A Girl Called Jack... great ideas for cheap recipes and more!

For those of you who are looking to be thrifty when it comes to shopping and food, I suggest you head to the blog 'A Girl Called Jack'. She (Jack) gives excellent ideas for cheap recipes (spiced potato soup for 10p per portion), as well as sharing her genuine experiences of being a single mum living on benefits. She manages to buy food and make meals for her and her child for £10 per week!!! She's also somewhat of a political activist, campaigning for politicians to end world hunger and to put food poverty in Britain firmly on the political agenda.

Anyway, take a look at the blog for yourself at...

http://agirlcalledjack.com/

Happy reading!! :)

Delicious! Free Cookery Course from Connect<>Lockleaze

Join Connect <> Lockleaze's free course to learn about basic cooking and preparation techniques and how to buy food and make family meals that are good value for money. 

We’ll make a different meal every week!

Day: Thursday

Date: 1st to 29th August 2013

Time: 9:30am to 11:30am

Duration: 5 weeks

Where: Cameron Centre, Cameron Walk, Lockleaze, BS7 9XB

Cost: Free

plus… free childcare available!!

To book: Call or text Kate Hunter on 07546 451888 or 0117 914 1129

New work club meeting today...

Connect <> Lockleaze are excited to be hosting the first meeting of our new Work Club today at the Langley Centre from 2pm to 4pm. Please come and say hello!

Although it has taken a little longer than anticipated to get going, we are delighted to welcome Kevin Byrne of Pluss. He will be hosting the first Forwards Work Club in Lockleaze.

Forwards Work Clubs aim to help people find and stay in work. Friendly and supportive there is no pressure to rush into work - rather they give you advice and support to help with your specific needs. This includes:

- confidence

- volunteering

- preparing your CV

- interview skills

- job search

We look forward to seeing you later.

What objects say Lockleaze to you?!

Following on from our session at Boing! on 10th May where we got together to share memories of Lockleaze ... M Shed now want to create an 'Object Box', containing items that tell a story about Lockleaze, as part of the forthcoming exhibit. T

This photograph shows the type of objects displayed in the box for Clifton and Hotwells

SO...
if you have any objects that you think relevant to Lockleaze and it's history, please contact: Ben Meller at ben.meller@bristol.gov.uk or on 0117 903 1565.

I hear on the grapevine that North Bristol Advice Centre are donating one of their mugs!


NOTE: Latest news is that the ‘Lockleaze’ exhibit is expected end of July/beginning of August with an “official launch” probably in September.

Connect <> Lockleaze Spring Online Event - 2nd out of 107 countrywide!

Connect <> Lockleaze are thrilled that our recent event at Boing! was shortlisted by a panel of independent judges, from no less than 107 events across the country, to receive a Best Event Award as part of the National Digital Conference, ND2013.

We made it from the shortlist of ten to the top three finalists and we collected a runner up award from Baroness Bakewell DBE on 11 June 2013 at a ceremony in London. 

The judges praised our event as “an innovative approach to teaching essential digital skills and a great way of showing how the internet can be used for fun and unusual activities.”

So ... another certificate for our wall and a great sense of achievement for the project as a whole, as well as a true collaboration between University of West of England and Boing! that was mutually beneficial. 

We would like to give Georgie Batt at Boing! a special mention becauseshe used the event to reach out to the neighbouring area of Eastgate so the project had that extra element of strategy and success, as well as being a lot of fun.

Write up of recent Celebration of Learning Event

A write up of the recent Celebration of Learning event is now available on the GoLearn.me website ... a chance to see who else won an award, besides Connect <> Lockleaze of course!

Here is our very own Gail Bowen-Huggett receiving the Partnership Award from Jon Gamble, the Director of Community Learning from the National Skills Funding Agency...

Keep up-to-date with 8th National Digital Conference: Going Digital

The 8th National Digital Conference, ND13: Going Digital kicks-off from tomorrow, 11th June 2013 at the Congress Centre, London. 

Day 1 will focus specifically on Digital Skills, exploring practical solutions, best practice and partnerships to build and sustain a skilled digital society. 

Day 2 will focus on Digital Enterprise, examining how to support and drive growth in the SME sector, as well as how to work with and empower Government to support and a sustainable digital economy.

It will bring together over 250 senior Government, business and NGO leaders to explore the role technology can play in transforming the nation’s skills, businesses and Government services. Age UK’s Chief Executive, Tom Wright will specifically look at the challenges facing those who remain offline and what role communities, partnerships, networks and innovation can play to drive better access and support people online and gain the skills they need.

Register for the FREE webcast at www.nd13.co.uk/live.php

Connect<>Lockleaze to attend NIACE free event on Community Learning and Volunteering

Jo Earl, Connect <> Lockleaze Co-ordinator at UWE, will be attending the NIACE Community Learning and Volunteering event in Birmingham on 25th June 2013.

It looks like a great event and hopefully we can learn from the Community Learning Trust pilots and other innovative practice...
_______________________________

Background
Volunteering is poised to become part of the community learning mainstream. The current policy drive to expand the role of volunteering in community learning reflects increased recognition of the valuable role that volunteers can play. Established initiatives such as Community Learning Champions, Union Learning Representatives and Workplace Learning Advocates have shown the diverse ways in which volunteers in communities and unionised and non-unionised workplaces respectively can enhance the work of providers and bring benefits for learners. Across sectors as diverse as health, offender resettlement, community development and financial advice, numerous volunteers linked to voluntary and community organisations support learning, often as part of a wider role. And for many of the Community Learning Trust pilots, developing volunteers has been an important dimension of their innovative partnership approaches.

Volunteering has a critical place within the community learning reform agenda. Greater involvement of volunteers in the planning and delivery of learning is a key way in which providers can both strengthen their work locally and ensure that it aligns with national policy objectives for community learning. It can help to achieve better outcomes for learners, communities, partner organisations and strategic stakeholders. On the one hand, volunteers can act as a bridge between providers and their communities, helping to engage communities in consultation and decision making so that provision is genuinely determined by local needs. On the other, they can inspire and support excluded adults to re-engage in learning, succeed and progress, and the additional resources that providers secure in the form of volunteers’ time, skills, knowledge and experience represents an important dimension of “Pound Plus”, that is the added financial value in cash or in kind that accrues around the core of public funding.

Drawing on the lessons and experiences of both established and emerging initiatives, and including contributions from volunteers themselves, this workshop will support community learning providers and partners to understand how to make the most of the opportunities presented for their own work.

Aims
The workshop aims to support community learning providers to develop and embed effective approaches to involving volunteers in their work. It will:

• share lessons from the Community Learning Trust pilots and other national and local initiatives on effective approaches to strengthening the relationship between community learning and volunteering;
• identify the key strategic and operational factors for successfully developing and embedding volunteering within community learning;
• show how community learning volunteers can play a vital role in helping to deliver local strategic priorities in areas such as health and wellbeing;
• explore how a focus on volunteering opens up the potential for building closer partnerships with voluntary and community sector organisations and widening the provider base for community learning;
• identify the lessons for community learning providers from peer volunteering initiatives in other sectors, and explore the scope for building closer relationships with these;
• share innovative approaches to capturing and demonstrating the impact and value of volunteering;
• hear directly from volunteers about their experiences and the difference their role has made.

Outcomes
The workshop will:

• raise awareness among providers of the potential role and contribution of volunteers within community learning;
• strengthen the role of volunteers within community learning, by promoting adoption of a robust and effective model for supporting their work;
• develop closer links between peer volunteer initiatives with an interest in learning;
• contribute to the further development of work to capture and demonstrate the impact of volunteering.

_______________________________

Can't wait to hear Jo feedback what she learns!