As a way of welcoming new people into our community, the Shewsy, along with St. Peters church, arranged a Know your Neighbour event at the club on Saturday 20^th April 2018.

In the 10 weeks leading up to the day, volunteer Lisa Dumbell facilitated a world foods cookery programme – getting traditional recipes from new residents’ native countries and attempting to cook them with senior club members (funded by Warburton’s).  Some of the dishes included were from countries such as Libya, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Turkey and India.

Upon inviting old/new residents to the event, we also gave them the opportunity to prepare a dish traditional to their country of origin. We also provided the money to cover the cost of the meals so there would be no financial strain on the participants. This was funded by a grant received from LCVS.

The aim of the project was to promote community cohesion by making people feel welcome in the Everton community, and what better way to get people together than their love of food. We have found that people are proud of their roots and are more than happy to display their cultural heritage through food.

During the day we had many new residents turn up with their families, proudly introducing the dish they had provided – all of which were delicious and thoroughly enjoyed by all. There were 15 different countries represented throughout the day with dishes provided from each and recipes shared amongst newly found friends. The countries were Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iraq, Poland, Syria, Yemen, Czech Republic, Hungary, Zimbabwe, Morocco, West Africa, Morocco, Iran and England.

We were fortunate enough to also be blessed with beautiful weather so were able to make full use of the neighbouring Everton Park Nature Garden (which many of the residents had been curious about as it is gated and used mainly for supervised groups). This was an extremely popular choice amongst attendees who loved the natural beauty of the place.

The event was due to end at 2pm but people were having such a great time the vast majority left later and carried the day on in the local park just across the road from the centre, where the children played in the sun and the parents stayed and chatted amongst themselves.

We have since received really positive feedback from the public about the event and are hoping to make this happen more often, with the next date provisionally set for our annual Summer Fair on the 23^rd June.

“Sharing a meal is a simple, yet sacred occasion. It is a universal act that is important to building relationships within people groups.  Intentionally eating together creates time and space to engage in the spiritual and intellectual levels that are unique to human beings.  Sharing food cultivates community because the implications of the meal extend beyond the time of eating together.  While there are other places people meet, gathering around a meal is the most accessible because if nothing else, everyone must eat.”  Katz, R, 2012

 

Team leaders report to Board of Management for 15^th January 2018

Introduction

The first few months have been great I am thoroughly enjoying my role as team leader. After a well – deserved Christmas break the staff team came back on 5^th January refreshed and full of ideas. The staff training went really well and we came up with some new ideas for planning and recording sessions and a new rota for junior club to enable it to be more structured. The benefits of having this in place are showing already as this first week back has been the most enjoyable for a while. We have recently recruited ex member Kenny O’Connell for one session per week  to try and get the music rooms back to their full potential.

Jade has joined Julie on the bank staff as she is no longer able to commit to a set session/s.

Sharon is currently working towards her NVQ level 3 in youth work studies, something I feel all staff should be aiming towards.

Staff team:

Frank Kenny (8 sessions), Sharon Dolby (4 Juniors 1,seniors) Ryan Fitzpatrick (3 seniors), Dean Williamson (2 Junior, 2 senior) Daisy Gill (4Junior) Selma Brown (2 seniors, 1 junior) Kenny O’Connell (1 session music)

Volunteers: Thomas Butler 2 sessions per week. Lisa Dumbell currently committed to 1 after school session per week.

Roy McGaw, Lorraine Mangan

Building, facilities and amenities

The décor in the club is looking much tidier, again I’d like to thank the probation service for providing free labour and doing a great job, the sportshall is next to be painted.

The hostel has had new flooring laid at a hugely discounted price thanks to local lad John Rugg of KSE Flooring. The Gym floor needs re-surfacing as the current flooring is slippery and becoming increasingly dangerous. I would recommend keeping John in mind for future work

ASDA have agreed to fund the roofing repairs to the cost of £20,000. This is half the funds we applied for, but will enable the critical areas to be repaired in the Spring. Mersey roofing are signed up to deliver the work.

We have finally commissioned the work for improving our IT and AV systems. This will see the infrastructure updated with improvement on speed and reliability, tablets and laptops for staff use and an AV system that will enable us to run streams of video, photo and text information on at least 2 TV screens. It is hoped that members can treat this as a journalism option and create their own material and research and upload quality and relevant educational and engaging material that it is useful and fun. The work should be complete by mid – February and is funded by a grant.

Junior club

Junior club is going very well at present we average around 25-40 young people per night from 7 different schools, although our main intake is children who come on the walking bus from Faith primary. A couple of recent junior club highlights include the Nativity play in St. Peters church and the junior club Christmas party. Big thank you to all at All saints parish in Southport for their continued support and kind donations of presents for the grotto. We have a junior club trip to Shrewsbury school to look forward to in April and as you can imagine the children are really looking forward to this. Over the festive period I received an invitation from Liverpool football club to bring some of our junior members to the FA Cup game vs Everton and the 7 young people who attended were given the whole VIP treatment with a personal chef at their disposal. A fantastic experience and a memorable day for all, besides the result !!

Senior club

Senior club numbers are very good: we have over 100 registered members and are averaging 30+ young people per night. We are still managing to attract young people from all over the city in addition to our core of local members.

The Inbetweenagers club has been a success with 25 new members since November; it will be this group who will be working towards the next causeway exchange programme in April.

We have had some thoughts about creating some “Girls only” space. I would be interested in discussing this matter

Sports alive have recently started coming into senior club providing multi sports sessions and we are hoping to get them back into juniors in the near future

Members seem really very excited about their own idea of a Sponsored social media silence. We are actively planning towards a weekend away to deliver this and hopefully record the results.

Links with other agencies and future plans

I will be attending a conference in Kakkola Finland from 8-10 February to confirm our membership to the European Network of Youth Clubs, where I will be doing a presentation on our work at the Shewsy.

We continue to build on our relationship with “Talk about Youth” project in Dublin and Saltney youth council in Wales and will be taking part in a tri lateral youth exchange programme in April, June and October.

Ryan Fitzpatrick has agreed to take part in this years’ Medic Malawi expedition along with 3 senior girls.

I will table the club’s Spring programme on Monday

We are planning towards an entry into the national FA People’s Cup 5 x side football competition

We are hoping to receive a 2^nd table tennis table as a donation from an ex club member

We are beginning our thinking and planning towards our annual Summer fair on 23^rd June and maybe expanding its scope and ambition

Team leaders report to board of management meeting: 13^th 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 20^th 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 30^th 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 8-10^th 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