My volunteering challenge - #300by280214

In January, as a New Year's resolution, given my continued volunteering with Shout Out UK, Backbench UK and Team V, I decided to set myself a challenge. That challenge was to get to 300 volunteering hours by the end of January, however, by late January, I realised that this was a bit unrealistic. The fact is, I am only at 259 now. Despite this, I have not given up and set myself another challenge to do the same by the end of February, hence the #300by280214 hashtag.

Despite this being something that I have set for myself, rather than being set it by Vinspired or anyone else, I think it will no doubt keep me busy over the next few weeks. With volunteering for Backbench, ShoutOut and Team V continueing and Youth Council and Barnardos hours, I think I shoule esily be up to 264 by the end of the week and who knows after that.

If you would like to follow my challenge, please keep checking back on my blog. I will either put a counter at the side of my blog or will keep updating you in posts like this one. As much as it still might be a bit mad, I hate being bored. Volunteering gives me the satisfaction that I can have a voice and voice young peoples views on issues that matter to them. It also keeps me reasonably busy but in a constructive way.

Having held my event yesterday and given that I have an exam next Tuesday. I will be slightly holding back on doing the challenge until then, however, you never know, I may end up with more than 300 by the end of February. It's certainally going to be interesting, however, I'm up for the challenge and I hope that you will keep track of my progress.

The importance of volunteering is being a key issue in the world of jobs, meaning that anyone with substantial volunteering hours is at an advantage. As much as they will be useful in this area when I eventually get a job, it's not the main reason I do volunteering. The main reasons I do voluntering are to have fun and to give back to causes that I think are worthy, even if that does mean that it benefits me as well. An example of this would be with my writing for Backbench and ShoutOut UK, building up a portfolio in something that I want to eventually go into. Despite that, I find it fun and i'm sure it benefits the other side as well.

Despite my challenge, I still have to give priority to college work, which I am grateful that everyone i volunteer for understands. In December 2013, I got that balance wrong and went into overload in terms of the work and time I had. I burnt myself out and I don't want to do that again. Luckily, using what I learnt from that, I should manage to do my challenge without this happening.

Overall, it will be a challenge but I think that I can rise to it and I will be sure to let you know how it goes. I currently have to get another 40.5 hours to reach my target. That's about an hour and a bit each day. Unfortunately, I can't work out what it is down to the minute without spending ages calculating it myself. Search enginges only seem to give it in a long number. Oh well. Wish me luck and keep checking back for my progress. Team V Out!

Love is - Pop-up stall day

So, today was the day. Having spent a few weeks planning, I finally took the opportunity to do my pop-up event for "Love is...", the second Team V campaign, in Darlington College Health Week. Being alongside many great organisations in the same place was a great thing, however, to top it all off, I got quite a lot of interest. As much as we didn't quite meet the targets for engaging 30 young people, there was plenty of interest and we had quite a lot of fun. Plus, Danielle, one of the Team V mentors who came to help me at my event, said that the targets that are based on the effort, I would have passed.

The actual event, despite being in competition with some other organisations, went well. If we didn't get people taking part in the activity on the stall, I saw many of the people who I handed leaflets to doing the activity within the leaflet. It was, however, disappointing that some people saw the issue of healthy relationships as something to laugh about. It seems that many seem to think that it is all about the sexual health aspect, not the emotional part that is really important.

Overall, it was fun and we got a lot of interesting answers. The great thing is that many people said that it had a lasting impact. Whether that be that they would think about the issue more or talking to friends about it, it's all good. It was also good to do with with my volunteer, given it may have been a bit boring with her. 

You are probably wondering what I am going to do for the remainder of the campaign, however, I will be promoting the issue in social media and writing about it wherever possible.Keep a look out for them and I will try to post the links on here. Hope you enjoyed my log of my Team V Journey and check back for further posts soon. Team V Out!

13 hours and counting - Team V Residential 2

So, it's that time again. I'm all packed (almost) and I am looking forward to finding out what Campaign 2 is (the suspense is killing me!). Not quite. After a fairly successful campaign 1, I am looking forward to getting stuck into campaign 2 (almost volunteerless). The challenge with this campaign will be balancing college, exams and other volunteering with Team V. I know that it is possible but I'm still working out how. I need to get rid of a big fat fail in my college work (and no, for a change, I'm not talking about a student or tutor). The thing is, it's in games production and I'm creating a Team V themed game.

The main concern with this campaign is the news that is it only 5 weeks long. I know it's to test our organisational skills but it's more likely to drive me mad. I'm sure it will be a challenge though. It will; also help with my own volunteering challenge, i.e. to get to 300 hours by the end of February. I'm mad to attempt it, I know, but it's something I am doing.

After going on about losing control of work and volunteering, I have weirdly found an app that allows me to manage it really well. I never thought I would be thanking an app but I find myself doing so now. If anything, I hope I don't come back and find myself falling asleep half way through my tea like last time. I was literally too tired to even feel hungry.

Oh well. I'm still working out how to get my volunteers but I already have an organisation in my area that are willing to help. I used to volunteer for them or another branch of their organisation and they have offered to lend me a hand. So, if you are reading, here's a shout out to C:The One Stop Shop and C:The Box.

For the second campaign, despite being in the middle of the area I did my first campaign in and the one I am changing to, I am changing my area to Darlington for the second campaign. Given it's only five weeks and I go to college and have more contacts there, it will be better to base myself in Darlo.

Finally, please wish me luck in my volunteering challenge. I am only sixty-four hours away from success. That's the equivalent of 2 days, 16 hours of volunteering. Anyway, I'm off for an early night before an early start tomorrow. See you all tomorrow, Team V. I'm looking forward to it.