We are on the Telly tomorrow! Young Dorest Volunteers are Heritage Heroes! Tuesday 21st Feb BB2 6.30pm

                                  

 

Young volunteers, staff and trustees from Dorset Youth Association are getting exited about featuring in the BBC’s Heritage Heroes which will highlight them taking part in their unique history project Dorset Young Remembers supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The BBC’s presenters John Craven and Jules Hudson teamed up with the young people in the County Town last September and filmed Alistair Chisholm taking them on a trail of historical hotspots across the town. The town crier told them ghoulish history stories and they showed him a GPS treasure hunting tool that will help get young people hooked into history. Later in the day volunteers and trustees were joined by staff from the Dorset County Museum they researched the archive of photos of Dorset Youth Association and youth clubs it has supported across the county over the past 70 years.

Lorna Johnson project worker “The clubs we have visited are so different. Some focus on hobbies and crafts, others on racing go carts at top speed, but everyone we have spoken to has told us youth club is all about fun and friendships and a safe place for young people to relax and let rip. We are tracing the decades through favorite bands and fashions and tuck shop chews!

The exhibition ‘From Tents to Twitter from Hiking to Hotpants’ at Dorset County Museum in the summer will try and show the huge value of this network of rural voluntary and DCC youth clubs.

Tony Armstrong project manager “We have recruited an amazing 20 strong team of young volunteers but If you want to get involved in the project and learn some heritage skills we still need volunteers to help in transcribing interviews, editing film and audio stories, and assisting with historical research and press and social media work. Contact us on 07788203003”

If you have a story about attending youth clubs they would love to hear from you especially if you can remember back to the 1940’s!

Dave Thompson, Director of Dorset Youth Association said: “It was great to meet the BBC team. They were very interested in how the young people are working to preserve this unique history of youth participation in Dorset”.

The programme will be broadcast on BBC 2 on Tuesday 21^st February, 6.30pm.

The Amazing Sturminster Newton Boxing Club

In the DYA network of youth clubs is Sturminster Newton boxing club. It re-opened in 2001 with Shaun Weeks as head coach. Shaun got into boxing through a youth club at the age of ten. In 2001 he was pestered by some young people at a local club, where he was a part-time youth worker, to get some of the old boxing equipment out as they knew he used to box. He agreed to start a boxing night if there were enough young people who wanted to try it and the rest, as they say, is history. The club is now in a newly fitted-out industrial unit and is one of the top facilities in the south west. The night young DYR volunteer Eliza Garret, adult volunteer/photographer Peter Wilkinson and project worker Lorna Johnson visited to collect some oral history stories, they met a group of young men and women plus some youngsters working incredibly hard at fitness training, bag-work and sparring.

When Shaun was a school boy, boxing was about who was the most aggressive but now it has changed and it is more about technique and similar to the scoring in fencing. 
When asked what young people get out of it, Shaun Weeks replied, “Young people get fitness, self-discipline. It is a social thing. They come from surrounding towns and villages and people they would not normally meet become friends, plus it is about leaning to respect people. We see them come in at ten and twelve years old and see them develop and help keep some of them on the straight and narrow. They do tend to come to us for advice if they can’t go to their teachers or parents. Mothers ring us up for help. One lad came back after getting into trouble and being absent for a long while and said,'“ I want to get back on track and this is where I can get it.”' They know where to come to and we never turn anyone away.”

Michael Compton is a regular member and was having difficulties at school and started coming to the club when he was ten and that was seven years ago. Shaun said “He was unfortunate not to win before, but he was on his 9^th or 10^th bout and he boxed a lad in three rounds and it was a close contest and the referee put his arm up to show he had won and he must have jumped a foot off the ground. The look on his face was like he had won the world title. That means a lot to me."

Michael Compton helped us conduct interviews at the club and was also interviewed himself. He said “The head coach Shaun Weeks is reliable. He is always there for boxers, to provide help and you can always talk to him about your sporting life, school life anything. He is basically the rock this club was built on. It shows how strong you are when you stay in the ring. I will definitely be following the Olympics. A lot of them did amateur boxing... Boxing is not easy, it takes a lot of hard work and motivation and so do A levels, which I am doing now. I think it has helped me realise what I want to do which is IT and it has helped my confidence. I doubt I would have been able to do this interview before.”

Shaun also stated boxing is one of the hardest sports. “You can’t play at it. The training is really tough. You have to come in twice a week if they are going to compete. After months of training they get into a boxing ring for the first time in front of a minimum of 300 people. You have got another guy who you don’t know and he is going to try and hit you, it is such a daunting thing... box three rounds and hit and punch and at the end shake hands and clench each other and have respect for each other for just getting into that ring”

We have had two lads get to national finals and two get in to semi finals which is not bad for a sleepy old market town in North Dorset. We are against people from Manchester and London and Liverpool.

We have a hard-working committee who raises the £14,000 a-year running costs and a welfare officer to ensure a safe environment for the youngsters, a secretary, myself and four coaches. We are all volunteers no one takes a penny. I put in 20-25 hours a week, run my own business and have a family. We are a close-knit group and people look out for each other.”

If you would like to find our more about  the club contact http://www.sturabc.co.uk

Exciting volunteer opportunities that will look great on your CV and get accreditation for your help.
Sharpen up your keyboard skills and help us transcribe interviews about youth clubs in Dorset 
Employ your writing skills volunteering as a press officer promoting our project and capitalising on our upcoming TV appearance BBC2 6.30 Feb 21st 2012 Heritage Heroes program
Use your creative skills to use archive photos and modern portraits film clips and audio clips to make files for our blog and upcoming exhibition 
Studied history? Want to get into the museum sector?  Come and turn our collecting into an exciting exhibition in Dorset County Museum workshops starting end of February.