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.

The Hubs as Santa's Grotto!

Hallam Volunteering’s Children’s Christmas Party got underway on the 14^th December with great success. The upstairs pods were transformed into a twinkling Christmas grotto, full of activity and smiling faces. It is hard to believe how a few decorations transformed a night time hotspot into a festive haven for select schoolchildren from the Sheffield area. The bedazzled stairway resembled a gateway to a mythical wonderland that led the children to an evening full of fun, frolicks and food.

The evening began with a quick bite to eat, as all fun-filled evenings should, and then it didn’t take long until the kids were tearing around the pods, making the most of all the fun activities the Volunteering team had laid out for them. Everything was so organised that it was difficult not to feel like a spare-part but I was definitely starting to get the Christmas bug watching the kids split up for their different activities. From the piped-in Christmas music to the twinkling fairy-lights, it would have been enough to melt even Scrooge’s icy heart.

In each pod there were a number of different activities to occupy the children; face-painting, letter-writing, cookie-dressing, pin-the-nose-on-Rudolph, pin-the-bauble-on-the-Christmas-tree, and Santa’s grotto were some of the more sobering activities, but the one that got the excitement flowing had to be the bouncy castle. Against the backdrop of a private screening of Santa Claus: the Movie, this had to be the favourite of the night. After all, bouncy castles are perfect for letting off all that steam after a long day at school.

There was even something for the accompanying toddlers, in the shape of an inflatable ball pool. When they weren’t pottering about the pods on newly-found feet, they were having a whale of a time wading about in the ball pool while the grown-ups looked on with a relaxing cup of coffee close at hand. The Christmas Party definitely had everyone in mind, and not just the visitors. Volunteering Executive, Kate Healey was more than happy to throw herself into the fun and games in her fluffy red hat with blonde woolly pigtails.

Overall it was a lovely experience that the children seemed to thoroughly enjoy, and it was difficult not to keep a smile on your face when seeing them so happy. Job done I’d say! Congratulations to Ellie Greening, Emily Wood and the fantastic Children’s Christmas Party team! You should all be extremely proud of yourselves!