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.

Impact Measurement At The Giving Forum

Felicity Lewis

ReachOut's newest employee, Felicity Lewis, talks about the importance of impact measurement following a recent Giving Forum event.

On the 10^th March ReachOut’s Director of Fundraising and Impact, Alison Braybrooks, was invited to be the key speaker at the first ever Giving Forum event – a platform for a range of companies to come together and discuss innovative corporate social responsibility ideas.

Alison’s experience as head of the London Benchmarking Group has given her a wealth of knowledge in relation to charitable impact measurement, making her the perfect candidate to kick off the evening.  The event was attended by representatives of British Airways, Barclays, British Gas, Provident Financial and RBS, amongst others. Her insightful and thought provoking presentation provided the backdrop for some very lively discussions between them all!

The event was hosted at RBS by Giving Force, a portal which helps businesses support and measure their employees’ charitable activities. The main themes for discussion over the course of the evening were employee engagement, measurement and impact.  Attendees were encouraged to discuss and answer questions such as;

- which community activities and causes have proven most popular for your organisation?

- how should you quantify the value of your community programmes?

- how do you create a resilient programme which withstands company change? 

ReachOut are proud to be leading the discussion on how we should be measuring impact and the benefits of doing so.

The differing approaches by each company demonstrated that whilst everyone is focused on getting their employees engaged in volunteering and community based programmes, there is some way to go before we have a unified approach to measuring the impact of those community programmes.

Impact measurement of community investment programmes is the hot topic amongst corporate CSR in 2016 and ReachOut are proud to be leading the discussion on how we should be measuring it and the benefits of doing so.  The event was a fantastic opportunity to raise ReachOut’s profile amongst a variety of companies and demonstrated that we are ahead of the game in this area.  ReachOut continues to work on a robust impact measurement strategy and this event was a great opportunity to see how other companies are approaching the same task, so thank you to Giving Force for inviting us to the event!  

Felicity Lewis
Fundraising Officer

ReachOut Fundraisers Conquer The Hackney Half

On Sunday 8^th May, over 13,000 people lined up at the start line for the 3rd annual Hackney Half marathon.  With temperatures soaring to 27 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, the conditions were not ideal for running, but Hackney turned out in force to cheer, clap and support the runners around the 13.1 mile course.

As an official local charity partner of the Hackney Half 2016, ReachOut had a huge presence and watched the race from our official cheer point  (about 5.5 miles in) where we cheered our runners on - we were even joined by Sharon from Gogglebox at one point who added to the chorus of cheers!  After the race, the support continued back at our race village tent where our runners came to pick up refreshments, chill out and meet fellow runners. It was lovely to see all their smiling (or grimacing?) faces!

Despite only starting in 2014, the Hackney Half is considered one of the best events of its kind in the UK and the atmosphere along the course and in the race village was buzzing!  Organised by Vitality, the race village felt like a festival with music, food stands, free massages, and more.

It was a record year for ReachOut with 49 runners taking part and a whopping £24,000 being raised!  Mentors, project leaders, ReachOut friends, and our corporate buddies at UBS and Morgan Stanley all sweated it out in ReachOut's name. We'd like to extend a huge thank you to each and every one of our runners. We are so grateful for all the effort you put in to training and fundraising!  Thanks to the funds raised we are able to fund our summer project which will provide 2 weeks of educational and sporting activities to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Bring on the Hackney Half 2017 – see you there!  

ADP Architecture crowned as new champions of the ReachOut Charity Cup 2016

City Year taking on our Year 10 boy's Penalty Shoot Out

ReachOut's annual Charity Cup football tournament in Manchester returned on Tuesday 24th May. Not only was this a great opportunity to raise essential funds for our mentoring programme, but also the perfect chance for our corporate and charity partners to dust off their boots and strive for footballing glory.

We had a hotly contested competition with teams competing from BAM Construction, Hiring Hub, ADP Architecture, The Challenge, City Year UK and ITC.


To get everyone warmed up before the tournament, some of our Year 10 Academy boys ran a Penalty Shoot Out Competition to give the teams some much needed shooting practice!

After a tough group stage ITC and ADP Architecture went through to the ReachOut Cup final. It was an incredibly close match with ADP Architecture just beating ITC to win the coveted ReachOut Charity Cup.

As well as the Charity Cup we also had a Charity Plate prize up for grabs, which BAM Construction and The Challenge battled it out for in the ReachOut Plate final. The Challenge put in a strong performance but the boys from BAM just edged it with a disciplined performance.

Thanks to everyone who took part and to Our Lady's High School for hosting the event.

We hope to see you all again next year!

The Plate winners, team BAM Construction

The Cup winners, team ADP Architecture

City Year vs Hiring Hub

ITC vs ADP Architecture in the Cup final

BAM Constructions vs The Challenge in the Plate final

ADP Architecture

BAM Construction

ITC

The Challenge

City Year

Manchester ACE Girls hold "Girls Night In" to raise awareness of homelessness

On 11^th May a group of 15 year old girls hosted a ‘Girls Night In’ event to raise money for the Manchester wide campaign #BigChangeMCR, a coalition of charities working together to help homeless people stay off the streets. The girls were members of the ReachOut ACE project at Our Lady’s RC High School in Higher Blackley, a youth mentoring programme aimed at improving the character and competence of its young people.

At the start of the academic year, the girls decided that they wanted to undertake a project to raise awareness of homelessness in Manchester. They felt the issue of homelessness was a topic that their peers, school and their local community could come together to support. To make sure their event was a success the group dedicated every Wednesday afternoon at the ReachOut ACE project to plan the event.

The ‘Girls Night In’ had everything essential for a girl’s sleepover, from homemade cakes and pink lemonade to nail painting and hair styling. The event also focused on educating people about homelessness and how they can support victims of homelessness to rebuild their lives.

One of the ReachOut ACE girls commented "I am proud because we did something good for the community and not only raised money but raised awareness of homelessness in Manchester". The group also celebrated how well they'd worked as a team, with everyone taking part, and that they were able to achieve more than they believed was possible during their ReachOut sessions. 

Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central, commented:

“It is heart breaking to see homeless levels rising across the UK. Since 2010, homelessness has increased six-fold and this has been exacerbated by government cuts to funding which is not the right thing to do in order to combat this situation. More needs to be done to protect vulnerable individuals from facing poverty and eviction from their homes.

It is fantastic to see a young group of girls from ReachOut dedicating their energy and time towards raising awareness and education on homeless issues in Manchester. Their collaborative approach with charities is absolutely the right thing to do in terms of combating this problem.”

Well done to everyone involved, as you can see from the pictures the event was a great success!