Natalie

Rank Aspire Residential

by

In February, our pilot group of Rank Aspire Programme (RAP) members made their way up to the Lake District to embark on group activities and tackling the Via Ferrater. Despite some challenging weather, the group completed the challenge, bonded with their fellow Aspire members and attended sessions on personal and professional development.

One of the attendees, Erin, has given us an account of her time on the residential:

“It was exciting to see all of the other people on the programme and catching up as we all came through from the train station. We then headed towards the centre which was beautiful! I had never been to the Lake District before and the views were really spectacular. We all eventually arrived at the centre and got started on activities and catching up with everyone’s journey through the programme. I was really happy to hear how everyone is excelling in their placements.

We covered a few different activities such as an Imposter Syndrome workshop which several of us felt we could identify with (and learned a lot from), how to overcome it, and recognise our achievements as being hard-earned – not simply luck. Another issue we identified is that most of us struggled with accepting compliments and the activity showed us how to accept compliments from others, which was really nice.

We were all given the opportunity to do the Via Ferrata, which is probably one of the scariest things I have ever done. It involved essentially clinging to the side of a mountain by a small hook. I am glad to say I have done it but it was terrifying!

The last day we woke up to so much snow which was beautiful to look at but left us unsure of how we were all getting home. After the minibus was cancelled, we were all put into cars and were all set to go home. However, the snow made it very difficult and left car wheels spinning but not moving. We weren’t sure whether it was a last minute team building activity but we all teamed together to push cars up snowy hills. It was a lovely residential and I look forward to seeing everyone again!” – Erin, Rank Aspire @ Brook.

Time to Shine Launch 2018

by

In January, The Rank Foundation hosted three residential sessions for the new Time to Shine interns and their managers at the Midland Hotel, Morecambe. There were a number of close-calls with the weather forecast (plenty of snow and rain due!), but everyone arrived safely and appeared to enjoy the residential.

This year, the Time to Shine internship programme has been co-funded by Big Lottery, Garfield Weston Foundation and Jack Petchey Foundation, so the groups were split accordingly to facilitate for this.

We had arranged a tight schedule, packing in lots of activities and sessions for the interns and their managers to participate in together and also separately. This included film making with Vivid Echo for the interns (you can watch these videos below), Nordic Walking with Matt Gibbs for the managers, ‘Four Seasons’ profiling with Steve O’Smotherly from ‘Now that’s Different’ for all, and some group-introduction work for the interns and their managers to get to know each other, and get to know us at The Rank Foundation.

We were genuinely impressed at the enthusiasm, vigour and proactive nature of all of the interns, and we are excited to see what they will achieve over the next year.

HEY100 Leadership Programme Launch

by

The HEY100 Leadership Programme, a free leadership and management development series, open to managers, community leaders, trustees and CEOs in Hull and East Yorkshire, was launched on the 26th of January.

Funded by Big Lottery and The Rank Foundation, this unique programme aims to cultivate leadership excellence to further strengthen the region’s voluntary, social and cultural sectors. Dawn Austwick, the CEO, of Big Lottery gave the key note address.  Jamie Peacock MBE, Head of Rugby at Hull Kingston Rovers; Helen Bissett, MD at Yorkshire-based communications agency H&H; David Sanderson MBE DL, Chief Executive Officer, The Rank Foundation; and JJ Tatten, Manager at the Warren Youth Project in Hull, were guest speakers, each giving a unique insight into management across their respective fields. Over 200 people attended the launch, hosted by the Double Tree Hilton hotel in Hull.

For more information, please visit https://www.hey100.org.uk/ .

Time to Shine Residential – Windermere

by

The 2017 Time to Shine Interns are now 6 months into their internships at their organisations, so The Rank Foundation run a ‘halfway point’ residential to check in with the interns and their managers.

The residential was held at the very beautiful Low Wood Bay Hotel in Windermere, and three groups of interns and their managers visited for 24 hours over 3 days. Activities included film making with our good friends Vivid Echo (videos to follow on RankNet), preparing for the showcase at the Blackpool Conference in October, Mindful Leadership with Dr Jan Goss and pottery with Crafty Monkeys.

The weather was unfortunately not kind to us, so most of the activities were restricted to inside, but the groups appeared to have a good time engaging with the activities and getting to know each other a little more.

We would like to thank the interns and their managers for traveling the long journey, and engaging so well in the activities.

Group 1:

Ciaran Rooney (I) & Joe McNeill (M) – Ardoyne Youth Club

Niall O’Neill (I) & Billy Boyd (M) – BCSDN

Laura Cloughley (I) & Andrew McCreery (M) – Community Intercultural Programme

Jamie Gargan (I) & Catriona Clifford (M) – Extern Northern Ireland

Maxi Panayi (I) & Louisa Searle (M) – First Give

Jenny Geddis (I) & Sandara Kelso-Robb – Giving NI

Meghan Gilleece (I) & Martin Reid – GROW

Alex Dukes (I) & Sunil Birdy (M) – PACE Charitable Trust

Kerri-Ann Hughes (I) & Jude McCann (M) – Rural Support Services

David Thomas (I) & Sandeep Shah (M) – The Jack Petchey Foundation

Luke Billingham (I) & Jon McIntosh (M) – The Reach Foundation

Darren Smith (I) & Jillian Miskelly (M) – VOYPIC

Jack Bibb (I) & Caroline Redpath (M) – YouthAction NI

Group 2

Rebecca Thompson (I) & Matthew Powell (M) – Breaking Barriers

Rhiannon Griffiths (I) & Jeane Lowe (M) – Centre 63

Lloyd Newman (I) & Caroline Burkie (M) – Embercombe

James Rymer (I) & Terry Radcliffe (M) – Hop, Skip and Jump

Ruby Thorogood (I) & Clare Thomas (M) – Hope Support Services

Charlotte Young (I) & Steve Lennon (M) – Ocean Youth Trust

Elona Jetullahu (I) & Chris Wigmore (M) – Soft Touch Arts

Anna Newsum (I) & Victoria Costello (M) – Speakers Trust

Lloyd Marime (I) & Jenny Antrobus (M) – Spectrum Days

Alex Marshall (I) & Lydia Hodgins (M) – Student Hubs

Lizzie Dalley (I) & Rachael McCrea (M) – Venture Trust

Sam Whyte (I) & Liam Clark (M) – Vikings Sports Foundation

Group 3

Ethan Dalziel (I) & Carina Mitchell (M) – Advocating Together

Chloe Yates (I) & Michelle MacKay (M) – Bauer Media

Gregor Aitken (I) & Clare Heaton (M) – Cash for Kids

Norrie Miller (I) & Damon Herd (M) – Dundee Comics

Max Chase (I) & Nick Parr (M) – Dundee Rep & Scottish Dance Theatre

Badar Khan (I) & Brigitta Lazslo (M) – HANA

Katie Young (I) & Dave Rawding (M) – Rank Representatives for Hull

Jodie McAlpin (I) & Mike Thompson (M) – HYST

Jasmine Wood (I) & Jan Garril (M) – Two Ridings Community Forum

Nikolaos Xypolitis (I) & Lesley Caldwell (M) – Volunteer Centre Dundee 

Gillian Kelly (I) & David Dorward (M) – Rank Representatives in Dundee

Charity of the Month – March

by

Hull Youth Support Trust

Who are Hull Youth Support Trust?

The Hull Youth Support Trust HYST is a charity set up to support young aspiring business people in Hull and the surrounding areas. HYST is dedicated to supporting young people who aspire to set up their own ventures. They provide young entrepreneurs (aged 18-30) with heavily subsidised office space at their new site situated at 161 High Street, Hull. This will help their clients businesses grow and develop in the future.

Over the past year, The Rank Foundation have supported HYST under the Foundation’s Hull Community Development Project, and supported the charity with a number of Time to Shine interns. Kai Wooder, Director of Enterprise at The Rank Foundation, said  “Whilst we knew there was a definite history and energy for enterprise in Hull and a role for the successful HYST model, we couldn’t have predicated this level of success in such a short space of time. Mike and the team have transformed the building, not just the decor (although it looks fantastic) but mainly in terms of atmosphere and culture; it’s now a vibrant, positive and collaborative space – everything you’d want for young entrepreneurs in a progressive city.”

HYST’s Project

HYST are looking to work with young people who have been; unemployed, under-employed, disadvantaged in some way or totally new to the world of business. They enable every young person to take responsibility for their own future and are willing to consider anyone with the drive and determination to run their own business. They foresee a whole generation of young start-up businesses going on to further develop their ventures, creating more jobs and contributing to the local community. Once young business owners secure office space at OneSixOne HYST offer support and guidance which continues throughout their tenure. This gives them the opportunity to become commercially viable and allows the next generation of budding young entrepreneurs to start their journey with HYST.

Contact details

If you would like to find out more information about HYST, you can contact their Business Manager Mike Thompson at mike@hyst.org.uk.