A few weeks to get everything done - do you think I can do it?

So, with only a few weeks left of college and 8 pieces of coursework to get up to Merit standard, as well as trying to organised an event for Team V for the 15th May, it's going a bit mad here. As much as I like volunteering, I am going to have to spend almost every waking hour working on it and assignments for college over the next few weeks. Okay, this is a bit of an exaggeration but you get what I mean. I, to be quite honest, cannot wait until I finish. It means two months break in which I can do whatever I like (within reason) and that will be great.

So, I guess you want to hear an update. Well, I realized that on my blog, my biggest readership is actually in America. Come on Brits, you're letting the side down. I now have an idea and most of the materials for my event, however, given that my preferred venue that said they would be happy to hold it have not got back to me, I think I might have to default to my usual venue; Darlington College. I might have to just plead with them on Monday.

If I can nail the event and get that over with, I'll be  more relaxed. Mostly because I can then focus purely on my college work. Aside from this, thank you to all the people and organisations that have been supporting me on Twitter with volunteering and although it's a tool and not a person, if Buffer, the platform that is used to keep twitter up to date, was human, I would be thanking it right now. I love how I can just set a load of tweets and leave it to get on with it while I get on with my college work (or relax).

One thing that doesn't help is the confusing messages that I get from college, one time telling me work has to be finished in two weeks and then other tutors telling me four weeks. I accept that it might not be the same in every unit, however, lets just say the scare tactics are working. Tomorrow, I think, should be a day for concentrating on improving assignments.

I know my blog post isn't putting Team v or college in a very good light, however, they are both great things to do, even if for different reasons. I am, in a way, going to miss Team v but I'm going onto a level 3 course next year and it's going to be a lot of work. I need to concentrate on that. On the other hand, as one of my fellow leaders once said, "I didn't choose the Team v Life. The Team v Life chose me".

Finally, I would just like to give a big shout out to a project that is being run by a fellow Team v Leader, Chandos Green, #IFightFor . The project is to challenge the young people of the UK to accumulate 1 million volunteering hours, however, I can't see when from or to and how it's all recorded. If anyone knows anymore, please let me know. Overall, despite this last campaign being a challenge, I don't regret doing it at all. Team v has been a a great experience and I wouldn't change it for the world. I will keep up to date with my campaign locally but for now, Team V Out!

60 hours in 2 weeks - complete (almost)

Having had two weeks to volunteer, I have now reached 59 hours of volunteering and by the time I get to the end of this post and put it on Twitter, it should be 59 and a half. I accept that sometimes it's hard to find what to volunteer for to get the hours up (especially around Easter) but I've managed to do it by writing for Backbench UK, ShoutOut UK, the 99% campaign blog, doing Team V, writing on here, volunteering for Youth Council, Barnardos and Oxfam. Someone point any that I might have missed out. I know it looks mad setting myself all these volunteering challenges but I'm now on 372 hours overall, so they are worth it. It also saves me from sitting around at home, bored.

So, you are probably wondering what challenge I will set myself next. To be honest, I'm not sure myself, however, I will definitely let you know when I do. My next challenge is to try to get a confirmed venue and organisation to work with for Routes to Roots . I have a potential venue and an organisation that I'm waiting to here back from. So, I am getting there but I start a big project when I get back to college. It, hopefully, will all balance out in the end. I think my next challenge will just be to finish this Team v Campaign with a good result. I should be able to do it. I just need to get a move on.

I've currently, since the start of my Team v journey done around 99 hours of volunteering and no, I'm not setting myself the challenge to get to one-hundred. That's easy. Oh well. I'm getting there, even if it is slowly. I think my challenge is going to have to be to get to 400 hours in the next few months. I know that's not much of a challenge but more of a target.

Please keep a track of three hash-tags on Twitter, if you use it. #RoutestoRoots , #teamvgo and #TeamVDarlington as I hope to keep you all up to date with my Team v progress. At least I'm not loads behind. That was my worry.  

In a way, I'm going to miss Team v once I've finished but I'm also not going to. By this I mean that I'll miss working on a specific issue and with some amazing people but I'll also be grateful to have the time back to concentrate on college and other volunteering work. Team v hasn't taken priority over college but I think I could have spent more time on coursework.

I'm speaking about it as if Team v is over but it's not. It's just coming to an end and I'm looking forward to Graduation and any opportunities that might come with it. On the other hand, if I'm going to have as many weeks off as I did last summer, I might have to find some additional volunteering to do. It should be good. Anyway, I'm off and hope to get to the 60 target by the end of today. I will tweet once it's done.

Routes to Roots - Campaign Update 19/04/14

In the last few days, I have been progressing with the campaign and if I am correct, should soon have someone looking at my article for The Student Journals on the subject. I have so far got two stories, however, I have just been looking to confirm a venue for the event and a date. I am still waiting to here back from a possible partner organisation, however, I should get an email back within the next week or so. Unfortunately, as I found out the hard way, Darlington is very bad for organisations that deal with migration and equality. I am now looking at Plan B which is to partner up with the local university student union, Teesside, however, the rep that deals with equality there is still to reply to me.

The Venue

Well, the venue is proving harder to book than I thought. Not because it's not available but because the manager gave me an email address that bounces back and I think could be incorrect. I plan to follow this up next week, however, I could do with getting details firmed up pretty soon. The event is meant to be held in the week of the 5th May, however, I will just have to aim for then and see what happens.

So, I'm making progress, slowly. Once I get a date confirmed I have something to work around. It means I can start spreading the word and I can start putting the bits for the event in place.As much as I enjoy the volunteering, it is annoying when you can't do much until next week and have a very limited time to do a big event in.

College priorities
As much as I would like to make my priority my volunteering, this isn't currently possible as I have a "Final Digital Media Product" project starting for college as soon as I go back, as well as having to improve other bits of work. On the other hand, I plan to do my project on volunteering so they both kind of fit in with each other. I like volunteering and I like college but which one is better? FIGHT! Just joking. Of course, i have to prioritize studies. Overall, I am getting there, however, it's just taking a while.

60 hours in two weeks

With regards to my challenge of sixty hours of volunteering in two weeks, I am getting there, however, I'm kind of running out of things to do for my volunteering, aside from bits that I can't do until Tuesday. Plus, I don't really want to bombard my editors with articles like I have done in the past. I might do a long one for ShoutOut UK so I'm sharing the editing burden out equally. I'm just looking for a subject to write about though.

Overall, the volunteering challenge and everything else is going well, however, it's just going very slowly at the moment. As much as this sounds bad, I'm hoping to get Team v stuff out of the way so I can concentrate on this college project, however, it might be kind of impossible. Anyway, wish me #vgoodluck 

Yet another volunteering Challenge - although this one is almost complete

Having done volunteering challenges in the past, over the Easter Holidays I set myself the challenge of getting 20 hours in the first week, which I subsequently exceeded. I ended up getting 30 in the end and set myself the challenge to match this in the second week. Hence, it is actually a challenge to get 60 hours over two weeks. You will be glad to hear that I am currently on 52 hours and hope to get the remaining eight over the next few days. I think that it is important to set myself targets, however, from your point of view, some of them may be a bit mad to say the least.

The point of such challenges is so that at the end of the week, I can just say that I have done plenty of hours. It also gives me a volunteering journey to look back on, rather than just a list of when I did volunteering and how many hours. It's an achievement. It's also a way of keeping myself doing something, even if I have to look for something to do. As I have probably said in previous posts, I hate being bored so why not do volunteering or work when I can.

Okay, you might be thinking that I need some relax time, however, I get that at times when I need it and I am thankful to the wonderful Team V Mentors and Staff in helping me balance everything out. Nevertheless, I still like to not spend all day watching TV or on Facebook, unless there is something wrong. There's nothing constructive to take from it. If I'm going to do something, I always like to do something that will benefit me or my friends and that's why I do volunteering.

Despite this, there is an element of living up to other peoples records though. Compared to the Team V Mentors, my record of volunteering hours is a bit pathetic, however, this isn't what it's about. On the other hand, it is a record to try to live up to. Plus, I have been told that there is a new volunteering award coming for when you get to 500 volunteering hours so I'm hoping that by the time it comes, I might have almost reached it.

I'm currently on 366 hours overall and about 53 of those are since this time two weeks ago. It's quite weird to think that's humanly possible, according to my friends and family, however, it is. So there. Doing this now does actually mean that I only have about 7 hours to do over two days. It's not as bad as I first thought and if I was at Oxfam volunteering, I have done six and a half hours when I have been there over the holidays, so it's definitely possible.

In recent months, when I have been doing these sort of challenges, I keep hash-tagging my posts with #themadvolunteer because everyone thinks I perhaps am a bit crazy to try something like this, however, when you have two weeks off and lots of time to fill that would otherwise be spent on Facebook or watching Films and iPlayer, why not. So, I guess I'm not as mad as everyone thinks, however, I wouldn't say that I haven't doubted myself that I was going to reach it at times. On the other hand, I think it's best to just get on with it and see what happens.

The great thing about volunteering is that it keeps you doing something but for some strange reason, I keep getting minor cuts and bruises when I'm doing it. I don't mind but it just means doing things minus one finger for a bit. Anyway, it's nothing compared to the suffering that some of the people that Oxfam, the shop I volunteer in, help. It's all worth it in the end.

The volunteering I have been doing has kept me sufficiently busy and I have enjoyed it all. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I enjoy college, I will kind of miss doing full days at Oxfam. Not because they pay for your lunch but because it's so much more fun when you do it for longer. It's great to work with and have a laugh with all the volunteers and is just a really friendly environment to work in. Plus, you learn at the same time and as of Friday, I'll be able to get a qualification out of it (on the other hand, this is a bonus).

The great thing is that it's a good story to tell everyone when you get back from Easter Holidays. "So Robert, what did you do over the Easter Beak?"
Me: Well, I did 60 hours of volunteering, met up with a few friends and still managed to relax
Them: HOW?!?!?

This is of course a hypothetical conversation but that's how I imagined it would go (with a bit of exaggeration in there). Overall, this has been a bit of an adventure of two weeks, however, I have come out of it without being bored and with almost 60 hours of volunteering under my belt. What an experience and one that I will never forget (much).  

A bit about my volunteering with NYYC

I know I promised a post every night for a while, however, unfortunately, I have'n been able to keep up with that. I'm still posting though. For todays post, I am writing about the recent work that my other volunteering, North Yorkshire Youth Council have been doing. I have been involved with youth council on one form or another since 2011, however, in the last year or so, have had the opportunity to represent Flying High (see my previous post for this) on county level.

The North Yorkshire Youth Council is currently working on two campaigns, one which they have adopted from the Youth Parliament and the other which is a local issue. In that order, A Curriculum for Life and Ride Around for £1 are the two that we have been focusing on.

Ride Around For £1 (RA4£1)

Ride Around for £1 has been a scheme which has won a National Bus Award (Yes, they do actually exist) and has made transport cheaper for people up to the age of 19 in the county. Additionally, it has massively increased the number of young people using public transport in the area. The campaign, aside from the environmental benefits, i.e. that there are fewer cars on the road, the scheme has proved to be financially beneficial for both sides. While making transport cheaper, it has also been a benefit to the bus companies who are, in the long-term, making more money from a generation that may not otherwise use public transport.

The campaign, despite winning awards and being beneficially to both sides, although we have no proof of this, I believe has been a boost to the businesses in the towns and villages that many of the participating services go to. Additionally, for students who live or study in Darlington, the area I represent for Team V, it works there too. On the other hand, this is only on about two services. I suppose this is perhaps just something I'm saying because it massively benefits me, however, it is useful.

A Curriculum For Life (C4L)

Moving onto "A Curriculum for Life", we have been feeding into the work that is going on nationally to get engaging and substantial Health, Financial and Political Education for secondary school students. Although these topics are already being taught in many schools, the key word here is "engaging". At the moment, much of this education is purely theory based, however, the fact is that (with the exception of one topic) practical activities are needed to make it memorable and useful for the students in question. In this, we are making progress but slowly. Perhaps Michael Gove should take the example of what they do in America, actually taking people out to practice these skills in everyday situations.

Other things we are working on 

In recent months, the youth council has learnt of cuts to the Children & Young Peoples Services budget that will effectively mean the destruction of the youth service in North Yorkshire. Although these are not yet confirmed, it is likely to mean the closure of almost every youth club in the county. This is a massive loss for the young people and I am glad to say that many people are willing to stand up for the youth clubs and staff that they value so much. In recent months, I have begun to realize that the youth clubs are the lifeblood of young people in the county and I am very proud to see the youth council at least making an attempt to save them.

A cut is inevitable, however, in my local area, Richmond, we are drawing up a plan for some of the youth work to be taken on by volunteers. The plan is that we fund training and they run the youth clubs where possible. On county level, we are still not sure what the plan is, however, we know we care about the youth service and we want to do something in an effort to lessen the impact on the young people that care about the clubs so much.

Getting back to the general work of the Youth Council, I am very proud to be a member of such an organisation and admire the attitude that other Members of the Youth Council have taken to the issues that we are currently working on. It shows that these volunteers are not just doing it for the hours and experience and truly care about what matters to young people in the county. Whether we succeed is another matter, however, we can only try.

I will try to keep you up to date on what is going on with NYYC, however, it depends how busy I am. I am very proud of the achievement so far but as I wrote on something else, earlier today, these are steps towards a final aim. We need to keep on walking

Routes to Roots Update - I'm getting there

Having been doing this for a number of weeks now, it is gradually coming together, however, it seems that every time I get progress, I subsiquently get a setback. In this case, it was rather ironic that when I had a set back yesterday, I was listening to music and what should come on but "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger" by Kelly Clarkson. It's probably true but at times, it can feel as though you aren't getting anywhere.

I am hopefully getting a few stories for the campaign in the next few days and I hope to hear back from Teesside University SU about being my partner organisation. Additional to that, I have to phone up my proposed venue and organize the showcase event for sometime soon. I now only have one volunteer so when I get back to college on Monday, aside from the tasks I have to do for the event, I will be going round college, trying to get some volunteers. On the other hand, it's arty people I need.

As much as this campaign is supposed to make a lasting and big impact, I am not sure whether, with college and other volunteering, I will be able to keep it up. It may end up being a pretty simple event in the end. On the other hand, I'm not giving up on the final campaign. I have a volunteer that has applied so I will follow that up over the next few days and hopefully, I should get some responses for stories.

As much as this may sound bad, I'm beginning to prefer my Oxfam volunteering to Team v. It's not that I don't enjoy Team v and the challenges it brings but sometimes, it can get a bit too much. It is a great experience though. Oxfam, despite having only started recently is more relaxed. Plus, I don't have to worry about working that round college work. On the other hand, I might as well make the most of both while I can. When I do have a confirmed date for my event, I will be sure to post it on here and those who can come, please do.

I will be keeping this up to date, however, as much as I would like to say I will always post, planning the campaign has to come first and before that, college work. Off topic but still kind of relevant, one of my fellow Team v Leaders, Uzma Chaudhry, has recently started a petition which I'm sure she would love you to sign. Here is the link and the petition is calling for action to stop MPs policing their own expenses. It's something that keeps coming back to haunt the world of politics but it's nearly on 96,000 signatures and if you all share it, I'm sure that within the coming days, it will get up to the required 100,000 for it to be debated in Parliament.

Overall, I think I'm getting back on track but it might just take a few more volunteering hours than usual. On the other hand, that doesn't matter, especially since I'm trying to meet last weeks record of 30 hours in a week. Wish me luck!

Flying High to voice the views of disabled youth in North Yorks

Over the last year and a bit, I have been volunteering with a steering group run by Barnardos called Flying High and have more recently had the opportunity to represent them on the North Yorkshire Youth Council. Aside from the personal achievements, I have loved being able to represent the young disabled people of North Yorkshire and to feedback to various organisations on the views of such a group. In the last year, I have not only met lots of new friends and the group, in our last meeting, having the strongest number of people for quite a while. The group have also had the chance to consult with schools around the county, feed into research and reports being done by the Council for Disabled Children. Subsequently, perhaps as a result of that sort of exposure, we now have the opportunity to take part in a consultation with the Childrens Commission and feed into a report on the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. 

This, as I am sure you will understand, is a great opportunity for the group and it shows what we have achieved. Additionally, it is also another example of no matter how small you may think you are in terms of influence, it just goes to show the massive impact small actions can have. I guess this applies to all my volunteering in different ways, however, lets just say it's not as evident. The group has been going for a number of years now and I know that they will have achieved a lot in that time, however, this has to be a milestone in their history and I'm glad that I was there to have my part in it. 

In this case, they have definitely lived up to their namesake. We certainly have Flown High in making sure that the views and needs of young disabled people are being taken into account. In one of my next posts, I will be looking at what I have actually achieved though my volunteering. This is not a way to boast but it is important to show the significance of volunteering and the impact it can have, whoever you are and wherever you come from. 

School consultations in your mind might sound boring but this is about improving the education of these young disabled people so that they get more out of it and can learn in ways that suit them. I have had the experience of going to one such consultation myself and I can see how it does matter. This is also at an advantage to the local government who can  get direct feedback from the young people that many of their schools and colleges serve (well, almost direct. it goes through Flying High but we don't adjust it). 

In my view, Flying High is still doing exactly that and long may it continue. This month, I will be submitting a Positive Story to the British Youth Council on behalf of Flying High and as I look back, I can't help but think "Wow. What a year!". 

Keyfund in Richmond - A great Achievement

Having been volunteering for some years now, I have been involved in many projects but one of the most rewarding has to be Keyfund. Being a project that gives money to young people to do something positive for their peers and the community, it has been a great experience to see several projects through. The most recent is a sculpture project in which we went on a trip to get ideas and then subsequently took them to be shaped into our final sculpture idea. From there, we commissioned an artist to create it and it is now sitting in pride of place in The Station in Richmond which itself was a community project to make use of an old space to provide services for everyone, including cinemas and giving local businesses the chance to take advantage of the space in there.

It was great to see the finished product in place but apart from the reward of this, as part of Keyfund, our group had the honor of meeting Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge who gave some money to the charity as part of their wedding Charitable Fund. Nevertheless, to get the chance to see the end product of what has been a lengthy but worthwhile project was very fulfilling.

Keyfund, apart from the amazing experience it brings, also helps you develop skills that are invaluable and I will no doubt use in the future. I definitely learnt from it and although it may make it sound boring, it's actually quite a fun way to do things. Plus, although this isn't really the point, I do get volunteering hours from it.

I would have had a picture of the sculpture, however, I will see if I can pinch the one my youth worker took for the display that is going up at the youth club. It's a permanent showcase of what young people can achieve if they put the work in and that's why I am so proud of not just myself but my whole youth club for taking part in one way or another in the project.

I'm trying to think what the next stage is for the Keyfund group but whatever it is, I'm sure we will be able to step up to the challenge. We have several times before and we will again. To be honest, I'm not sure if there is another stage but I will just have to wait and see.

Overall, this is a great achievement and I'm sure it's one of many to come for the people involved. It will be something I will never forget and that's what makes it all worth it. To see further what Keyfund does, please visit this link and why not have a look at some of the case studies while you are there. PS: Oh and by the way, the Owl in the sculpture says hi

Anyway, please keep an eye out for more positive stories of projects I have been involved with (not necessarily because I've been involved in them) and I will be posting for the next few days. Keep a look out on my twitter feed if you are on there as well. I usually tweet about it all. That's it from me today but come back for more tomorrow.

I've done it - 24 hours of volunteering in five days

As you can see from my blog post title, I have reached my mini challenge of doing 20 hours in five days. In fact, I surpassed that and got a whole days volunteering in 5 days. This, for me, is a big achievement, given it's about 5 hours a day on average (4.8 to be exact but that's a bit hard to work out). Broken down, this is as follows:

Monday - North Yorkshire Youth Council
Tuesday - Team V
Wednesday - Oxfam Shop
Thursday - Flying High (Barnardos)
Friday - Oxfam Shop

I also got my volunteering at Oxfam sorted so that in two weeks time, I start an NVQ in Retail. It's not something I'm likely to need for the career that I'm hoping to go into, however, it's an extra qualification (one of many). It's also something to work towards, besides an unknown number of possible volunteering hours. I'm currently on 339 and I'm hoping to get to 340 soon. Shouldn't take long. Of course, there is the one hazard of working in a charity shop and that's in the last few days I managed to burn myself on the steamer a few times (don't worry, only tiny and not saw at all) and today managed to cut myself on the same finger twice within a few hours and all on a cardboard box. I am now minus one finger for doing many things but mainly typing and playing the guitar.

I'm just kind of wishing that the charity shop wasn't so big. you wouldn't expect to be able to get lost in a charity shop but this shop has so many doors and rooms and stairs that you end up standing at the stairs wondering where you need to go to get somewhere and your Deputy Manager is laughing her head off at you. Not the best thing to do.

This was originally meant to be a Team v Blog but has gradually turned into a blog about general volunteering and every now and then, positive news from other volunteering in my local area. What can I say? I like to spread a positive image of young people. I feel it's important to combat the often negative perception of young people in the media. With a similar objective, if you are interested, the British Youth Council run a monthly positive stories publication which can be found here . It's also just good to keep people updated on my volunteering in general. If you want to hear about things along the lines of what has been mentioned in this section of the post, please stay tuned over the next few days.

The work of young people is vital in raising issues that matter to them, as is their voice and what is done to show that anywhere possible. One of my fellow Team V Leaders who represents Leeds Metropolitan University posted a petition to stop funding for dyslexic and disabled students. Here is the NUS response to it. Give it a read. it's bound to be interesting.

Overall, it's been a great week of volunteering for me and hopefully you find this an interesting read. I went a bit off topic but only to shout out about things that I care about. Plus, they are still kind of related. Oh well. Stay tuned for more shout outs and good news about volunteering (both my own and local projects).

Routes to Roots - Progress (but not much)

Having had a long break from my blog to sort my volunteering and college work out, I'm Back. I'm now several weeks into the campaign and although I have an idea for an event and a possible place to put it on, I am still without a partner organisation locally. We're working on it though. I had my first volunteer meeting the other day and it was great to have finally done one. I managed to delegate a few tasks to take the pressure off a bit and let me get on with college work but it's still a work in progress.

I have an idea that I'm going to do an arty display on the subject of the campaign, however, for that I need volunteers from the Art department at college. A job for when we go back, I think. Luckily, they are right next to the media department. If I have any luck, we may be on our way. I have certainly got the awareness of the campaign locally sussed out though. Massive thanks to PA-Support-Services, an organisation in Darlington that supports the third sector. Also, a huge thanks to #DarloBiz and DarloBizHour for all the support with promoting the cause locally.

I seem to do well in organizing a team and the media bits, my specialty, however, getting an organisation is proving harder than I first thought. I'm about a week behind but I'll catch up. Unfortunately, my list of things to do for volunteering is very long and that's not just Team V jobs. Currently, I have stuff for a North Yorkshire Youth Council campaign to sort, bits for my local youth council and my Oxfam Volunteering. At least I'm not board.

After doing my previous challenges for volunteering, I am now setting myself mini targets each week. This week, I have aimed to get about 20 hours of volunteering done. I'm currently on about 17 and should get about another 5 tomorrow. That makes it 22. Getting back to the topic of the progress of the campaign, with the help of Mum, we've found an organisation called Equality North East who seem to run the Darlington Racial Equality Council, so I'm hoping to get in contact with them. It's worth a try.

If I can get an organisation working with Team V Darlington, I then only have the venue and event to plan. I have a sort of plan for the event but it needs the costing for it doing. It will get done, don't worry. I think that's as far as I have got for now. I need to contact a few people but apart from that, I'm on my way to having a half-decent campaign. Who knows? It might all work out in the end. Fingers crossed and wish me luck. PS: All the links are to the organisations Twitter (or in the case of Team V Darlington, my Twitter) but you can access their main websites from there

12 sort of funny reasons to apply for Team V 2015

So, having almost completed my 9 month journey as a Team V Leader, it is time to pass the baton on. The time is coming, yet again, for recruitment of Team V Class of 2015 (hence, we are Class of 2014). To encourage you on your way to pressing apply and possibly becoming a Team V Leader, here are 12 comedy reasons why you should apply to be in my position next year:

1. If, like me, you have crazy friends (in a good way), having one of them singing "Follow the Leader, Leader, Leader. Follow the Leader" can be quite funny. You can turn round and say "I am the leader".

2. Additional to that, you can always get people to make the joke about aliens and the classic saying "Take Me to Your Leader".

3. You get three free trips away with free food (if it's as good as this year, you're in for a treat)

4. If the venues are as big as this year, you will have a chance to get experience of getting lost and having to consult a map to find your way round a hotel (This might be a bad thing but it seemed pretty funny to me at the time).

5. You get to hang out with some awesome people, including Mentors and staff and your fellow leaders. This isn't necessarily funny but it is really inspiring and fun to see so many people working together to "Change the world, one campaign at a time".

6. You get to make the joke about the Hunger Games, i.e. the line about "I volunteer" (apparently quite a few charities are playing on the fact that it is a Hunger Games Reference)

7. In relation to my earlier reason, you can yourself go round singing  "Follow the Leader, Leader, Leader. Follow the Leader" and no one will think you are weird (well, at least not for that reason). Despite this, it does help to be a bit crazy when you take up the job of Team V Leader.

8. To be honest, Not all of these are funny. My other reason is, although it may sound boring at the moment, you get lots of really useful and practical training that will not only help you in Team V but in life as well.

9. Not that you would do it for this reason but you get money at the end (unfortunately, it has to be spent of something for your "educational benefit". What a shame).

10. These reasons are getting less funny but you certainly learn a lot of skills that are really useful, such as time and money management, working with a team and delegating tasks to people to share out the workload.

11. If you are anything like me, you will be watching the campaign videos just to listen to the tune in the background. So catchy. I'd just like to take this moment to congratulate whoever comes up with both the videos and the music for making it so fun and catchy. How do you do it?

12. I NEED A SUCCESSOR. Please don't let me down, both in my local area, Darlington and anywhere else in the country.

So there are my top 12 sort of comedic reasons for applying for Team V Class of 2015. If you would like anymore insight into what we do, please don't hesitate to check out the vIspired YouTube Channel for past campaign videos and also see the results of the campaigns. I will have more posts coming up soon, given I have quite a few ideas but I will be keeping you up to date on the Routes to Roots campaign in Darlington and there will be other stuff too. If you are on Twitter and have read this post, please Retweet or post it yourself. The further we get the message, the better. Untill the next time, Team V Out!