End of Year Celebrations for ReachOut Manchester Academies

The week starting the 12th of May was the final sessions of the ReachOut Academies in Manchester Schools. There was variety of activities to celebrate the mentees commitment and achievement. The Academies at Chorlton, MCMA, and years 7 and 8 at Our Lady's battled it out in a special ReachOut edition of the Olympic Games, and the Y9s at Our Lady’s tested their metal against each other in a football championship. At the end of each project we put on a small presentation, where parents, teachers and mentors gathered to celebrate this year with the mentees and to see the young people receive certificates documenting their achievements.

As project leaders we are very proud of how the academies have run. The outstanding effort from our volunteers has been inspirational and we want to thank them for every hour they have invested throughout the year. A Chorlton year 7 mentor said of their experience on the project, “I was able to make a positive impact on a group of young people, and felt like i was making a positive change to the community”.  

The academy mentors have volunteered with a large, dedicated and enthusiastic group of young people this year. All in all, more than 150 keen and eager minds attended the academies to develop their literacy, numeracy, and character skills.

The progress of our mentees has been fantastic and we look forward to working with them all again next year.

Thanks for this amazing year!

Jonjo Bigwood &  Santiago Sanchez-Romero

London Junior Mentors Present their Group work at Bishop Challoner

At the culmination of the spring term, Junior Mentors from our Tower Hamlets project presented their group work to invited guests at Bishop Challoner School.  The year 10 girls produced and hosted a game-show which pitted year 10 students against (very brave) members of staff.

There was general knowledge and speciality rounds (including guilty pleasure music). Forfeits included having to sing (a rendition of aforementioned guilty pleasure) and eating dry crackers (with no water).  The show was also punctuated with a wonderful musical performance (by 3 of the year 10 girls).

The year 10 boys produced a short film, a spoof news show, which included acting performances, scriptwriting, camera operating and editing by the boys. You can find the video here.

The year 11 boys produced a music video, featuring some more very brave teachers. The boys conceived and produced the work, as well as participating in the ‘dance offs’. Great stuff!! You can find the video here.

With the support of their mentors, all of the mentees (year 10 and 11, boys and girls) have worked tirelessly towards their group project events. That’s not to say there weren’t tears and strops, walk outs and declarations of: “I can’t work with her/him s/he’s impossible”, but they persevered, stuck together and are very proud of their work.

Parents and staff were very impressed too. Head of year 10, Jo Sangster said, “They’ve obviously worked so hard on the performances. Both the game show and films were hilarious.”

All of the mentors and mentees can be very proud of their efforts in organizing the event, it was a great way to celebrate a great year of mentoring projects in Tower Hamlets.

Justin
London

The ReachOut Tower Hamlets Year 10 Girls Project @ Bishop Challoner School present Bam!!! 

Their teacher v student game-show event was enjoyed by all who attended family, friends and staff from the school.

Mentees and Mentors on stage together for the event finale

Boys project Mentees and Mentors

One year 11 boy discusses the achievements of the group this year before presenting the music video

ReachOut Manchester Volunteer Awards Ceremony 2014

Last Tuesday was ReachOut Manchester’s annual volunteer awards ceremony. The ceremony is a great chance for us to say a huge thank you to all of our volunteers for all the hard work that they put in on a weekly basis on our mentoring projects, and to recognize those special individuals who go beyond the bounds of what is expected of them in their capacity as volunteers.

This year we had more award categories than ever. Testament I think to the all-round quality of the mentors on our projects. This year’s awards and respective winners were:

ReachOut Club volunteer of the year:

Runner up: Alice Jackson

Winner: Laura Molloy

ReachOut Academy volunteer of the year:

Runner up: Sanders Sunny

Winner: Ben Ryan

ReachOut Junior Mentor volunteer of the year:

Runner up: Chloe Nightingale

Winner: Simon Rowland

ReachOut positive contribution award:

Winner 1: Amy Ibister

Winner 2: Roly Hunter

ReachOut character values award:

Winner 1: Nick Coleman

Winner 2: Diede Douma

ReachOut Mentor of the year award:

Winner: Charlotte Smailes

ReachOut Volunteer of the year award:

Winner: Ted Sealy

The winners of the much coveted mentor and volunteer of the year awards both received a shiny new Kindle, and the winners of our other prestigious awards received book tokens. After the awards we descended upon on the buffet we had laid on, and pulled out the winning raffle tickets, the prizes for which were two Parklife festival tickets and an array of other goodies.

We all had a great time at the ceremony and hope that all our volunteers felt appreciated. I would also like to thank all those volunteers that were not at the ceremony for all their hard work, and also all those individuals who have perhaps not volunteered on projects but supported the charity in other ways. ReachOut exists and is able to do the work we do because of hard working, passionate, and motivated volunteers, so keep up the good work guys, we think you are doing great!

Luke

Manchester

Our mentor of the year Charlotte

Our volunteer of the year Ted

Our six fantastic project leaders 

 Viva Espana! Our super drivers Jorge and Ricardo

 ReachOut Manchester delivery staff

 ReachOut Junior mentor Year 12 - 13 project

 Junior mentor St Paul's boys project

 St Paul's Junior Mentor girls project

The St Johns ReachOut Club

 Peel Hall ReachOut Club

 Our Lady's year 9 Academy

 MCMA Year 7 Academy

 Oi Cheeky!

ReachOut London mentees meet West Ham manager

It’s not every day you get to meet a Premier League player or indeed a manager, but thanks to some great ReachOut volunteers working at Barclays, fourteen of our young people from Hackney and Tower Hamlets were invited to a special Q & A session at Canary Wharf with not only West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce, but also their star midfielder Mark Noble!  Sam and Mark both had a lot to say, answering questions about FIFA’s Financial Fair Play initiative, the experience of media intrusion into their lives, keeping fans and chairmen happy at the same time and women’s football. 

The Young people also got to meet Barclays staff from lots of different departments, find out about careers at Barclays (including apprenticeships), took part in a leadership exercise and got stuck into a fantastic lunch laid out courtesy of our hosts!  The event was organised especially for us by Waqas Ahmed, Nick Whitbread, Will Rhodes, David Andani and Suki Huang.  Big thank you to them from all of us!

Pete 

London