Monday, 20 February 2012

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 21st 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 9th or 10th 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





Monday, 6 February 2012

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.

Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Rosie interviews Douglas about Saturday club 18 Jan 2012



Rosie used her Dorset History Centre interview training to operate the recorder to interview Douglas today about his experiences at Saturday club, a long running youth club in Dorchester for young people with additional needs at the Dorchester youth and community centre in Kings Street. He was 10 when he first went in 1994. Lorna the project worker and Liz adult volunteer helped with the questions.  We heard about camping trips, bumpy old mini buses, rock climbing to the top of the rock face even with jelly legs and lots of other activities. A highlight for Douglas was the Prince of Wales opening the Dorchester Youth club in it's new building in Kings Street. 

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

Mrs. Blake and her Wonderful Tales

Today, both Lorna, Project Worker, and Jack, Lead Volunteer, had an engaging interview with former South Street Methodist Youth Club leader, Susan Blake. Before closing in the early 70's Mrs. Blake recalled tales which involved over-excited volunteers jumping with joy watching the 1966 World Cup, camping trips, productions of original pantomimes with original music from a talented former member who became a gold disc musician, quiz wins and many young people she has had the pleasure of seeing progress and go on to live successful lives. Her husband, Phillip Blake, now deceased, was involved as preacher in the Dorchester Methodist circuit and appointed leader of the club. As the interview progressed, both interviewers were astounded by the depth and diligence in maintaining historical items which will certainly be welcomed by the Dorset History Centre and the Dorset Young Remembers Project who will assist Susan Blake in depositing this valuable collection into the County archive for posterity.
Susan - prior to running the club

Listening to 70's prog rock L.P. of former club member  Graham  Stansfield

Archiving with Susan Blake

Volunteer Jack Welch and Susan Blake

With so much exciting information and detail, both Lorna and Jack went back to meet Mrs. Blake for a second time to investigating further the archive she possesses. This was a very fruitful meeting and they will arrange for the whole group and Pippa from the Dorset County Museum to take a look, with the idea of including the material in our exhibition.

Dorset Young Remembers Geocaching app

As part of the Geocaching side of the Dorset Young Remembers project, I am currently creating a mobile app to allow people to find our geocaches more easily. Hopefully it will be available on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry smartphones. It will let people view up to date information about our geocaches, including co-ordinates, description and a hint. They will be able to get to them using a compass or map inside the app. Also there will be the feature to post a log of their visit with comments for other people to see.

Currently, I have the basic parts of the app working on an Android phone with the compass, as you can see in the photo. The next step is to add Google Maps into the app, which will show a way to the cache from the person's location.

Thursday, 22 December 2011

We are currently recruiting for a new volunteer press officer and new volunteer core group members to join our team for the new year. You will receive training in heritage skills such as interviewing and recording oral histories, how to mount an exhibition and archive photo research. We also need people to help with finding out about historical hot spots in Dorset so we can link them to our Geocaching trail. You will also gain experience working in a fun inclusive team and if you wish help run workshops about our projects in Dorset Youth clubs. You can do all this or just a small bit, be out and about or work quietly in our office. It is a great opportunity to use or increase your skills if you are not in work at present. We do project work in the day time and after school hours. 
Your volunteer work can be accredited in a number of ways which is proven to help in job hunting and college applications. 


Contact Lorna Johnson lornajohnson@dorsetyouth.com or call 07788203003