The Winter term not only welcomes the frosty weather and the Christmas cheer but a whole host of opportunities for young people within our Mersey region. As well as welcoming into the new year brand new plans and ideas for the Foundation.
What’s been happening?
October Event – Breakfast Information Session
The Royal Albert Dock Charitable Foundation sent out an invitation inviting all the businesses around the Albert Dock to learn about what they do and how others can get involved with the Foundation. Listening to success stories from local business around Albert Dock, it allowed others to see how they could engage with the Foundation and what they could offer to support local young people. The event was supported by Clockwise; offering an amazing free venue space, and Gusto providing a complimentary breakfast to all those who came. The event was a great success and saw 42 people attend from various businesses around The Royal Albert Dock.
Jamie Griffin, Managing Director of Joint Rail Projects said: “I thought the event at Clockwise was very well organised, the hospitality was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening and learning from the various speakers within the Charity. Great morning all round.”
A presentation was delivered showcasing some areas of work and to encourage new tenants to get involved within the Foundation. A pledges sheet was given out asking how each business would like to get involved. The event sparked so much interest from new businesses wanting to take part; either engaging with educational/careers tours, student work placements or showing an interest in the ‘Intern to Work’ programme. Many new pledges were received including Maray, Rosa’s Thai and Smaller Earth.
Lauren and Roisin from the Smaller Earth team said: “The presentation outlining the work they have done so far blew us away, and we couldn't wait to get involved. We felt the passion and enthusiasm from everyone involved in the charitable foundation and we at Smaller Earth are now excited to be part of the story. To say that the breakfast morning sparked an incredible partnership is an understatement.”
Who are Smaller Earth?
Smaller Earth are an organisation that send thousands of young people on work and travel programmes each year. Having 15 offices all around the world, Smaller Earth believe that by inspiring people to go further, they can change the world one person at a time, by providing programs that provide meaningful cultural experiences for young people.
After the October event at Clockwise it was no surprise that Smaller Earth were so excited to get involved when they heard about the Royal Albert Dock Charitable Foundation. Follow up meetings were arranged, and ideas were shared about how Smaller Earth could get involved. The ‘Go Further, Give Back’ day was a perfect opportunity for young people from the intern to work programme to get involved. Each year Smaller Earth have a ‘Give Back Day’ in support of their ‘Go Further’ project working with charities from across the globe. On November 19th six interns from the ‘Intern to Work ‘programme had the opportunity to spend the day working with the UK Smaller Earth team situated on the Royal Albert Dock.
The day consisted of three workshops to help develop a range of employability skills within the interns. By the end of the day they had produced a flyer which will promote the ‘Intern to Work’ programme at the Liverpool City Council event on 28th January next year.
Lauren, Marketing Coordinator at Smaller Earth said: “We are so glad that Smaller Earth had the opportunity to get involved in such an incredible initiative. We’re so glad we got the chance to positively impact them whilst helping to develop the ‘interns to work’ brand.”
The branding workshop allowed the interns to learn about the creative process of building a brand, looking at the importance of layouts and colours. They used these skills to build their own, which was then integrated into a leaflet that they made themselves.
In the photography session they investigated the importance of photography and how a good photograph can speak a thousand words. Working with resident photographers from Smaller Earth, the interns looked at various photography styles learning new terms and doing a variety of real-life, professional scenarios, including headshots and presenting.
In the last session, the team who regularly carry out interviews were able to share best communication practices with the interns. Communication is not only vital for every work environment; it is essential to our everyday lives. For most people job interviews can be a daunting experience, their something we may fear or perhaps never feel quite ready for, especially if you are young and have educational needs. It was a great session for the interns to get involved with, practising doing mock styles interviews with each other which not only allowed them to practise answering questions, but also think about what types of questions would be asked. The session was incredibly beneficial for the interns covering all the vital skills needed in a professional environment.
“I learnt the most from doing the mock interviews. It’s given me more confidence and made me feel more prepared for when I’ll have to do interviews in the future.”
The entire day was extremely successful. Not only did the interns get to take some merchandise from the day, but fun memories and skills that will help them in their future professional roles. To say thank you, the interns surprised the team at Smaller Earth the following day by bringing a card, sweets and chocolate to show their appreciation to the staff involved.
“It was fantastic to see the engagement of the interns throughout the entire day. We’re looking forward to seeing the intern's progression over the next couple of months and we will be more than happy to have them back with us at some point soon.”
You can find out more about the day on the Smaller Earth Blog & Video below:
Adventure trail
Since the start of the adventure trail in the summer term, there has been a great response from many families picking up copies and completing the adventure trail. Free badges and stickers have been happily received by the children when paying a visit to The Nest and if they are involved in Children’s University (CU) then they can also gain a stamp on their CU passport from Katherine.
Katherine Caldwell, Owner of The Nest said: “We are delighted to welcome visitors in store to collect their Family Adventure Trail booklets. It's a great way for families to learn all about the local history of the Albert Dock in a fun and interactive way. We love seeing the sense of accomplishment on children's faces when they bring their completed booklets to us.”
Educational/Career Tours
This year’s new young people on the ‘Intern to Work’ programme spent the morning of October 2nd taking part in an educational/career tour around The Royal Albert Dock.
The responses from their evaluations were very high with 11/13 interns rating the highest mark for how they found the tour. When asked “What have you enjoyed?” the majority of responses said that The Tate and The Nest were their favourite. Responses included “I enjoyed learning about the Dock and how friendly the staff were.” As well as “I enjoyed all of the tour and found it very informative. I especially enjoy the Nest shop. I loved the artwork.”
The following day VIP tickets had been organised by Jemima Pyne, Head of Audiences at Tate Liverpool for a special free viewing of the Keith Haring Exhibition for the interns involved.
Interns very happy with their Keith Haring VIP Exhibition tickets
Update on Ellie and Emma – Student from LJMU
After her 8-week internship with Royal Albert Dock Liverpool LTD, Ellie from Liverpool John Moores University has now been offered a permanent part-time position with the Events Team. Having worked alongside Kevin Essery, Events Coordinator as his assistant, Kevin stated that “Ellie has been a valuable asset to the team and has continually made great contributions towards organising our events here at the Dock”.
Ellie said: “Since my Internship finished, I have loved working the events that have been developed from the summer events we hosted here at the Dock. It’s been amazing to see the great reactions to the events, such as the Halloween and Christmas Cinema, and I look forward to helping develop the events schedule for 2020.”
The Royal Albert Dock has offered an internship to another student from Liverpool John Moores University. Emma has been doing one day a week working to support the Foundation and also looks to get involved with the Events Team. She has assisted on writing about the Christmas Projection at The Albert Dock for the press and been a part of the follow up for the Smaller Earth give back day where she interviewed the interns to ask about how their day went.
Emma White, Liverpool John Moores University said: “I’m thrilled to have been given this amazing opportunity working with the Albert Dock and the Charitable Foundation. It’s a great chance for me to put my skills into action but also learn something new. Everyone here has been so welcoming; I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I’m really excited to see what the year brings and I’m keen to get involved and help the team in any way I can.”
Clare Rawlinson, Head of Marketing said: “Having Emma in the office has already given the team extra support. She has been able to capture the story of ‘Love Returns’, our Christmas projection, which we then used as part of our press launch night for Christmas 2019.”
Visitor Economy Week (VE Week)
Visitor Economy Week will see a range of activities taking place from different colleges all around the Liverpool city region with their respected partnerships. Running from the 3rd till the 6th of February 2020; The Foundation sets out to run 4 educational/career tours around The Royal Albert Dock. It will welcome the faces of new tenants getting involved such as Maray, Gusto’s and Rosas Thai, which will open their doors to these students for the first time. The number of schools to get involved next year will see the increase from 2 to 4, with 100 young people in total to join The Dock for VE Week. It will be the highest number of educational/career tours the foundation has ever done for VE Week. Itineraries have been agreed for the 4 half days with some really exciting input from many new tenants all offering something completely different.
Student Work Placements
The foundation has received great feedback from the summer work placements, and they have undoubtably made a difference to some of the students’ aspirations and goals for their future professions.
Julie Jones, Fazakerley High School said: “Amazing placement, by far the best we had this year, so thankyou very much for all the hard work.”
Joanne Huddart, Elevate said: “The placement from Childwall went really well. I saw a post on LinkedIn from the young person stating how much of a difference it had made and helped him to focus on his future.”
More placement opportunities have been made available throughout the autumn/winter term with 3 students from Holly Lodge Girls School taking part in work placements over December. The placements took place at; Castle Forge, Clockwise and the Holiday Inn Express.
Kerri Mckenna Manager at Clockwise said: “I would like to thank The Royal Albert Dock Foundation for giving Clockwise the opportunity to meet such an inspirational student from Holly Lodge. She showed a real promise of a young businesswoman in the making and we would be happy to work with the school and foundation again. It is such a great cause which is very close to our hearts.”
Helen Roberts Manager at Holiday Inn Express said: “Ailyah was a pleasure to have on work experience. She was punctual, well mannered, eager to learn and a credit to both herself and Holly Lodge whilst she was on work placement. Having never thought about working in hospitality before her work placement, hopefully we’ve given her some ideas as to potential careers after she leaves school.”
Work Ready 2 programme
The funding application to ‘Awards for All’ has been successful and will provide a project co-ordinator for an 8-month period. The ‘work ready 2’ programme will commence in January 2020 which will see Jo Lee from Sefton CVS return to deliver the programme on a secondment. In partnership with Rotunda, the Charitable Foundation will work with young people who are furthest away from the job market and help prepare them for work placements. There will be 2 cohorts during this period with 10 young people on each programme.
Clockwise supporting the Foundation
On December 12th Clockwise, Edward Pavilion will be holding their very first Christmas market networking event where they plan to raise money for The Albert Dock Charitable foundation.
The Royal Albert Dock Charitable Foundation would like to thank all our partners, schools/colleges and universities who have been involved with the Foundation over this period and wish you all a Wonderful Festive Season and every good wish for the New Year.