Visit to the Victoria YMCA’s Youth Social Enterprise Programmes.

Spent the morning with Jess, Paul, Ian and James looking at various aspects of the work of the Department.

Made to feel very welcome and were very open and honest inn outlining the challenges and opportunities for the work with young people.

They have five pillars of engagement: namely Youth Justice; Youth Development; Civic Engagement; Leadership and Social Enterprise.

The Department has a volunteer team of some 350 people who are recruited from universities, the website and word of mouth. This has $1 million of benefit in kind.

The work undertaken covers the whole of Victoria, however a major concentration is in Melbourne.

The work has a primary focus on empowering young people and encompass:

Youth Parliament: This programme runs annually in conjunction with the Victorian State Government’s office for Youth and has been running for almost 30 years. It involves 120 young people annually and issues are debated and Bills passed. Those passed are then forwarded to the Minister for Youth who in turn distributes them to the relevant Government Minister. Since inception 15 Bills passed from the Youth Parliament have become legislation with the State of Victoria.

Youth for Causes: This pilot programme introduces young people between 15 – 25 to social enterprise experiences. Teams of four to five young people are given $2000 to develop a social enterprise idea and bring this to life for another charitable organisation. The YMCA provides professional mentoring and support through workshops and webinars.

Youth Voice: The YMCA Is committed to listening to the voice of young people and have put in place a number of strategies to enable this. For example, there are two places on the Board of Victoria YMCA for young people under the age of 30. A young people’s strategic development team, consisting of young people has been set up whose primary role is advocacy and promotion. There are challenges such as how to hear the voice of young people in their recreation centres and the need to empower the wider staff team across the YMCA.

Centre for Empowering Young People: A new centre is soon to open that will provide a greater resource for programmes and opportunities that will support young people to reach their potential, lead change and be entrepreneurial.

Work is also undertaken in supporting young people involved in criminal justice system, mentoring programmes for disadvantaged youth and after school and holiday activities.

It was clear form the session that there is a huge commitment and passion to work with young people from across the social and economic spectrum.

We were hugely grateful to the staff team who gave their time to share the work they are undertaking.

Office of the National YMCA of Australia

I and two members of the delegation who happen to be National Board Members had the opportunity to visit the National office in Melbourne. We spent a short time, Stephen, with the newly appointed National Youth Empowerment Officer. Part of his role is to have a shared language and understanding of youth empowerment and how to assess the impact of this work.

He indicated that a lot of work had been undertaken by the YMCA of Los Angeles Youth Institute on this.

We then had the opportunity to meet with Melinda Crole, the interim Chief Executive Officer.

We explored a number of issues, including: 

Ø  There are 22 local associations with a combined annual turnover of $430 million (£270M)

Ø  The affiliation fee, as a percentage of turnover, paid by local YMCAs range from 0.15 to 0.20 and this makes up 85% of the income of the National Council.

Ø  The minimum affiliation fee is $10,000.

Ø  No staff from a local YMCA is permitted to be a member of the National Board.

Ø  Voting entitlement is tiered, with a cap of 15%

Ø  The have an 89% brand recognition with a far lower recognition of what the YMCA does.

Ø  15 years ago they started a process of licence agreements with local YMCAs which took 6 years to be fully implemented.

Ø  The licence agreement gives the National Council the right to intervene in a local YMCA in certain nationally agreed circumstances.

Ø  There is a fit for purpose programme in place covering financial sustainability, purpose and relevance and safeguarding.

Ø  The National Council has the authority to remove the name from a local YMCA.

Ø  The local YMCAs have doubled in size in the last ten years.

Ø  The Chair of the National Board has a key role in ensuring regular communication with the Chairs off local YMCAs.

Ø  Chairs of local YMCAs are brought together every six months.

Ø  The CEOs of local YMCAs are brought together every three months.

Ø  Governance training is a key role of the National Council

Ø  Local YMCAs are appointed as National champions for certain areas. YMCAs would be asked to bid for such roles.

Ø  Risk audits are undertaken of local YMCAs and these are now outsourced

We are indebted to Melinda for her frank and open responses to our unending questions and a phrase she used will remain with me:

 “We can no longer be debilitating polite”

Paul Smillie

Victoria YMCA first visit

Tuesday 18th October

Well,what a night for all the wrong reasons. Jet Lag has kicked in for many of the team with some being awake from 2am, myself from 4am. a hearty breakfast was no substitute for lack of sleep.

Today we spent the day discovering the Corporate workings of YMCA Victoria at the Copropate Office. We arrived there at 9.15am and were met by Ang and Lyndsay of Victoria YMCA. We introduced ourselves to the team and talked about our work in the UK.

Ang presented on "welcome to the Y" a presentation for new members of staff. strong acknowledgment of the country which is an understanding of the heritage of  indigenous people.

Y Victoria has 7 health clubs, childcare and holiday programmes, skateparks, swimming pools with a strong focus on community. "communities are better because we are in it".

Y Victoria impact: 160 locations with 6500 staff and 1500 volunteers.

The mission of YMCA Victoria is in three focus areas in Australia, Healthy Living, empowering young people and social impact.

Healthy Living: health and fitness, aquatics, camps

Empowering young people: advocacy, education, 

Social Impact: global work, evidence based work, 

Y Victoria does not own much of its real estate. it is leased via the Government or others.

Cinzia, Group Manager for engagement was the next to present to us. Her responsibility is for marketing, communicationss, engagement, brand, fundraising and digital.

She talked about their Father's Day fun run and brand campaign. A public facing event built on the fact that the YMCA invented Father's Day. It was promoted through camps, gyms, local media connecting staff to the event, building the experience on the day. A YMCA village on the day promoted the variety of services provided by the YMCA.

We then had a presentation from Greg Jennings - Acting CEO.

he focused on Mission Alignment - developing areas in childcare and camps.

One of the things which Greg mentioned was the purchase of a Private Swim School and how they have maintained the brand of the school which contributes to the possibility of a 'House of Brands' in the future. The school provides swimming lessons and preventing drowning.(King Swim).

Consideration is being given to whether the YMCA should brand some of their programmes differently to meet the programme users expectations.

Gerard Bolger - Corporate Planning and Performance

Gerard spoke about YMCA = business as usual + new work - stop doing stuff to do the new.
In relation to this he stated that they are always looking at doing more new things but when they ask what will we stop doing to facilitate  new things if was difficult to identify areas of work they would stop doing.

Bringing teams together to plan projects and then dispersing once it is launched.

We also heard from Lexi on the use of ITC in large organisations and the HR function challenges of running large organisations. 

So a long first day but lots of learning for all of us from the UK.

Early night for most and a hope of a good nights sleep.

Discovery Visit Australia

Yesterday evening I arrived into Melbourne Australia for this year’s YMCA Discovery.

Within the Federation of YMCAs of England & Wales we have a Leadership Development Strategy which enables Staff and Trustees to improve and develop their leadership to become excellent leaders within YMCA.

Currently Discovery visits are focused on CEO’s and Strategic Leaders of local YMCAs in England & Wales. We are currently exploring this to Trustees but more on that another day.

As YMCA we seek to capitalise on being a Global organisation and create opportunities for staff to travel to YMCAs in difference geographical and cultural locations to ‘discover’ what YMCA is doing in those contexts to deliver what is in effect our basic global YMCA Mission and how we interpreted that mission and values into the local needs of their communities.

As you can imagine, an organisation which is 173 years old, working in 119 countries and reaching 58 million people, YMCA is a rich and vibrant tapestry when you consider it as a global ecumenical Christian youth organisation.

So this year, there are eight of us on this discovery visit which will last ten days. There are four CEO’s in the group and four strategic leaders.

We will spend time in Melbourne and Brisbane engaging in presentations, discussions and visits to services.

Each day one of the group will post a blog on the experience of the day to both help participants reflect on what they are hearing, seeing and learning and communicating that to other readers of the this blog.

From here I hope you will enjoy and find informative, what is written during the next ten days.

My name is Gillian Sewell, CEO YMCA Derbyshire, Yesterday I embarked on my shared journey as a YMCA leader who has been given the privilege of going to Australia on a YMCA discovery visit.

As normal with the YMCA a group of individuals came together already as friends, why because we are YMCA. You never meet strangers in the YMCA you meet a friend you don't yet know!

Over dinner the group consisting of  one English, two scots, two Welsh and our wonderful Irish man who was in the hotel (there's a joke there somewher as we did go into a bar!), Came together for a meal.

Again with the YMCA especially when it's with fellow YMCA leaders who have the ability to be opinionated, discussions started to take place around our view of the YMCA. During this debate I realised something fundamental, in the YMCA we love  a good debate because there is an unspoken,  unwritten ground rule enabling us to feel safe and be free to debate; mutual respect!
We don't have to agree with each other, we don't even have to like what is being said but we always, always respect the other.

Having met my fellow travellers I awaken this morning thoroughly looking forward to spending time with my YMCA friends and look forward to meeting our Australian YMCA cousins after the dreaded 24 hour flight! Good bye Blighty hello Australia.

Gillian

Prepared?

so, as I sit on the sofa at home on Friday morning, I contemplate on the trip ahead. A number of questions arise. Do I have everything I need? What time is my train to London today? Have I done everything Ken has asked? Will this mini blog post? Really looking forward to spending time with colleagues and learning together on our discovery trip. Not looking forward to the long flights but needs must. Really excited to be meeting some of our international colleagues in Australia and leaning from them. Hoping that our contribution to them is helpful. Better get packing. 😀

YMCA Global Programme Innovation Camp

Post from Jerahl Hall YMCA Youth Ambassador - North Staffs YMCA

The Programme Innovation Camp in Switzerland offered many programmes from TenSing, Youth and Parliament, RGE (Environment) and lastly Savings and Investments. I was very much excited of the prospect of representing my YMCA on an international stage for the time, as well as my first trip to Switzerland!  

I arrived in Zurich, and searched for the Zurich YMCA, CEVI. Once I gathered my bearings from the little German I know I was able to search out Zurich base. On entering I was met with new faces that we're welcoming and helpful. For the official start we all gathered in a main hall, where we were pleasantly welcomed by Romulo and Adi, at this point I wouldn’t have thought I could have respected two people more as I did with these guys at the end of the camp. Anyway, we were told to introduce ourselves, our names, our countries and our YMCA's which we represent! The sheer diversity of the people there astonished me when people shouted out their countries; Kosovo, Bulgaria, Serbia, Portugal, France, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Switzerland, Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania, China, Norway, and many more. There were 23 countries represented!

We were told to get into groups of 5 or 6 to participate in a challenge that would take us around Zurich, the challenge involved finding locations around the city and pinpoint the pictures to the locations as well as the description, Mariela and Rezarta from Albania, Mathilde from Norway and Andrzey from Poland joined my group and we ventured around Zurich.

 

When we arrived back it was time to move to the base for the week, we all marched out of the YMCA Zurich like a mini battalion to the main station, leaded at the time by Dynamo (a YMCA scout from Switzerland). We arrived at the station and boarded a train, oh and by the way it was double decked, I couldn't hide my excitement! A double decked train WOW! Small things eh. An hour later we arrived in our location, a small town outside of Ebnat-Kappel, a bus awaited us and took us up hills and winding roads, the sky was dark and the stars just bright enough to shine through the buses interior lights, all of our curiosities had already peaked, we wanted to see what the view was like but we knew we had to wait until the morning. We arrived at camp and immediately set tables out and picked beds, the time was late and after short messages from the facilitators we had the time to talk amongst ourselves, at first my fellow compatriots engaged in conversations with me and after welcoming each other it was time for bed

The first day of camp: I woke up, still feeling groggy from the long day previously. I went to the main hall for breakfast, looking out the window revealed why our curiosities were firing on all seven cylinders, WHAT A VIEW! These hills and mountains in Switzerland are amazing this was definitely the place where God played with nature.

   

We started each day with as devotion that was led by Romulo, which led us to a few ice-breaker style games. We all then moved into our groups, the youth and parliament group contained my fellow YMCA Englanders, Bulgarians, Armenians, Philippines, Romanian, and Ghanaian!! We were invited to understand how youth parliament works in one of its most successful countries, Australia and YMCA VICTORIA to be more specific, we had an excellent facilitator in Emily Greco who told us everything of the programmes and fully made it enjoyable throughout. We learnt how to set the programme up and how to hopefully implement it within our own respected nations, how to create legislation and bills, how to debate and governmental chamber etiquette. Luckily Australia works with the Westminster style of parliament, so it was easier to grasp!

After a full days learning with the programme, we had tea and discussed the hike that we would later do. Before the hike, we were told to partner up and answer questions that were given to us to share and gain knowledge of each of our own YMCA's. As we walked on a road the off road track became clear as we turned right up a hill, we climbed and climbed, our cheeks puffed and puffed with air as the gradients increased and my whole bottom half of my body started to heat up! We came to the top to be greeted with an even greater view from the one I witnessed earlier in the morning! The hike continued for a further 2 hours where we conversed through another 2-3 questions, we passed some cows with some traditional bells around their necks, stereotypical Switzerland in my eyes. We waited for the people at the back, at the top of the hill that would make for our descent back to camp. As we waited we played a few team bonding games which one of them I fell right on my backside, I clearly didn’t take into account the wet grass.

 

We got back to camp and straight away everyone got changed from their hiking gear into something comfy, whilst all being downstairs us YMCA Englanders played a game of heads up, which involves a charades like format on an iPhone app, as soon as one of our overseas colleagues saw us playing, minute by minute half of the room at least caught the buzz and came to play with us, to the point where it was a shout fest trying to describe the answers to the person who guessed the song, movie, famous person etc. This was the perfect ending to the perfect first full day!

Thursday sprung on us all and the sun was still shining bright over us and the Swiss mountains; we were treated to a traditional Swiss breakfast, some kind of mixed muesli with fruit and other things! Anyway we started the days schedule like the day before with devotion from Romulo, and some organised fun singing games which were all really fun. The best way to start the day!

The days programme picked up proper where we created our own bill, and debated it with the 'opposition'. After the programme work we ate and I took the opportunity to take a group photo with all the members of YMCA Kosovo, they have for sure left a mark on my heart! Love those guys! By 9pm we all got called over into the fringe of the nearby woods that surrounded us, it meant only one thing CAMP FIRE! We all sat around and played some music, shared some thoughts and ate hot bananas, yes, hot bananas that had been stuffed with Nutella. We all sang acoustically, I even gave a rendition of a Bob Marley song....which I murdered. Victoria from France got the guitar out and sang one of her own songs and wow it was memorable, meaningful and downright wonderful is the best words I could use to describe her performance!  The camp fire gave us all a time to reflect on the experience so far and what we as a YMCA stand for, not only for our communities but for the youth of today all around the world.

Friday normally means -happy Friday- for me, the week is nearly over and a new one is near to begin. This time round however, I was not so happy with the thought that time was nearly up with these guys in Switzerland, did I need to come back? Yes. Did I want too? I'm sure you know what my answer is. We started the day like the previous two with devotion and some little activities to get us all ready for the day, Romolu came with this great popcorn song game, it was great. Emily also came with a game all the way from Australia, and Adi with a game called trolls, Giants and wizards which is like rock, paper and scissors but with teams. 

Anyway Friday meant discussing in my innovation group how we are going to try and implement such a programme in our countries, we set up a plan and fingers crossed it can be achieved. We ended the scheduled afternoon with a rendition of the lion king song from the tensing group. They were awesome. I also learned how to do origami from Alvin (Hong Kong) who was a facilitator in the RGE group!

The afternoon ended with a couple more inspiring questions from Adi that gave us all the chance again to share and tell about our local or national practices as well as personal/professional development, Adi told us to get into groups. I remember telling myself I have spoken to every person bar one over the entirety of the camp, how I let this happen still baffles me, however, I made it my mission to sit next to him as we heard our first question. We spoke and answered the questions, myself and Kristian from Serbia then introduced ourselves personally. He told me that he was glad we got the chance to speak as he had the same thought as me that it was crazy that we didn't converse at all before. After the questions had finished we had a spare hour before Tea, the weather had turned for the worse with rain hitting down hard on all the windows. Kristian said he was going for a run, I took the opportunity to join him and off we went in the rain around the hilly region that was home for the week. Everyone thought we were mad, my reply “I'm English, I’m used to this kind of weather especially rain”.

I was excited for tonight as tonight was the cultural night, where everyone brought some food, drink or national dress from their respected countries and showcased it in the main hall! There were some great foods from fondue from Switzerland, spicy 'dragon' sausage from Serbia, marmalade chocolate from Estonia, cured meats from Eastern Europe, sweets and biscuits from Hong Kong, Philippines and England. The cultural night gained momentum after tea with everyone beautifully dressed in their national clothes. I probably soaked in more culture on this night than any a time in my life. National games and dances came out where we all got involved, we presented them with a strange rendition of ‘hokey cokey’ which went down well, more so than I thought to be honest. Still we added something to the night.

I simply didn't want the night to end; I knew what was to come in the morning. In small groups dotted around the hall, we all spoke until we couldn't stop ourselves from yawning every 10 seconds, 2am and bed was calling. WHAT A DAY, what a night!!!

SATURDAY

Here it was, the dreaded day! We had breakfast earlier so to as give us time to pack up and clean up! We gave a huge THANK YOU to the scouts for everything they have done, from cooking for us, cleaning and making everything just perfect! We gave them a standing ovation, and that I thought still wasn't enough to show our appreciation. They were just simply outstanding. We all got into teams and cleaned the whole site; I was in the team that cleaned the bunks! Everybody waited outside as the final bits of cleaning was being done. We carried on playing games, and football whist we waited. The Bus came, I was in bus 1 so was leaving first; I hugged everyone I could in the time I had. I wanted to bring them all back with me. Joe, Hannah B and Hannah P from England and me shared a unique bond; we became best friends as such in just a short space of time. I just hope I keep my promise when I said to everyone individually, I will see you all again very soon! I got on the bus and headed for the airport. My flight wasn't until another 5 hours as was the case with the Serbian duo. We decided to carry on with our adventure and re-entered Zurich city center as it was 10 minutes away on the train. Away we went, we hired bikes which are free in Zurich and we had a little tourist excursion in and around the city whilst looking for gifts to take home.

With those guys I have never laughed so much, 5 hours later we were all checked in and awaiting our flights back home. It was mine to depart first, again I had to say goodbye. They walked me to my gate and saw me off. I felt like I was saying bye to family. I was saying bye to family!

After a little stop in Frankfurt I made it back home to Stoke.

I look back now to the week I had, it is by far the best thing I have done in my 7 1/2 years with the YMCA! It's got me; it's hooked me for sure, without sounding to cliché. I can't wait for more!!!

Posted on behalf of Jerahl Hall