do somethin' news

BOOM! Campaign Wins Hollis Sponsorship Award

Clubs for Young People’s BOOM! project, which was sponsored by the volunteering charity v, and created and run in conjunction with brand experience agency TomTom nation, has won the award Charity and Community Sponsorship at the Hollis Sponsorship Award 2010. The award ceremony took place at the London Marriott Grosvenor Square on March 9th 2010.

Created in the early 1990s, the Hollis Sponsorship Awards have grown from strength to strength and attract an ever increasing number of entries. They are judged by 22 leading industry figures who put each entry through rigorous examination during the two-stage judging process and aim to recognise and reward the most creative and effective campaigns to have come out of the sponsorship industry during the last year. Judges look for clear objectives, evidence of innovation and proof of positive business results when choosing the winners. To have made it to the shortlist was reason for celebration in itself, the campaigns having had to meet a strict set of commercial criteria. A diverse range of sponsorship campaigns were celebrated at the event, from the biggest budget to the smallest, from the most high-profile sports campaigns to fantastically creative and niche arts projects.

BOOM! was a pioneering volunteering project which challenged young people to make films about issues which they considered important then consider how their films can help make a positive difference. Films were uploaded onto the MTV website and the best were chosen to be broadcast on MTV’s UK channels. Over 800 clubs across the country had been given film making equipment such as Apple iMacs and video cameras and approximately 19,000 young people had contributed towards making films. Over 1700 young people were given training in pre and post production becoming BOOM! Activity Leaders.

Films made during the course of BOOM! can be viewed here

To see some films youth clubs continue to create please click here to visit our youtube group.

For more information on the Hollis Sponsorship awards click here to visit their website.

Hunslet Club Receives a Visit From Ed Balls MP

The Secretary of State for Education, Ed Balls MP, made a visit to The Hunslet Club in South Leeds on Friday 26th February. During his visit he received a tour of Hunslet Club’s facilities and learnt about the work of the club.

The Minister was briefed on the range of activities that the club provides and had the chance to see, first hand, some of the daytime vocational training activities for 14 to 16 year olds in action. The vocational courses on offer seemed to particularly stand out to the Secretary of State, as he later mentioned Hunslet Club on his Twitter page as an “impressive youth club in South Leeds doing vocational learning for young people”. Vocational courses available include joinery, plumbing and hairdressing. Mr Balls then went on to see some gym based boxing training, one of the clubs’ many sports courses on offer.

Since it was founded in 1940 Hunslet Club has provided a variety of high quality positive activities for young people to pursue in their leisure time. During that period they have nurtured the dance and drama talents of hundreds of young people and the sporting talents of championship boxers, professional footballers and rugby players.
Over the past ten years the club has run a vocational education centre which has helped over 1,500 young people gain qualifications or accreditation certificates in practical work based skills.

Talking about Ed Balls’ visit, Hunslet Club’s Funding and Marketing Officer, Jason Slack, said, “he got the chance to ask some of our learners about their courses, what they’ve learned and their aspirations and seemed very interested in what a difference the club has been making for them. We were pleased to be able to explain how, as an independent charity, we have been able to rise up to the challenge of the needs of young people to reach their full potential in this part of the city.”

Fleetwood Club for Young People Launched

The newly developed Fleetwood Club for Young People was officially launch on 14th December by Doreen Lofthouse OBE and John Fielden who is a member of the Fielden family who paid for the old gym in 1894. The event attracted over 150 local people including dignitaries, supporters, local authority officers and young people while the first two taster sessions saw over 200 local young people and over 40 volunteers participate in games and activities.

The club which intends to be open five days a week by the summer has a fantastic range of state of the art facilities and is to be a flagship club for Clubs for Young People. The facilities available include a boxing gym, fitness suite, chill out area, coffee bar, video game suite, training rooms, pool, snooker, table tennis and an Apple Mac area, with a climbing wall in the process of being built. A range of exciting programmes have already been planned including sports activities, Nintendo Wii tournaments, cinema nights, residentials, media sessions, drama and dance.

Youth clubs in Fleetwood have a rich history with one notable club, Fleetwood gym, being built in 1894 using funds donated by the Fielden Family who were local mill owners. Over the years the gym became a safe, warm and affordable place for the youth of the town and its surrounding area to spend their leisure time while at the same time being a great supporter of Clubs for Young People events and activities. However, by 1999 to the gym’s trustees began a search for a new location and building as it had become clear that to refurbish and renovate the old and tired building would be beyond financial reach. The first floor of the Lofthouse foundation on London Street was chosen to be the new location and with the help of a £300,000 refurbishment Fleetwood Club for Young People was born.

The club has now affectionately become known as Tommy’s after Tom Norton MBE, who worked voluntarily over 52 years for the old Fleetwood Gym. The project could not have been carried out without the hard work of trustee Danny O’Neil and Clubs for Young People Lancashire CEO Alan Donking, who both worked tirelessly turning plans into reality, or the help of volunteers at the club Sean McGann Lewis Broten, Billy Sharrock and Ryan Sulivan who were successful in securing a £19k grant for the project from Youth Bank.