News
FOCUS Celebrates National
Volunteer Week
National Volunteer Week is the first week in June and to mark this FOCUS’, Staff and young people are running and taking part in several events a cross the city.
Two groups of students from Gateway College in Leicester will be giving up some of their half-term holiday to take part in a collection of community projects. One group will be taking a selection of activities around local residential homes. The other have opted to fundraise by washing cars, in order to provide some local primary schools with a range of books.
Some of our Youth Action Team members are supporting Clubs for Young People with their national youth event, which sees 200+ paddlers canoe a distance of 100 miles over 4 days to raise money for charity. Leicestershire Clubs for Young People are one of more than 100 organisations we work in partnership with to support them with their volunteers.
We have also been supporting the Spark Children’s Festival taking place over the bank holiday weekend to find volunteers. Some of our Youth Action Team will be there supporting the event.
On Thursday 3rd June a group of young people have been invited to go back to Leicestershire Constabulary’s Force Headquarters. They will visit the memorial Gardens, which they renovated as part of a volunteering project. The constabulary has invited the young people to a celebration event in which a photographic presentation of what they achieved will be given and a tour round one of the more exciting departments.
Young volunteers from all over Leicester city joined together at the National Space Centre on the 22nd April to celebrate their achievements at the youth led Community Star Awards 2010.
The Community Star Awards 2010 was an event that FOCUS’ Youth Action Team organised to reward young people for the great work they do within and around Leicester as both part time and full time volunteers. There were 5 awards each with one overall winner, runners up and special considerations. The overall winners from each category were then be eligible for nominations for the prestigious ‘Leicester Volunteer of the Year 2010’ award in which the Mayor of Leicester presented.
Of course as with any charitable event of this scale funding was required and we were lucky enough to have received a number of sponsorship opportunities including those from locally based organisations such as ‘Pukka Pies’, ‘Big Bear limited’, ‘Bray and Bray Solicitors’ and the ‘Leicestershire Council for Voluntary Youth Services’. The event also had press coverage in the local paper.
It was the Youth Action Team that organised this event to praise and reward young people, it is this that we believe made our event truly unique and it was an amazing opportunity for young people to show that they can make a change to society and are proactive.
During the event the Youth Action Team also launched there new volunteering DVD which can be viewed on the Youth Action Team page of the website.
FOCUS’ Volunteer Management Handbook Is now available to buy for more information please go to the vinvolved page of the website or contact Emily Taylor on 0116 2510369.
East Midlands Empowerment Awards.
We are proud to report that The Challenge Programme has won its second award to date.
From the original 60 projects, The Challenge Programme (along with 9 others) was selected to receive an award. This include an opportunity to participate in the 'Councillors Shaping Communities' conference. Where we had the chance to meet the other winners, get involved in some workshops, meet and inform councillors (from across the East Midlands) about the great work The Challenge Programme does and receive a cheque for £2000.
In the spirit of good faith, John has allowed Viv to attend and receive this award.
Yorkshire Bank 150th Anniversary Community Awards
On 23rd November 2009, Matt and John attended the Yorkshire Bank 150th Anniversary Community Awards ceremony in Leeds. We were delighted to receive a 'Highly Commended Award' for the Challenge Programme (posh glass trophy now sitting on John's desk!) and a cheque for £5,000.
There were 3 levels of award given out (20 of £1,000, 16 of £5,000 and 4 of £10,000) and they received thousands of applications. So, to be highly commended was a great achievement.
We were 1 of just 3 organisations in the East Midlands to receive an award.
FOCUS Charity Seeks New Trustee
The Board is recruiting a new Trustee to ensure that we have the right breadth of skills and experience to meet the aims set out in our Strategic Plan.
Role of the Trustees:
The Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance of FOCUS - ensuring that the charity fulfils its obligations legally and ethically. These obligations are to meet our charitable aims and commitments to funders (such as working with target numbers of young people).
Trustees attend quarterly Board meetings and may take on a number of activities between meetings – these will depend on your skills / experience, but may include reviewing documents or attending the occasional meeting. Trustees are also encouraged to visit one of our projects each year to remind them about what makes FOCUS so special.
Our existing Trustees are spread from the North West (Manchester) to the South East (London). Meetings are usually in London or Leicester (where our work is principally carried out) and attendance by telephone is sometimes possible.
Who are we looking for?
During a recent skills review across our Board of Trustees, we identified that our Board would be strengthened with the appointment of someone with an Education sector background. This post will be filled by someone with strong knowledge or experience in the Citizenship curriculum and with experience of commissioning services for schools who could advise us on how to position our programmes with schools to best meet their needs and help FOCUS to access sources of funding.
Ideally the role would be to join the Board as a Trustee (with the commitment as outlined above). However, this may not be the only basis for meeting our needs and we will have discussions with candidates wishing to act in an advisory capacity without being a Trustee.
If you might be interested, we would like to hear from you. FOCUS is fully committed to the values of inclusion, equality and diversity. We welcome interest from all sections of the community, regardless of background. Most importantly, applications are sought from people who desire to play a small but important part in this life-changing organisation.
How to find out more:
Please contact our Director (Matt Lilley) on 0116 251 0369 or matt.lilley@focus-charity.co.uk before 4 Sept 2009 for an information pack.
Our Chair of Trustees (Mark Bennett) will then call to discuss the role.
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Volunteer Management Training Courses:
Focus is currently developing its Youth Volunteering training Program for Employees of other organisations.
This course is suitable for anyone staring up a volunteer/ internship program or starting to work with volunteers/interns for the first time. It offers advice on deciding how volunteers and interns can support your organisation and in what roles, gaining support for your volunteer program and how to motivate your volunteers. This course deals with how to find and recruit volunteers for your organisation. It includes advice on how and where to advertise for volunteers and interns, assessing, interviewing and selecting volunteers and developing recruitment policies this course deals with a range of legal issues around volunteering and internships. Issues covered include CRB checks, insurance, health and safety and ensuring that you have the correct policies, and procedures are in place, and in line with legal and best practice requirements.
This course is suitable for anyone already working with volunteers/ interns that want to update, refresh and improve their volunteer program. It offers advice on creating support and supervision structures, retaining volunteers/ interns and monitoring and evaluating your program, volunteering and Legal Issues. This course deals with a range of legal issues around volunteering. Issues covered include CRB checks, insurance, health and safety and ensuring that your volunteer policy, documentation are in line with legal and best practice requirements.
This tool kit will come as standard with full day courses, and will be sold separately for £30
The tool kit will consist of:
l Volunteer Management Handbook
l Examples of good practice
l Volunteering and the law booklet
l Volunteer DVD
l Assessment Tool
When the volunteer management toolkit is purchased it will also include limited on going support for the organisation including and assigned contact person.
The Volunteer Management Handbook sold seperatly for £20
Packages to fit in with organisations needs – this may be more desirable for a corporate organisation looking at providing internships. We would help the organisation to get the most out of their volunteers and ensure they have all the correct policies and procedures in place. This would including limited on going support for 9 months and the opportunity to sign up for coaching/ trouble shooting sessions (at extra cost)
