Team leader’s report – Oct-Nov 2017
Team leaders report to board of management meeting: 13th November 2017
Introduction
It only seems like yesterday since I wrote my first report to the Board of Management. (time flies when you’re having fun) the past couple of months have been action packed and I feel I have settled in to my new role as team leader quite well and I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge.
Staff team:
Frank Kenny (8 sessions), Sharon Dolby (4 Juniors) Ryan Fitzpatrick (2 seniors), Jade Dumbell (1senior) Julie Fitzpatrick (1 session) Dean Williamson (2 Juniors) Daisy Gill (2 senior music) Selma Brown (2 seniors)
Volunteers: Thomas Butler 2 sessions per week. Lisa Dumbell currently committed to 1 after school session per week. Julie Dumbell.
Ancillary staff
Roy McGaw, Lorraine Mangan
Building
The building is improving; the faulty lights in the main hall are now repaired. We have agreed to get rid of the pink décor in the club and are reverting back to the clubs original colours of yellow and red. ( chosen by members) The work is being carried out by the probation service every Friday,
The hostel currently has one tenant who will be with us for another couple of weeks. However I understand that there are more bookings in place
Since the last meeting the bus room has been ripped out and shelving has been fitted, this has freed up space in the club area leaving it looking a lot less cluttered, and providing much needed storage space.
I would like to thank Dr Simon Abraham for kindly donating a table tennis table, this has proven really popular with the members and couldn’t have come at a better time as the others are damaged and unfit for purpose.
Junior club
Junior club numbers are currently really good, this week we averaged 30 per night on the walking bus alone. It was fantastic to see so many junior members taking part in the blue run for Joseph on 20th October a big well done to all involved, the schools, WECC and FOEP.
The Halloween party went really well once again and the help from local volunteers was a great help especially decorating the club and preparing the party food. Over 50 young people attended on the night aged from newborn to 11 and a great day was had by all.
Senior Club
In mid September we took 45 senior club members to Blackpool for our annual day out. Despite my previous nerves about what I have perceived as a difficult group I was pleasantly surprised and we had a fantastic incident free day.
Since the installation of the cctv cameras the senior club is running a lot better. Numbers are still very good although some of the more difficult young people may see this as a bit of a deterrent as they haven’t been in much lately. Although we would like to be engaging with this group, this however has had a positive impact on the quality of youth work practice that is being delivered by staff.
We have recently recruited Selma Brown for 2 sessions a week in senior club. Selma has a wealth of experience working with young people and is currently a higher level teaching assistant at Faith primary school and seems like a quality addition to the team.
We took 40 young people to silver blades ice rink in Widnes on 30th October (mischief night) this enabled us to keep the young people from engaging in anti social activity on the night, and helped to reduce crime levels or reports of anti social behaviour which rocket at this time of year. Photos/videos have been uploaded to the clubs instagram page @theshewsy which will hopefully be accessible through the website along with the twitter feed in the coming week or so.
In addition to Thursday nights project night we have introduced an “Inbetweenagers” group for young people in school years 6,7 and 8. This was done in consultancy with local families when we noticed there was a number of young people who had grown out of junior club but didn’t feel comfortable or confident enough to make the step up in to seniors. So far this has been a great success averaging 25 young people per session all of whom are engaging positively. We have since registered in excess of 120 members whose postcodes map from Everton, Aintree, Knotty Ash, Fazakerley, Walton, Maghull, Bootle and even the Wirral. This tells us that our “reach” has considerably broadened, although the majority of members are still within “walking” distance.
Links with other agencies
We continue to work closely with West Everton Community Council. The walking bus from Faith school bus has been greatly improved and this is reflected in the growing number of members.
We also maintain our great links with Shrewsbury school and only last week took a group of male members up to play the under 14 b team (10-1 to the Shewsy but we’ll leave that there!). During the visit it gave the opportunity for senior member and keen cricketer Josef Rooney to use the excellent cricket facilities on offer, he also scored 4 goals in the football match, and it’s safe to say the staff were very impressed.
Having completed the application to become a member of the Erasmus programme’s European network of youth centres, I am pleased to announce that we have now been accepted and I will be attending a conference in Kokkola, Finland on 8-10th February in which I will have the opportunity to meet other organisations whilst giving a presentation on the work we do here at the Shewsy.
John Dumbell, Team leader
