Dorset Young Remembers: December 2011

20/12/11 Our Interview Conducted with Town Crier, Alistair Chisholm.

By Jack Welch

In the approaching days towards Christmas, Dorset Young Remembers (DYR) attracted another prominent guest to their proud catalogue of conducted interviews. Alistair Chisholm, town crier incumbent and Blue Badge tour guide for the past ten years regaled his thoughts to DYR Lead Volunteer, Jack Welch, about his thoughts in regards to young people in the town of Dorchester and beyond.

Discussing the importance of history in this town and preservation of its heritage and the young people, he stressed it was more vital than ever not to ‘isolate’ the young generation from the rich diversity and vibrancy which can be experienced from Dorchester’s past as it could help then gain perspective and inspire them.

Mr. Chisholm quoted that in the difficult times young people faced that it was “important to be tenacious” and to try be “clear and certain” about their direction and to try and gain confidence. It was perhaps all the more comforting to know that Mr. Chisholm believes that unlike the discrimination young people faced in the past, there are no ‘boundaries’ in which young people, regardless of any background, can aim for. The great aspirations can be fulfilled.

Not underestimating the problems of today, he believes there are many opportunities available for young people in volunteering which could help them move forward even in these difficult times of unemployment. He was very keen that resources were available to ensure different activities be available to encourage young people’s diverse interests. Mr. Welch concluded the interview with final photographs due to Mr. Chisholm’s impending journey to London. Mr. Chisholm has welcomed the prospect of being invited for further interviews.

19/12/11Leslie Phillips MBE gives us an interview

Leslie Phillips MBE four times mayor of Dorchester and President of Dorchester youth club for 45 years, gave an impressive interview to three young volunteers of the Dorset Young Remembers project.

He gave us a dazzlingly history of this vibrant and popular youth club, the highlights will appear on this blog soon, as an audio file to listen to. (You can find out why he was making minature horse shoes!) He confirmed our emerging theme that music is a very popular activity at youth club today. Mr Phillips said "We're now even seeing grandchildren of members who started out. It is one of the finest youth clubs in this part of the region. These young people are so important to Dorchester.”

We are proud to have recorded the first interview with Mr Phillips to be saved for posterity in the Dorset County Archives. A man such as Mr Phillips who has changed the course of the town’s history by his voluntary work, and who tells stories so vividly, will now be preserved in his own words as part of the town’s heritage.

Left is a photo of Stuart Tyler an archivist at the Dorset History Centre, one of our partners in our Young Roots Heritage Lottery Project, giving us feedback on how our interview went. He also lent us the digital recorders. We will help youth clubs borrow the recorders and conduct their own interivews. We call it Gold digging, looking for the Gold (something precious) in the history of our clubs in Dorset.

13/12/11 The Dorset Men and the Chilli Monsters

The Dorset Men (a charity that promotes Dorset) met three members of the Dorset Young Remembers Team on the 13^th December. They were kindly presenting a donation to Routes.

Edward the volunteer Geocache coordinator (shown below) Jenny the volunteer press officer and Miles the volunteer designer explained their roles to the charity's representatives.

Our project also got some great feed back from an official Geocacher who found Edwards first cache “We did your cache this am and may I say I salute what you are doing. It has long been my belief that Geocaching represents a significant resource to promote historical awareness. I wholeheartedly support what you are doing. Please send me more info and if there is anything I can do to help, let me know Rod Hughes(ChilliMonsters)Sent from iPhone

13/12/11 Rock Solid Bridport

The Rock Solid youth club impressed the Dorset Young Remembers volunteers on the 13^th December for working so well as a team. They picked up the idea of the project really quickly and with Rosie’s help got trained up and conducted their first interview with Valerie Payne their retired leader. They were the first group to invent tag interviewing, they organised the questions and took it in turn to ask them. Rosie was struck by the connection of the group telling their story and a diary she had recently read by Anne Frank.

Valerie’s story was interesting and the group found out that the younger PALS group were so naughty once they had to close the club for a couple of weeks! Valerie said, in she worked so hard for young people for so many years “because it was so much fun”

The group definitely want to Geocache and may use it as they are a church group to pick out faith historical spots around Bridport. Then the group wanted to record one of the old games they play. It is characteristic of the group that up to recently met in their leader’s cottage dining room. It worked well with the video camera. Rosie enjoyed helping them and is quite experienced with video. We will put it up on the blog as soon as we have the releases signed. Can’t wait to see you again Rock Solid.

7/12/11 The Reef - Wimborne Senior Youth club Workshop

Charlton, Carl and Jordan tried out the grave game led by Issy. They are getting ready to lead the Wimborne Juniors in a workshop after Christmas. It is a really busy popular club operating out of the small care-takers bungalow until they get their new youth club built. They absolutely loved the real Roman artefacts the museum lent us especially the replica Roman helmet which they took in turns to wear and did not take off the whole night!

LOVING THE ROMAN HELMET

They want to find one to buy. Issy led really well “We connected because we are all cadets; I am in the RAF cadets they are in the army.” Two youth leaders Terry who runs the Wimborne advice centre/drop in called the Planet and Mel Ogden DCC youth worker at Wimborne shared really interesting stories about the clubs past and we are going to have to get good at interviewing as we have 6 Wimborne youth leaders past and present who would like to be interviewed tracing the clubs beginning as a Methodist youth club in the 70’s through to present day.

An interesting theme is emerging; competitive sports and games are really popular now and in the past. As we left the club there were a groups of young people in the woodland opposite, the young people are allowed to play outside. What do youth members do in the woods? The boys sing a cappella (in a group with out being accompanied by music) it sounded great. Issy said there is allot of singing these day amongst young people encouraged my musicals and TV competitions, at school at the dinner table they play games where one starts a song and the next person has to carry it on.

6/12/11 Jenny Palmer Volunteer Press Officer Writes About Her Interview with Ray Seymour

Jenny interviewed Ray Seymour, the Vice President of the Dorset Youth Association, about his 60 years experience working with youth clubs. He spoke about many remarkable memories of his involvement with Bere Regis youth club starting with a sponsored walk to Salisbury to raise the money to buy the old Women’s Institute hut that would house the youth club. To our surprise, we learnt that the Dorset Association of Youth Clubs was originally the National Association of Girls Clubs which then became the National Association of Boys and Girls Clubs until Youth Clubs UK was established.

He told us that the activity he most enjoyed running at the youth club was swimming but the members would also enjoy playing table tennis and competing in five-a-side football. One of his biggest adventures with the youth club was going to Baggator in Dartmoor, which he says was a ‘marvellous exercise for young people because it taught them independence and self survival’. We are very grateful to Ray for coming in and sharing his inspirational work with us. He has made such a positive impact on the lives of many young people. We will have the pleasure of speaking to Ray again soon about the history of DYA and his experiences as the network’s Vice President. Ray Seymour is in the below picture far right with some of the Dorset Young Remembers Team.

5/12/11 Loder's Junior youth club workshop – vinyl records are history!

Jenny and Lee led nearly 30 eight to ten year olds in a youth club workshop. They helped the young people understand our time line and where they fitted into it and got them thinking about their club’s story. Loder’s youth club first opened its doors in 1975. It was a bit daunting when we arrived as the youngsters were like agitated atoms darting about the hall playing a very lively game! But they quickly settled when the leader called them and worked hard and proved to be a very knowledgeable, delightful group.

At the end of our games and activities Tina Cornish (above left) their leader showed them a LP record and tape cassette from 1975 when the club first began, allot of the young people had never seen a vinyl LP before. She also showed them an old large 10p coin which is how much subs were back then. The group got thinking about their history and want to help us do more digging about the history and value of their club. Tina Cornish youth Leader of 30 years plus and MBE said to us “Thank you all so much for coming & motivating. Excellent feedback.”

5/12/11 Our Interview with Wally Gundry

The volunteer Dorset Young Remember journalists used their Dorset History Centre training to interview a veteran youth club volunteer Wally Gundry with 50 years service, sometimes putting in a 40 hour week helping the DYA network of youth clubs. He started in the 1950’s and still helps as vice president of Dorset Youth Association today. Through his job as a builder he borrowed a digger in the mid 1960’s, and with a small team of volunteers, built the DYA HQ building from a prefab kit! We still use it today!

The volunteer journalists also discovered that there used to be a Dorset Youth Association interclub competition called Quick Silver which set tasks and the youth clubs won points for completing them. A trophy was awarded for the top number of points collected. This kept clubs together during the summer break. Challenges were for example pushing your leader up the high street in a bed! Or sourcing a Russian underground ticket! (bear in mind this was pre internet days) The project manager at Dorset youth Association Tony Armstrong said maybe he could use this model for a project he is setting up today and Dave Thompson our Director thinks it might be good thing to add to his list of summer activities.

We wondered if we could show the interview to a local radio station to get some mentoring in editing it. Maybe they would they would like to play it on the radio it has got some great stuff in it!

2/12/11 Our first Youth Club Workshop

We did it! Issy and Rosie supported by Lorna and Liz delivered a great workshop to the senior Loders youth club. We drove to the Loder’s village hall on top of a hill in the heart of the West Dorset countryside on a dark, wet and windy night. The group of 5 young members and 3 adult volunteers all joined in and gave us great feed back on the project. They played our games led by Issy and Rosie and really want to try out the Geocaching and the Gold digging workshop we offered as follow up sessions. They want to interview their parents and grandparents and themselves about what youth club means to them. Their idea is to hold an intergenerational games night, playing games like skittles that are as old as their 37 year old club.

The only games they don’t still play are snooker and whist. The snooker stopped because the snooker table got too old and now has a metal top and is used to serve tea on in the kitchen! The whist games they might try and revive, “They love anything competitive” said Colin a volunteer at the club and the group certainly fought hard in the chew duel, the girls eventually winning! Tina Cornish is the youth leader, having once been a member herself and has got an MBE for her help for over 30 years. She has lots of photos and stories to tell in the next workshop.

29/11/11 Workshop Trial

The group tried out the youth club workshop. We think we have achieved our aim of creating a time line and three games that will really help young people get a sense of the passage of time and relating it to them selves and their youth club. The museum staff told us young people find getting a perspective on history really hard, the proof will be in the pudding when they try the games at youth club. Lee did a great job leading the group and now several people feel able to lead the sessions. We have a few glitches to iron out and the group suggest making some boards to explain the project visually, including archive photos and then we think we are ready to go!

We will scan some of the archive photos the photo team. Watch this Space! The objects group nearly finished labelling the real artefacts we are taking to our youth club workshops for the grave games. Our first major one is now booked -Loders with 40 young members is going to be.....exciting/scary/brilliant!

29/11/11 A Report From Edward our new Geocache CoordinatorToday we placed the first Geocache in the Dorset Young Remembers trail. We looked around the area to find a suitable location for the cache and used the handheld GPS to take a reading of the location. We then used the GPS to locate the cache again to check the co-ordinates were correct. I uploaded the cache to www.geocaching.com with the co-ordinates and a description. This has helped me better understand the process of uploading a cache so we can do it again for the rest of the caches in the Dorset Young Remembers History Trail.

2/11/11 How to Make a Museum Concept Document

Our Dorset County Museum training was brainstorming our exhibition on the History of youth clubs in Dorset. We got some first class mentoring from graphic design professional Nick Morris and Dorset County Museum staff Pippa Brindly (education manager) and James Murden the Museum Director.

With some focused work the aims of the exhibition were identified and we were taught an important heritage process – putting together an exhibition concept document. It was a valuable, exciting experience to volunteers who are hoping to work in the media, heritage, design and marketing industries.

We picked up some great design tips to share - watch out for them as a separate doc on this blog. We got some good feedback, volunteer Miles Martin’s artwork received praise.

8/11/11 Our Three Games

The museum training group met tonight and are well on the way to completing the youth club workshop. They have devised three games that they hope will help youth club members’ heads around time lines and their clubs place in history.

The first is a game involving graves from the iron-age to present day, with real objects to place in the right ones. We get them talking about geocaching and what history spots they know around their club so that we can place as caches in the spring and summer.

We then get the youth clubs to guess where there clubs come in the time line between 2^nd World War and the present day. Then we place out mats from the 1940s to the present day and the youth club members and leaders stand on the mat of the decade they were born and when their club was started.

Finally we also have a game dancing through the decades and a high energy quiz that involves getting the right object (a tuck shop curly wurly) or picture of a ration book onto the right decade mat or your team forfeits chews! What decade would you style your hair into a quiff for club? What decade were crisps first sold in tuck shops? What decade would you wear a Nirvana t shirt to youth club are some of the games.

Thursday 22 December 2011

Wednesday 21 December 2011

What we got up to November to December 2011