Youthly Adventures: The CPP

Well hello there lovely readers!

Warning: Caithness dialect used!

So as promised, the theme of this post is my youthly do-gooding adventures. I have briefly mentioned being involved with the CPP (Community Partner's Programme) in a previous post so I'm going to talk about that a bit more, as well as some related stuff. This should be quite a trip down memory lane, and you will be pleased to know it includes some VERY, VERY embarrassing pictures!

To begin this story, let me take you to a lonely and rather windy corner of Northern Scotland, circa 2000. Having just been named one of the five poorest communities in the UK, Save the Children had set up camp in the dreich wee area of High Ormlie, in the most north-easterly part of this north-eastern expanse, to try and, well, save the children I imagine. On a Highland Buses bus carrying 30-odd primary school children back home to Ormlie, a boy says to a chubby red-haired girl: "Here, Nyomi, urr yoo comin' 'till 'at group 'hing ehmorro?" ["Naomi, are you coming to the new after school club run by Save The Children tomorrow evening?"], to which the girl, who has never heard of eh group hing and has no idea what eh boyagie is talking about, says, "Yeah. Obviously." 

Obviously I'm so in the loop and I know what you're on about. *flips hair like a teenager and continues to play with tamagotchi*

And that was it. Aged 10 I joined the CPP which initially was run from our school, and although the focus was on teaching us about our rights - did you know that the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child has been signed by all the countries in the world apart from the USA and Smarties Land? I mean Samurai Land? And did you know that according to Article 31 it is my right to be able to play here even though its bed time? - I do think part of the attraction of the groups was the large supply of Pringles and fruit juice, and the fact Anita didn't give us into trouble for mixing all the fruit juices together into brown sludge like teachers did.

Admittedly, my memories of these groups probably don't always focus on the important things they should, but then I was ten years old at the time! What I do remember is drawing myself on a desert island, along with the three most important things you should take with you (Linkin Park CDs, CD player, food), some random conversations about the acceptable things to take on a desert island (Ewwww why are you taking your girlfriend with you? What're you gonna do with a girlfriend on a desert island? She'll just eat all your food!!), and making a giant wooden jigsaw puzzle where every different jigsaw piece illustrated something we'd like to change about High Ormlie. Like dog poo. Or big black fences. Eventually, thanks to a community association that was gathering speed and strength, and, I'd like to think, at least a little bit thanks to our beautifully decorated dog poo jigsaw puzzle, the CPP managed to find a new home. We were no longer in the Community Education building in the school grounds, but in our very own community centre, bang in the heart of Ormlie. Annnnd, Prince Charles came to open the centre and I got to meet him, but I can't prove it because I can't find any photos of it on google. But it definitely happened because I wrote it in my scrap book that I met Prince Charles and he's famous. 

I remember making videos too, where we put cushions on our heads and pretended to be aliens. But that came later.

I actually couldn't even begin to list all the things I remember doing, there are thouuusaaannnds. I remember picking out play area equipment to put in the new Skate Park, and pointing out to the architect that he'd not put any lights in the park at all when this was Thurso we were talking about and it doesn't even get light half the year, doesn't he know?

I remember going to the AGM to talk about what the CPP had been up to and getting voted as Children and Young Person's Representative. I remember at the same AGM we sat in the same row as Charlotte who was a grown up and she farted and we all had to not laugh because Lorna was talking and this was a serious meeting.

I remember meeting a lady MSP, but I have no idea who she was or why she was there. She was very enthusiastic about whatever it was though.

I remember being very touched that Anita said we could come into her office whenever we wanted to. She always had really hard colouring books with swirly patterns in them, and a post card of somewhere in the Netherlands (?) with water and coloured buildings on her board, and she did a sort of line thing on her eyes with makeup that I'd never seen before, although, as you'll see from the pictures which are yet to ensue, eyeliner is something I'd become more familiar with in later years.

I remember planting flowers outside the community centre, and I was helping one of the younger kids and Anita told me I was good with children. For many years after that I wanted to be a teacher.

If Anita had work to do sometimes we'd go see James instead (same office), and edit videos or listen to the Pixies or ask him questions about what his nephews in Estrella were doing lately/that day/that second/did you know Luke from Estrella is Leah's guitar teacher and we can hear him coming before he gets there because he plays his guitar on the way to her house?

I remember Christine also helped lead the groups and she had big hair and rode a bike. She wasn't around for long but I bumped into her one day almost ten years later, just as I started Uni, and she still had her bike.

I remember interviewing for Christine's (or someone else's?) replacement, and I was on the interview panel. We interviewed one woman who wore a low cut top and spent most of the interview bent over exposing her breasticles, but Tanya was the best person we interviewed, and we all agreed so she got the job. 

I remember writing articles for The Ormlie Blah, and I remember someone knitted a little person (Ormlie) and a little dog (Blah) and they were in Lorna's room in the office.

I remember ordering a replacement cable for a camera from Lorna's computer and it arrived the very next morning.

I remember Anita and James left, and I vaguely remember a party, but I don't remember much else because I don't think I wanted to remember them leaving.

This is literally only about 5% of what I remember, and not even the important stuff. We were involved in the creation of the Community Centre and the Skate Park, the Home Zones, and National Play Day. When the 5 year CPP project came to an end and Save the Children left we went to the Edinburgh council chambers to some kind of grande finale. There were three young people there to represent Ormlie, and we spent about a week filming and editing a video to showcase everything we'd done only for it to break when we got there, and I had to stand up and give a presentation to a room full of councillors and community folk. I made it up off the top of my head, but it must have been ok because afterwards a woman approached me and told me I was a "wonderful public speaker," and I have remembered that ever since. One woman also told me I had fantastic shoes.

My "fantastic" shoes. I was about 15 and fully into my goth phase by then. I'm actually planning buying another pair of these though look how COOL they are!!

I remember making a video with a local video guru Gavin about a gas heater, and it won some kind of national film making award. 

I remember meeting all the other CPP groups in Carbisdale Castle which was haunted and we made videos about ghosts and we also moved all the beds in our room to the wrong place and told the other girls it was the ghosts. We had also planned a whole load of ghostly pranks to play on the other people and even bought a white ghost-lady dress from the Red Cross Shop. Then Neal wore it to try it on in Leah's garden, and then he put balloons down the dress like big boobies and he was walking about pretending to be a ghost lady and his mum saw him.

I really have to stop now because to be honest, the CPP and the friends I made from it were my life for about 5 or 6 years, so to describe all the things I remember would be to describe 5 or 6 years of my life! Suffice it to say that far from being the typical kid from a single parent family in a regeneration area, or "disadvantaged" as my high school teacher tried to write on my University application form, I had a whole boat load of opportunities and a family who supported me to the ends of the world and encouraged me to do better. From public speaking to video editing, to running AGMs, and knowing the process of finding funding for projects and the fact that you have to fill in a consent form for everything, even blowing up balloons (this time not for Neal's boobs), the things I learned from the CPP are quite phenomenal. And as I got older, what had started as a group that met once a week on a Thursday had grown into a group of "old hands" that met on a Thursday as well as two newer groups that met on a Wednesday (too many to fit into one group) and one for even newer kids that met on a Tuesday. And I was also able to start helping out with these younger groups, going full circle and giving them opportunities to learn all the things I'd learned.

There are so many more things I could talk about here, but I managed to find these pictures below, so hopefully they'll give some idea of all the things I missed out. If any of the old Ormlie folk are reading this and have any more pictures, I'd love to see them!

The CPP and some others as the Skate Park was being built

I won a competition to design some new "Welcome to Ormlie" signs and this was the finished product

One of many big clean up days, if you look closely you will spot my cat shoes!

In the House of Lords accepting an award the Ormlie Community Association had won

Me, the OCA Chairperson and a local councillor. I'm getting an Award but to my shame I'm not sure what its for!

Me (again) in Ackergill Tower accepting an Award for Outstanding Citizensip and Volunteering. I'm the one on the left.

So. That's my life! And the end of my second blog post in two days because I'm on a roll! As always, leave me comments and check my links for other ways to get in touch. Ormlie folks - leave me a comment of your CPP/Ormlie memories? <3


Over and out!
Naomi




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Voluntary Arts Ambassador Training

Well hello there lovely readers!
Heads up, this is a particularly long flibberty-gibbit from me :D

So you might remember some time ago I mentioned a secret I had that I couldn't tell anyone? A new volunteer project which could not be divulged? Well, now is the time to 'VULGE!

In November I had an interview with Voluntary Arts Scotland (from now on known under the cunning guise of VA Scotland) to be a Voluntary Arts Ambassador, and I was successful. The whole thing was to be unconfirmed until I did my training, and that happened last week in the lovely wee town of Larbert in Falkirk.

VA Scotland is an organisation which aims to promote participation in voluntary arts and crafts as well as support existing groups to develop and expand. They also work hard to generate respect for and recognition of the important and valuable contribution voluntary arts groups make. As a Voluntary Arts Ambassador my role will be to make links with voluntary arts groups in Aberdeen and find out what they are doing, what they aim for and how I can help. I can sign-post groups to VA resources such as Running Your Group, I am available for individuals to get in touch and find or discuss opportunities, and I am also working to build up a relationship with voluntary agencies where I want to represent the voice of local voluntary arts and crafts.

There was quite a gap between my interview in November and the training in March, and that together with the fact that this last few months has been such a whirlwind - final year at uni (ONLY 51 DAYS LEFT!), researching and developing the Skirts & Tales project, being involved in the Dance and Celtic Societies, and more recently applying for jobs and internships - meant that I'd not had much chance to get excited about being a VAA. BOOM new story now! Meeting all the other VAAs and getting more idea of what we'd be doing and how to go about it has got me uber excited!

I left a pretty miserable Deen-land at about 2.30 on Thursday on a west-bound train. I should point out I'm notoriously terrible at directions and travelling, and, true to form, at 2.31 when the conductor read out the list of train stops and Larbert wasn't one of them I heaved a giant sigh of "really, again?"-ness that came all the way from my feet to my gob. All was cleared up though when I asked the conductor wifee why my stop wasn't available, and she revealed to me there was a change-over at Stirling. Well, actually, she gave me a look that said "how can you not already know this?", and THEN she told me there was a change-over at Stirling. I'm well used to that look though.

So anyway, fast forward and I made it all the way to Larbert without any further blips at about 5pm, where I was met by Carol and Gillian from VA Scotland and they helped me back to Carronvale House. After dumping my bag in my room I headed downstairs to meet the rest of the VAA team and get a cuppa, and we had a half hour or so of getting to know each other before dinner. I got to sit at the cool table for the first time ever and got some hot tips from Social Media expert Fin Wycherley, and then we filtered back to the lounge area for some more of Fin's wisdom in the form of our Social Media training. I have to say I was impressed! As someone who spends a shameful amount of time on Facebook I still learned a lot from Fin's presentation, and I've been managing to drop little nuggets of internet wisdom here and there to my friends and now they think I'm all techno and with it. Innit blud?

After Fin's excellent talk we had a fantastic little pub quiz, at which I managed to fail all questions relating to Scotland but know all the Scandinavian ones (little Swedish fan girl...), and I use the word "fantastic" because MY TEAM WON, WOO! 13 out of 18 and a clear victory. And we won chocolates, although I'd made my way through quite a few quality streets and a 2 course meal prior to that so it was something of a bittersweet victory. There was also wine on the go by this point too, and knowing my unpredictable reaction to alcohol (sometimes I can drink 25 jagerbombs and still manage to spell brobdingnagian, and other times I'll have half a glass of wine with lunch and still be drunk 2 days later) (I have never actually drank 25 jagerbombs), I decided to have a small glass of rose, just to be sociable. I failed in my attempt to keep it minimal though, when the "tiny bit" left in the bottle I chose turned out to be quite a lot, and I ended up wandering about with a glass so big the ladies from Ab Fab would have been proud of it. By this time the evening had taken a more casual turn, and people began to head to bed or continued to mingle, and I met three excellent VAAs in Nigel, Rosa and Brian - although by the time One Direction came on the radio I decided it was bed time.

See? Same hair and everything!

The next day was the main bulk of the training. We started with an introduction to VA Scotland and to being a Voluntary Arts Ambassador, which I have tried to re-cap for you above, and then there was an introduction to TSIs and Community Planning. This is where I started to be able to tease out the real nitty gritty of the job. I'm going to call it a job because pretending I have a job makes me feel better, ok? This was a great grounding in the voluntary sector, which, in case you didn't know, is where I want to be!! We got a little background on TSIs and how they were formed from various Volunteer Centres, CVSs and Social Enterprise Networks within a region, and also heard a bit about the resources, training, meeting rooms, opportunities and support TSIs provide. I already had some experience of my own TSI, ACVO, having approached them about the Saltire Award for Volunteering as well as using their phone to do the VAA interview. I always come out of the ACVO office feeling encouraged and armed with the information I went in for, and the staff are chatty and welcoming, so I feel much more confident about working with them in my role as VAA. Coincidentally, as a little side note, the hours I spent doing the VAA training actually took me up to a spookily accurate 200 hours on my Saltire Award, so I have applied for that and will hopefully have the certificate soon! Now I just need to reach 500 before I'm 25 and I'll have the full set...

The Community Planning introduction was useful too. When I was in high school I was really closely involved in an after school community group called the Community Partner's Programme, so to me, that's what CPP is. Its going to take me a while to get used to Community Planning Partnership, especially when they're so close! I'm going to do a blog on the CPP (my CPP) sometime soon actually - I've been applying for jobs these last few weeks and I'm discovering that even after four or five years, the skills and knowledge I learned from those groups is still proving to be invaluable. Its also helped me see how closely ingrained on my soul community issues are - the CPP and certain wonderful people I met through it have actually made and continue to make a phenomenal impact on my life. Its funny that it took me so long to work out what I should do with my life when now it seems inevitable that I'd end up in Community Education of some form or other. I guess it was all part of the process though! So, to return to CPP of a similar but different variety, the training highlighted how this works in relation to our roles - we heard about network forums and how TSIs have a seat in these. The aim of a VAA is to be also invited to the forums, so we can represent the voluntary arts sector and also help the real CPP people recognise how voluntary arts helps them to achieve their Single Outcomes.

 ...I really hope I said all that right, or I'm going to sound like a right booby.

I should really thank my friend for sending me this photo. He was being facetious but actually its very useful!

So I came away from these introductions with several pages of notes, musings, do-to's and explanations of anagrams - HUNDREDS of anagrams! CPP, SCVO, TSIs, VOCAL, if I remember them all it'll be a miracle! I keep re-reading my notes and every time I do I find something new to remember. We then had a quick lunch break of some lemon meringue pie...I think there was some real food in there too but I only remember there definitely being pie, and then we spent the afternoon preparing a little presentation. We were to imagine being at a network forum meeting and having 2 minutes to explain our role and why we were there. Two minutes is not long!! I made a little re-cap video of our project for the Skirts & Tales team yesterday - all I had to do was give a brief summary of what has happened over the last couple of weeks and delegate some tasks to be done over the next fortnight, and it came to eleven minutes! So to sum everything up in two was a challenge. I didn't manage either, I was cut short by Gillian and a giant knitted letter 'S'. Art folks.

And that was pretty much it for the VAA training! We had a few more minutes to ask questions, and then we signed contracts and came up with our 3 'next steps,' which I've not been able to finish properly because of essays. I'm fairly sure essay writing creates a giant black hole in the atmosphere into which all time is sucked and vanishes forever. But that might not be scientifically accurate.

Just FYI I was actually trying not to make any bad space jokes this time round! Sorry.

And on that intergalactic note, I shall stop talking. As usual LEAVE ME A COMMENT, I love to read them, and get in touch via google+ or twitter @NaomiBegg1.

Over and out,
Love to everyone!
Naomi 

Skirts & Tales

Well hello there lovely readers!

This is a very special post, through which I would like to take the opportunity to introduce you all to the Skirts & Tales project! This is the title of the latest venture from Team Cultivate. Its where we'll take all the learning we've been doing over the last year, working on the port parade and creative communities, and we'll use it all to create our own project.

We've already been working on this for several months, brainstorming, researching, trying things out, running up against brick walls, starting again...! But we're finally able to present the project in what will hopefully stay as its final format...hopefully...

Its been quite a tough journey to get the project to this stage. Even though we're a pretty small group of five or six, we had a thousand million different ideas and suggestions and tying them all together was quite a challenge! We've also found it difficult to arrange times when we're all available to meet, and this became even more of an issue when we had to start thinking about what groups we'd like to work with and when we'd all be available to meet with them. We wanted to involve new people as a way of expanding on last year's project, where we created big horses and performed with them in the parade. This year, we wanted to involve other groups and get them making and performing in the final parade, and we would be leading, supporting and sharing our skills. We spent many a morning in various Aberdonian cafe's and community centres scratching our heads and trying to sort ourselves out, and to be honest, for a while it was looking like we were going to have to compromise on the aims of the project by remaining just the six of us. However, purely by chance we had a meeting on Friday with a couple of new faces (well, more old faces we haven't seen for a while), and with a new perspective on things we were finally able to come up with a solution. We had to think outside the box - literally! Because most of the group is either working, studying or raising a young family, being available after school and at weekends to work with kids was pretty much impossible. We had to look into places where young people would not usually be. We're now in the process of arranging meetings and partnerships to allow us to do this, and as soon as I know more you will ;)

The Port Parade 2012

I'm so glad the project is finally taking off. It's been really good fun developing our ideas, but turning ideas into reality has been a bit more of a struggle! I think we're now finally at the stage where we can start really making things happen, and we met yesterday to start working on learning how to build costumes.

I am always seriously impressed by the crafty skills of this group, and yesterday was no exception. As far as the group goes, my thing is writing, organising people, trying to make sure the team functions as a team - my creative skills are not on a level with the art students/graduates who make up the rest of the team. I muck in - yesterday I was "the stripper" cutting wire ties and strips of cloth, and I painted some masks and acted as a dummy while the guys built the dress around me. But I'm not always very sure what I'm doing, although I am learning more and more artsy skills and trying out different things, thanks to being in such a creative environment. I have a list of about a million things I want to have a bash at some time soon, and for the first time I'm feeling like I might actually be successful at trying them rather than ending up with something that looks like a potato!

I think Skirts & Tales will end up being many things to many people. I'm looking forward to building on my creative skills as well as learning about project management and promotion. I think just being involved in a project with friends as well as meeting new people and making a bit of a difference is something that means a lot to most people in the team. I also really hope that the new groups we involve will be able to get something out of it too - our main, overarching aim is to connect with different people and hopefully allow them to learn something new.

I hope I'm getting across something of how excited the team are about Skirts & Tales! From the research we've done and the skills I know the team has there is the possibility to create something really beautiful for the parade. Its also going to mean a lot of learning for us as individuals as well as a unit, and as I said, hopefully for the participants too. I'll be documenting my experiences of the venture here, and the Skirts & Tales blog will give a collective view.

So as far as this project goes, that's all for now! I'm off to do some training on Thursday and Friday so no doubt there'll be another post not too long after that. That one should contain an exciting announcement too so make sure you keep an eye out for it!

I'll leave you will a group shot from yesterday's session:

The Skirts & Tales Team

As usual, please leave me a comment! Feel free to give me a follow on twitter @NaomiBegg1 too for more hilarious insights, and/or check the links on the right and my about.me for other ways to get in touch :) 


Over and out!
Love to everyone!
Naomi