An Adventure in Learning for the ReachOut Club

In May and June, the ReachOut clubs in Manchester went on learning adventures to some of the best museums and attractions the city has to offer. The mentees have been working hard all year and have made fantastic strides on their character journeys. Many of the clubs also sat their SATs in May and will be hoping that all the hard work they've been putting in at ReachOut will pay off. The trips were an ideal way to end the projects this year, and a lovely reward for our mentees.

The majority of our trips were to the Museum of Science and Industry. Located on the historic site of the world’s oldest surviving passenger railway station, housed in five listed buildings – the Museum tells the story of the city’s scientific and industrial past, present and future. Each club project enjoyed a very special explosions workshop, where they took on the role of investigators trying to solve a 100 year old crime. Who blew up the rail house? Was it Heavy Metal Mary? Frank The Tank? Or even Brian the Cow?

After the workshop the intrepid investigators made their way down to the experiments hall where they learnt about things such as recycling, friction, and even tornadoes. A huge thank you goes out to all the staff at MOSI for making our trips such a fun and informative experience.

Our young people from the Heald Place club went on a marine-life escapade to the Sea Life centre. We saw sharks, stingrays, and Moray Eels up close, and even got to handle some starfish in the rock pool section. The children learnt a lot about Sea Life's worldwide conservation efforts and about the habitats and food chains of all the different species at the centre.

We’d like to thank all our partner schools, mentors, and most importantly mentees for making the year so fantastic. We can’t wait to do it all again in September.

The World of Work Macquarie Workshop

As well as regular mentoring, ReachOut also provides young people across London and Manchester with the opportunity to take part in various workshops with some of our fantastic corporate supporters.  These sessions provide young people with valuable experience in the workplace and a half day workshop can be truly inspiring to those thinking about which career path to take!

Earlier this month, a group of mixed Year 10 students from Bishop Challoner and Heartlands High School made their way to Macquarie Bank to learn more about what a typical day there looks like.  Their first challenge was to find the offices without using their phones for assistance – an impossible task judging by the looks on some of their faces!  The students were encouraged to work as a team and pluck up the confidence to ask passers-by for directions (accompanied by ReachOut staff of course!).  With their first challenge complete, they arrived at Macquarie right on time and were quickly shown to the Board Room where they met the Macquarie volunteers.

The World of Work workshop is designed to give young people a better understanding of the roles available to them and inspiration for future careers.  After a couple of icebreaker games Richard King, a long standing ReachOut mentor, gave a presentation on the different departments within Macquarie, along with examples of some of the clients and deals they have been involved with.  The mention of Manchester United and Adidas as clients certainly caught the students’ attention!  After this there was a “working lunch” where the students were encouraged to engage with the volunteers about their experience working for Macquarie and ask questions about their working life.

After lunch the students broke into smaller groups and were treated to a tour of the Macquarie offices, which are very impressive!  After walking around the trading floor the girls noted out loud the high ratio of men to women working on the floor – the Macquarie staff were quick to assure them that they would love to have more women working in trading but they needed more women to apply.  This sparked a conversation about how trading has traditionally been male dominated and the girls were very interested to learn that this was a career option for them!  

The students spent the rest of the afternoon playing the Trading Game – an interactive activity in which students and volunteers work in groups to buy and sell stock at the best prices – with the winning team being the one that has made the biggest profit!  

Our workshops are a fantastic opportunity for both the students and volunteers to develop their skills by putting themselves out of their comfort zone and communicating effectively with a greater range of people.

A special thank you goes out to all the volunteers from Macquarie who gave up their time to work with our young people! 

Forget the Euros, it's all about the London Charity Cup!

The annual ReachOut Charity Cup tournament returned to London for the 8^th year running on Friday 3^rd June and it was a huge success!  With 6 corporate teams set to battle it out for the coveted ReachOut Winners trophy, there was everything to play for.

As always, the tournament was organised by young people from the ReachOut Academy programme.  Pinto Kisanga and Korede Tijana, both aged 14 and students at Petchey Academy, spent two days in the ReachOut office planning  the tournament, choosing and ordering the trophies, booking the referees and visiting local shops and businesses to persuade them to donate refreshments (resulting in a £65 donation of food and drink from Co-Op!).  On the day of the tournament they were indispensable, helping to set up the team areas and refreshments, greeting the teams, presenting a short introduction, keeping track of scores and conducting an official trophy presentation ceremony at the end.

Bloomberg, UBS, Macquarie Bank, Rede Partners, Augentius and Stockton FC battled it out in the round robin group stage with the top two teams progressing to the final.   There were some unlucky misses, vital interceptions and impressive goals. All of the teams showed great character and sportsmanship throughout.

Macquarie narrowly missed out on a spot in the final which pitted Bloomberg against Stockton FC.  It was a close game but Stockton FC finally pulled ahead winning the final 3-2 to be crowned the ReachOut Charity Cup Winners 2016!

Pinto and Korede awarded trophies for the following catagories:

Top Goalscorer – Max Barron from Stockton FC

Female Player of the Tournament – Rebecca Jones from UBS

Male Player of the Tournament – Jason Alawo from Bloomberg

Sportsmanship Award – Kristin Butzke from UBS

Charity Cup Tournament Winners 2016 – Stockton FC

James Baulk of Stockton FC had this to say, “Thanks for all the effort that everyone at Reach Out put into the tournament. It was a really enjoyable evening and everything was organised brilliantly”

Pinto, one of our mentee organisers said of his experience, "I had a lot of fun at the ReachOut Charity Cup.  It was a lot of responsibility because everything was organised by me and Korede and it improved my organisation skills and punctuality.  It was a really good experience because we had to set everything up and present the trophies and I recommend to the Yr 8’s that they should do it next year."

ReachOut would like to say thank you to everyone who helped organise the tournament and all the players for taking part – it was a brilliant evening and we hope to see you all again in 2017!

Volunteer Spotlight - James Newman

James Newman works in Equity Trade Support at UBS. He volunteers as a mentor on a ReachOut Academy project in Hackney, London.

I’ve always been interested in volunteering but lost contact with the groups and people I had worked with as I grew older, wiser and more boring! I came across ReachOut on an internal newsletter at work. ReachOut really stood out to me as I’m interested in helping youngsters and wanted to commit to volunteering for an extended period of time.

The ReachOut Academy project I chose involves an hour of classroom based activities, normally English or Maths, followed by an hour of sports for the children. The one-to-one time with my mentee every week presented a great chance to get to know him, see how I could help him to improve academically or behaviourally, and see his improvement over time. My mentee was originally very shy so I had to work hard to build a level of trust between us. As a result of this trust, he opened up and started enjoying the sessions more which was very rewarding.

The best part about ReachOut for me was getting out of the office and focusing on something completely different to what I do on a day to day basis. The children can be challenging but they can also be hilarious (normally when they're not meant to be!) and helping them with their academics, be it algebra or spelling, was something I found hugely rewarding. Taking me out of my comfort zone also helped develop my communication skills, really teaching me to think on my feet and to get my points across in different, varying and interesting ways.

ReachOut is a weekly commitment which is a huge reason why it is so rewarding as you get to see your mentee and those in your group develop over time. It can be a challenge to balance this with work commitments, but I was open with my manager and he was very supportive of my volunteering. Also, just getting out of the work environment and throwing myself into something like ReachOut was a great help in some of the busiest times. Giving my brain the chance to concentrate on something else entirely actually benefitted me when I went back to work!

I would recommend ReachOut to anyone looking to volunteer as I have enjoyed it immensely. The combination of a tried and tested method which works, the passion of the staff who run it, the children themselves and the other volunteer mentors I met made it a great experience. The more involved and committed I became the more I got from volunteering and I am sure this would be the case for you too.