Become a project leader!

By Francine Gleadall

Does the thought of being a Project leader and leading a group of volunteers daunt you? Maybe you think you’re incapable of handling such a large responsibility? Do you think you couldn’t rise to the challenge? These were certainly my initial thoughts and doubts before I gained the courage and found self belief to take on the role of project leader; what an amazing experience it turned out to be!

The Hallam Volunteering project I led was ‘Fit Club’ which consisted of a group of 17 eager and enthusiastic volunteers. Throughout February and March, we introduced a programme of low impact exercises and games into two elderly residential homes in the South Yorkshire area, Guildford Grange and Bowfield Court. It was my duty to manage and co-ordinate my volunteers whilst overseeing that the project ran smoothly over the numerous weeks. I also had the demand of making sure that the deliveries of the sessions were safe and professional whilst making them fun and exciting for the residents.

It sounds like a demanding task doesn’t it? I must admit at times filling the shoes of project leader was tough. However, when retrospectively evaluating my position and the project as a whole, I was so pleased that I gained the confidence to grasp the leadership role, as the personal benefits and outcomes achieved from the project were certainly worth the sweat and hard work.

So, what were the advantages I achieved???

• It gave me a chance to develop a wide variety of skills in leadership and communication, to interpersonal and team working skills; all are essential transferable qualities that employees search for when selecting candidates for job roles.

• Another advantage was that I stood out as a volunteer. Any type of volunteering is fantastic, however if you can demonstrate that you have taken on the extra commitment to lead a project, I believe can indicate to future employers that from a relatively young age you have gained experience in higher managerial positions of work, helping you to climb up the career ladder quicker.
• By being part of Hallam Volunteering I gained the chance to apply for the prestigious Hallam Award. The award has been devised by the Hallam Union and can be awarded to anyone who is involved in student union activities. This award is to signify the hard work that you have dedicated to Hallam volunteering. Remember, this type of award will make your CV excel from the rest!

• The project leader position also enables you to gain the chance of winning the Hallam volunteering ‘Volunteer of the Year’ award, an award aimed specifically at project leaders. Luckily, I was awarded 2^nd place this year, I really felt that this award acknowledge my loyalty towards the project and my enthusiasm in making it successful.
• One of the most rewarding outcomes was that the project leader role gave me a chance to give something back to my local community; it is such a great feeling to know that you are helping others and improving their lives. Without the project leader position this service may not have been able to run inside the homes, as it is essential that someone is always monitoring the project.
• I was also given the opportunity to participate in training classes funded by Hallam Volunteering. The training I embraced was ‘Working with older people’ as this was relevant to the project I was working on. I found it extremely beneficial as I became aware of what to expect before entering into the homes.
• The role of project leader also gave me a chance to network and meet many useful contacts. These contacts ranged from members of Sheffield council, to important University employees and the Lord Mayor of Sheffield. Remember, sometimes it can be a case of not what you know, but who you know when searching for jobs.
• Finally, no matter how much you love your degree, we all know that at times you need a break from the workload and study. The project leader position gives you a refreshing and stimulating experience away from academic learning. However, at the same time the role of a project leader can benefit your degree. From having to be organised and developing effective time planning skills, I feel that this has helped with my organisation in other areas of my course.

For those of you who like the sound of being a project leader and feel that you too would like to gain these fantastic advantages. Then push any of those straying doubts aside which may be stopping you from fulfilling this role and get in contact with Hallam Volunteering on 01142 255 005 or e-mail them at hallamvolunteering@shu.ac.uk. Go on; make a change not only to your life, but also to those around you. Become a project leader and lead in 2010/2011!

Hallam students point the way - by Mark Copping

Students from Sheffield Hallam University have been working to draw attention to the distinctive and hidden aspects of the Sharrow area.

The project has been run by Hallam Volunteering and local community architect Julia Udall. Thanks to funding from Hallam University's Faculty of Development and Society, students studying in the fields of Architecture and Urban Planning have created a set of signposts with an artistic difference to brighten up Sharrow.

Signposts have been designed, painted and constructed by students with the aim of creating an art trail to advertise all that Sharrow has to offer. This includes places of interest, which are perhaps unrecognised by people unfamiliar with the area, such as the Portland Works - once working as the backbone of Sheffield's steel industry and is now unfortunately under threat of closure as has been reported upon before in Sharrow Today.

Members of the Distinctive Sharrow Action Group have also been supporting and assisting the project. The group has been actively taking an interest in the built environment in Sharrow for a few years, running a number of projects that aims to empower local people to be able to change their environment or how it is perceived. Volunteers from the group have been showing students around the area and contributed in putting the signs together.

The success of the projects means that the signs should soon be seen out and about around Sharrow. Plans have also already been made for another joint Hallam Volunteering and Distinctive Sharrow project, so watch this space! Anyone interested in becoming involved with the scheme can contact Sarah Mcgillivray file:///C:/Webcache/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.IE5/HHP5Q4IF/uussm3@exchange.shu.ac.uk

Reeling Ahead with Longley Park! by Ashleigh Withall-Prince

The ‘Showreel’ project is in full flow working alongside local college students to produce a film, highlighting all that’s brilliant about Hallam Volunteering, and the achievements of the volunteers and local college students. It has offered a fantastic opportunity to develop film – making and editing skills to the team and students to produce a high quality film due to be premiered at a celebratory evening for volunteering, ‘The Event’ on March 24th.
Hallam volunteers are currently working with Longley Park Sixth Form students. The students from the college have all got some previous media experience, and are having a great time, building on their skills and forming a rapport with the volunteers.

Project Leader Matthew Voyse, who was once a student at Longley Park said: “We have a positive environment when filming and we try to make sure we have fun. The students are easy to work with, because they all do media, so they pretty much know what they are doing. They are really enthusiastic about working on the project.”

Shooting for the film began on 10th February, and is set to continue at least once a week, possibly more, in the weeks leading up to The Event. Initially, Showreel had 8 spots available for the students however, due to popular demand they have taken on 12, and it’s easy to understand why the project is so popular. You could say the sessions have bee somewhat of a ‘sell-out’!

The concept of the filming is based loosely in the style of TV programmes. The filming for the volunteer project ‘Season It’ was done in the style of Gordon Ramsey’s ‘F Word’. One of the students was pretending to cook like Gordon whilst conducting interviews, although they had to restrain from Gordon’s infamous swearing and fiery temper!

Matthew is extremely happy with the progression of the project at present, he said: “Luckily everything is running smoothly so far, I have a bunch of enthusiastic students and a great bunch of volunteers, which is all a project leader could ask for.” Well done to the Showreel team, we cannot wait to see this blockbuster!!

'Nothing Beats Word Of Mouth' by Dean Robinson

Despite February 16th being an extremely cold evening in our little town of Sheffield, it didn’t stop those making their way to the hubs for the third ‘Language Exchange’ event. The word certainly seemed to have spread making the first episode of 2010 be one of the biggest turn outs since it began at the beginning of the academic year. The Hubs seemed as lively as ever attracting a mix of both students and older people and it was also nice to see that. Again, there were plenty of worldly delicacies on offer to taste.

If you’ve never been before or not heard about this event then the Language Exchange programme has been put together by the people of Hallam Volunteering and by those of Language in Sheffield. They have created a great way to allow people of all ages and backgrounds to get together and share their different language skills.

There are about 15 to 20 tables set up with a variation of different languages from all over the world for example; Spanish, German, French, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Nigerian, Arabic, Swedish... the list is endless. Each table then had a representative that was fluent in both the selected language and English; some tables even had few traditional language games to add to the festivities.

If you fancy joining in with a Language Exchange Extravaganza then pop down to the A pod of the Hubs on the following dates:

Tuesday, March 9th 6pm-8pm

Tuesday, April 27th 6pm-8pm

It certainly is a great relaxed way to share and develop any language skills you may have or even to learn some new ones.

"We are Gold!" by Martha Brown

Day after day volunteers throughout Hallam union work tirelessly for their projects. So, every year to recognise this dedication the union present four volunteers with the Gold Awards.
These are recognised achievements with volunteering England and have been honoured for a very long time. They are the only student awards of its kind that acknowledge qualities in further and higher education in relation to volunteering.

There are three categories associated with the awards; leadership, dedication and achievement. Anyone can nominate, project leaders and group members can vote for one another.
Once the votes have been cast a panel of judges will decide who they believe should be given the awards. On the panel this year is Laura Stafford, the Hallam Volunteering manager, Alison McHale who works in the University with Work Based Learning and a trustee elected by the students.

The awards will be handed out on Thursday 22nd April at the end of year party, where internal awards will also honoured.

Voting opens at the beginning of March, so if you have a perfect candidate in mind someone who you think deserves to be recognised for their contribution to volunteering, or if they have been exceptionally dedicated or if they have shown outstanding leadership skills, don’t hesitate, Vote! And Let them receive the exceptional gold award.

Smash It! - Hallam Volunteering

This year the Hallam Volunteering fundraiser was a little different. Usually a wobble down West Street in the style of a three legged race, the cry went up for a change and Smash It! was born.

On Monday 7^th December 2009, Hallam Volunteers gathered in The Scholar on London Road and made history. Well, maybe not history, but they certainly broke some interesting HV records.

All the games were monitored by the friendly fundraising team dressed as leprechauns-complete with top hats. These were to be our guides for the evening and also the judges to check that no one was sneakily trying to cheat!

First, came ‘Pass It’, a game some of you may have played before which involves passing a playing card from one player to another using only the mouth. This game has all the ingredients for a laugh-out-loud event which, unfortunately, didn’t help when trying to pass the card.

‘Taboo It’ was next on the agenda, which was a large recreation of the traditional game. One person tried to get you to guess a word without using certain ‘taboo’ words stated on the card and the object of the game was to guess as many as possible in the time provided.

Then there was ‘Shake It’; how many handshakes can you do in one minute? A line was formed and we sought to figure out the answer to just that. The lucky person at the front of the queue had to shake everyone’s hand quickly before moving on to the next.

‘Sock It’ was a game to see how many socks could be placed on one foot in a minute. ‘Make It’ was a really fun game where teams were given a random selection of objects and asked to make something surrounding a specific theme. This year’s theme, as it is December, was Christmas!

‘Flaunt It’ was the final challenge for the volunteers to strut their stuff and pose in their fancy dress costumes. There were mimes, pyjamas, footballers ,walking newspapers and famous book characters posing and prancing all over the room.

At the end of the day one winner had to be announced and that

winner was the Blue Team. However, everyone who took part contributed towards the ultimate goal; we all got sponsored and raised some money for Hallam Volunteering. Special congratulations to Emma James and the Fundraising team for the success of the evening!

Language Exchange - by Mark Copping

My experience of learning a foreign language hasn't been good up to this point. I'm still quite traumatized by old French teachers at school, barking at me for the correct pronunciation. Not to mention my German teacher, who wouldn't let you go to the toilet unless you asked her in German (Kann ich zur Toilette bitte gehen?). So when I was asked to go along to the second 'Language Exchange' event of the academic year, I was a little sceptical.

The event, which is ran entirely by volunteers, gathers international and multi-lingual members of the Sheffield community for a social evening in the Hubs. As someone who can't speak any foreign languages I thought that I would be lost in translation going to this event. However, what I found was a welcoming environment where I met a wide variety of people from different backgrounds and cultures. The event is designed for those who love language to either brush up their language skills or learn a whole new language. It’s a kind of ‘swap shop’ for languages so to speak.

It's a very direct and social way of learning simply by talking to people who speak a different language. You're given the perfect opportunity to ask questions about something you want to learn and if you're already fluent you can just have a general chit chat in another language.

If you’re interested in foreign languages it’s definitely the event for you, if travel broadens the mind then so does meeting people from all around the world.