The great news is that Rozi is back on the ground doing what she does best – development work!  Recently, we have not been able to provide as much development work as we would like for all the networks for all the networks in the region. Rozi and Chris, the Operations team, are putting together a visit schedule, so that we can talk with you about different ways of developing your local network, so that it works the in way that is best for you. Rozi and Chris will be available to work with you and offer support if needed. We are keen to hear about your Keyfund projects first hand, especially if your group of young people is doing a particularly exciting or unusual project. Please don’t hesitate to ring us at the new Keyfund office on 0191 2614029 Paul Naples young advocate. Hi my name is Paul and as a Young Advocate, my work placement is based in Newcastle at Keyfund, my role is split into 2 sections. 1. Research into perception of young people doing Keyfund. 2. Input into website work. My role is trying to get the organisation more youth led and let the young people have their say and input. I have been on a training facilitators day and found it very useful and learnt a lot from it, one thing I learnt from it was, it involved a lot of paper work for young people to handle and the website was too simple so as a result from that, the website is well underway of a facelift and we will be able to it view very soon. Keyfund is more of a learning curve than a money bank. My next main task is to set up a questionnaire for young people to fill in after they have completed their evaluation and it’s to get young people’s views of Keyfund and more importantly a view of what the facilitators were like. Chris and Rozi who work at Keyfund think this is a great way to see what can be improved and what the staff development is like. The main factor is it’s the young people doing the talking which is what my main aim is to do. I have a year to turn this all around and get Keyfund youth led and views heard and changes made, it’s been a busy few months but results are starting to show. Contact details of Development Workers in your area: Cumbria Keyfund: Caroline Beswick, Development Worker, The Rawmsley Centre, Main Street, Keswick, CA12 5NP. tel: 01768775085 email: carolinebeswick@youngcumbria.org. Newcastle Keyfund: Maureen Wallace, Development Worker, 447 Armstrong Road, Scotswood, Newcastle, NE15 6HS. tel: 0191 2742429 email: maureenwallace@keyfund.org.uk North Yorkshire Keyfund: Simon Moss, Development Worker, North Yorkshire County Council, County Hall, North Allerton, DLY 8AE. tel: 01609 532436 email: keyfund4youth@northyorks.gov.uk Sunderland Keyfund: Amanda Gerry, Development Worker, St Mary’s & St Peter’s Community Project, Springwell Road, Sunderland, SR3 4DY. tel: 0191 5202745 email: amandagerry@keyfund.org.uk

Showcase Event
Thursday 6th September 2007 - 2pm till 6pm
Durham Cricket Club

Keyfund Training
Monday Sept 17th 2007
Northumberland

Keyfund Training
Tuesday Sept 18th 2007
County Durham

Keyfund Training
Thursday Sept 20th 2007
Sunderland

Keyfund Training
Tuesday Sept 25th 2007
Gateshead

Keyfund Training
Tuesday October 2nd 2007
Darlington

Refresher Training
Wednesday 3rd Oct 2007
Newcastle

Refresher Training
Wednesday 3rd Oct 2007
County Durham

Keyfund Board Meeting
Thursday October 18th 2007

Keyfund Board Meeting
Friday December 14th 2007

Contact Christine on
0191 2614029 about joining us on these training days.

Keyfund AGM
We are planning to hold our AGM in November this year. We'll cover the business for both ’05-’06 and ’06-’07.

We're playing catch up!

We’ll confirm date and venue soon.  

“I have worked with this group for a number of years and I am impressed with the development of their confidence and communication skills. I firmly believe this is as a direct consequence of their Keyfund Participation.” Community Police Officer

“I have benefitted a great deal from this project. It gave us the chance to see the yp in a more relaxed environment and this helped the relationships between staff and yp.”
Phil Conn - Sunderland North Community Business Centre

“people who work hard, play hard.”
Scott Williams – Box Youth Project

“It (KF) defiantly gave them a better understanding and appreciation of how much work goes into organising events. It helped raise their confidence about what they are capable of achieving when they put their minds to it. Because the activity was something they really wanted to do it encouraged them to participate fully and never miss a session.”
Emma Pattison – Carley Hill Education Centre

“the group found a sense of achievement and experienced pride in completing a project from beginning to end that was soley their idea”
Helen Stephens - Ontrack

Here is a link which was forwarded to me this week about a 'take over day' being promoted by the Children's Commissioner for England.

The idea is for young people to take on job roles and responsibilities for a day, but it could also be linked to wider participation programme.

You can see a summary of Gordon Browns 10 year strategy at regional youth work unit at www.rywu.org.uk

Keyfund Partners:

Changemakers

Darlington Youth Service

Northumberland County Council

Our Funders:

Impetus Trust

Northern Rock Foundation

Esmée Fairbairn

Rank Foundation

Enterprise Catalyst
This allows young people to do a self assessment to see whether they're the type to run a small business.

Just for fun
Hey! You're supposed to be working! Oh; ok. Just for a moment then...

Pop the monkey balloons

Take up dice stacking...

...or sunglasses catching

Hide the monkey

Memories of Anne Nixon

I am sure that you will all agree that Anne Nixon is someone most certainly who deserves recognition.

We have struggled with what might be appropriate to say to you at this moment emotions, images and memories, both old and new, fill our mind.

We will all remember Anne in our own way.

On behalf of all our past and present facilitators, staff team, Board of Directors and young people we want to express an enormous sense of gratitude for the good work that Anne carried out in local communities, through Keyfund both as a facilitator and Vice Chair, with commitment, and loyalty.

Huge thank you to:

Ruth Johnston, Senior Youth & Community Learning Worker, Barley Mow Village Hall, Birtley

Roxanne Roknabedi, Senior Youth Worker, North Tyneside Youth Service

For their support and comitment over the years sitting on the Board of Directors and also for continuing to support Keyfund  in  their Networks.

Introducing Lynne Percival, Keyfunds Office Manager

Hi there. As promised a little bit about myself.

Some of you may be aware that I having been working for Keyfund for the past seven years now the longest and sorry to say the oldest team member!

On a separate note I recently became the proud grandmother to a wonderful grandson Leighton who is eight months old he is such a pleasure I’m thoroughly enjoying the precious time that we spend together we have such a laugh and giggle.

We hope you enjoyed reading this newsletter.

I get all your ‘keyissues@’ emails – please do let us know what you think!

keyissues@keyfund.org.uk