Issue one. July/August 2007

Welcome to the fabulous first ever edition of KEY ISSUES, the quarterly newsletter from Keyfund!

KEY ISSUES will keep you up to date with what’s happening at Keyfund, we’ll air your views and we’ll share ideas and stories about how Keyfund is being used out there.

We've freshened up our brand too and hope you like it.  

We’ll also let you know about other events and opportunities.

Thank you for reading.

Hannah
Chief Executive

Super Celebration Event 2007

We’re currently planning a brilliant celebration event to showcase some of the excellent work young people do with the support of Keyfund. 

Everyone's invited!
We’ll be inviting a wide range of people including our lovely facilitators (of course) as well as current funders, potential new funders, local businesses and organisation's and local authority representatives who work with young people. Your invites should be arriving soon, so keep an eye out.

Where and when
We've decided to hold the event at Durham County Cricket Club on September 6th 2007.

We will be asking for examples of good projects to demonstrate the work carried out by young people, so please give some thought to projects you’ve run. If you think any of your young people might like to take part, give us a call.  

Marvellous Keyfund Case Study 01

Group name: Munchkins United
Facilitator: Anita Burns
Group Location: Deckham, Gateshead UK
Stage: 4
Date: 15/02/07
Project: The group want to write a booklet of the History of Deckham.

What they did: For their presentation to the panel they all dressed up in period clothing, they sang some of the songs they have been rehearsing at their band nights, then sang the age old song, ‘At the Blaydon Races’.

The panel all had to sing along too!

They plan to invite all the older people from the identified areas to come along to a party at the Community Centre. They will ask the older people to talk about their experiences & memories of growing up in Deckham, which will help them in their final project.

They have budgeted for the party as well as a digital camera, mini disc & microphones so they can record all of their conversations and interviews and then design the booklet on the computer! 

Here are some of the comments from the people on the panel: 
Confidence has grown a lot between group members. They demonstrated shared responsibility and good organisational skills.

They have developed excellent presentation skills as this is the 4th time they have had to do a presentation on this project.

By the end of the project they will have developed their writing and interviewing skills and developed a better understanding of the older generation, whilst getting to meet some really interesting people.

Through doing this they will bridge the gap between young and old which in turn will benefit the community.

All in all it was a great and creative event.

Well done to the Munchkins United!!   

Show me the money...

You can now get more pounds for your projects!

After talking to lots of our members it was clear that everyone wanted to be able to access more money at each of the Keyfund stages.

Especially at stage 1. £100 just wasn’t enough anymore.

So here are the new amounts (active from May 2007):

• Stage 1 – up to £250
• Stage 2 – up to £500
• Stage 3 – up to £1000
• Stage 4 – up to £2000
  

Look out! The intranet is coming...

As a part of our marketing strategy we are redesigning our website for young people and developing an “intranet” site for Keyfund facilitators and staff only.

What's an intranet?!
An intranet is basically a website which lives in the Internet and is accessible by only a select few, you guys!

A good intranet helps us all to work better by securely storing forms, promotional materials and other important paperwork.

But the intranet will also contain things such as team zones, events diary and a resource library.  It will have links to other websites and performance information too.

So where will the young people find out about Keyfund online?
It's just too exciting! Young people will have their very own online home of keyfund to visit - KEYFUND WORLD!

www.keyfundworld.com will launch late in 2007.

Little snippets, facts and 'did you knows'. Here goes...

• We have just secured money from the Young Peoples Fund to pay for a HUGE youth-led, regional celebration event. We also have funding to contribute towards facilitators’ time, two planning residentials and to buy each young person a PAYG mobile phone. If you think you have a small group of young people, who would be interested in taking part in organising a massive party, just contact the office.

• Although Keyfund doesn’t pay for facilitators’ salaries or time, the young peoples’ project costings can include the costs of the facilitator or other key workers’ participation in the project such as food, entrance fees, train tickets etc. Now then - I bet you didn't know that!
  
  
• We are planning to hold a small event for facilitators in each of your areas, if you have any ideas about what you'd like to do, we'd love to hear from you.

• We're on the move! From the 1st August we'll be in an exciting new office above the Cluny in Newcastle. We hope you'll come and visit us. Our new address will be: 36 Lime Street, Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle, NE1 2PQ