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Princes Trust Oxford Team 6 Blog

By Robert Webb and guests

Week 10: Fundraising, bags and paperclips

18th-23rd July 2011

Well, that’s it. Goodbye Oxford. You have seen me through thick and thin. Hopefully we shall meet again. Well, we will, but mainly because I am commuting up to your dreaming spires from home.

So, this week we have been raising, through various means, money for our Team challenges. This is to help out various groups in society that are at more of a disadvantage than we are. Our main focus was on the elderly, or kids in hospital. A group in society I feel particularly strongly about is young carers, as children as young as five even are caring for their parents; but these are what I like to call the silent majority, the people who for whatever reason do not prick the conscience of the general public. In the end we decided to give to Longlands care home in Blackbird Leys, the details of which will follow in next week’s blog.

The way we raised money was in several different ways. Our main success in terms of raising money was a bag pack at Asda Wheatley on Saturday 23rd July. This contributed over three hundred pounds. However, the small things also made a difference towards our overall total of nearly four hundred pounds. Of these the Paperclip challenge contributed a good fifty.

The Paperclip challenge itself was for many people the most enjoyable way to raise money, probably because it involved being outside and trying to convince High Street chains to part with unwanted items of stock in exchange for a paperclip. For those not familiar with how this works, essentially you start out with a paperclip and then barter for more sellable items in exchange of it, and so and so forth. We then auctioned the items amongst the staff at connexions, so (as they do not say at a certain major supermarket) "Every little helps."

Next time we will have the final blog from the Prince’s Trust Team 6 in Oxford, there is a fortnight to go, but the final week is planning exclusively for our presentation, completing our folders too, so I will post a link to our presentation so that people can have a look at that, which should be up on or around the 5 th August.

Until the last time…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 9: Career paths and planning our presentation

11th-15th July 2011

I’m writing this sat listening to The Red Shoes album by Kate Bush, which reflects poignantly enough how I feel about this week as everyone seems to be dropping like flies this week. After the stresses and strains of our Work Experience fortnight that is not surprising. To me it feels as if you are ready to go to sleep, then go past that point and are suddenly energised for a brief amount of time.

Our main focus this week has been organising not only our group presentation, for early August, but also our career paths for when we finish team. So for me that has meant looking for work on the National Trust website, as I am harbouring ambitions to be an Archivist. This will mean calling up a lot of people at some point in the near future and making myself out to be a fine young man. Also we have started the preparation work for raising money towards our Team Challenge, where we do some exciting activity with other people in the community.

As mentioned earlier our other work this, we have started on our final group presentation, to which we hope that those people who have supported us as well as helped us over the last couple of months will be able to see a top notch presentation. Well that is my aim! Mainly so far, although it is only early stages, we have looked through the multitude of photos that Tom has taken of us, on residential, at Aspire and on the Team Challenge. We have chosen the photos we like, which are a fair few, considering how vain some of us are, well perhaps yours truly! This also included structuring the order of the slides, and the basic word layout.

For next week it’s Goodbye Oxford for me, though I will be commuting up and down to the Dreaming Spires for the last fortnight. These last two weeks will be planning our team challenge more thoroughly, which should happen at some point next week or the week after.

Until the next time…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 7-8: Work Experience

27th June - 8th July 2011

For these couple of weeks we have been on our work experiences. Nearly all of us got placements in the end, though some started a little later than others. My work experience was only for a week, a fortnight would have been preferable but really after such an excellent time, I cannot complain.

I have been working at Sanders of Oxford on the High Street, well worth a visit if you ask me. They sell rare maps and prints, as the owner/benefactor has a very large collection of antique prints, mainly dating from the eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, as well as a few from earlier periods. Some of these prints are highly valuable, selling for getting on to upwards of £5000.

The sort of work and knowledge I have acquired has included how to do basic photography, which went up on the website; so that prospective customers have a good idea what a print they may be interested in purchasing looks like. To give you a rough idea of how much is still left not catalogued, depending on whom you ask there are thirty to a hundred thousand prints still unsorted.

Furthermore I now know how to do minor restoration. As quite a lot of the prints are glued to pieces of paper with Gum Arabic, then the easiest way to get them off is to leave them in a tray of lukewarm water for a day, then leave them on another piece of paper to dry. When this is done, they are dampened with water spray, placed under a press, and left to dry out.

However putting aside matters of the press aside, the main focus of my work, in my suitably ironic job title of Chief Archive Assistant, was cataloguing. Having spent an extremely hot Monday, where it felt as if my face was going to melt off, and a much more agreeable Tuesday sorting out a multitude of landscapes and portraits, mainly of Churches, Country Houses and Parks into English Counties, Our Celtic Cousins, and The British Isles. Oxfordshire has a separate folder, then it was time for my more daunting task for the rest of the week.

From Wednesday until Friday, each of my days was taken up sorting out a seemingly endless supply of portraits into various categories. These ranged from the British Royal Family, perhaps that should be German, to Politicians, Mistresses, if it said `Villiers` you could be pretty sure that she was one, as were most of the Actresses. Fortunately though there was a Performing Arts category for these as well, including for those less enamoured with their wives and more in thrall with the fecundity of their mistresses, the poet and literary section.

Regrettably I never finished this task, but to be able to sort out so many portraits I am glad that I was able to clear a fair few from the backlog, before my week was up. And this includes whacking my head on the door!

Finally though, the main highlight for me this week has been working with such a fine group of people. All of us were under thirty, which goes a long way to dispel the myth that this sort of places are lacking in character.

For the next couple of weeks we are sorting out our Team Challenge for Week Ten, preparing our final presentations, working on CV’s and preparing for the wider world by trying to sort out work for once the course ends in August.

Until the next time…

 

 

 

 

Week 6: finding our placements

20-24th June 2011

Phew! This week has been stressful. The main focus here has been trying to get everyone a work placement. The days where nothing seemed to go right were strangely the ones I liked more, whereas the one day where a lot of people seemed to get work placements was quite depressing. I cannot explain why, I suspect it is that you have achieved so much, and then discover that there iss till quite a lot to do, which can be a little deflating.

I guess you want to know more about what Work Experience is? It’s not just an opportunity to get away from one another for a fortnight, from 27th June to the 8th July. Hopefully you are working somewhere you are interested in; I am doing archiving at Sanders Rare Prints and Maps Gallery on the High Street. By the end of it all you should have; either the offer of a job, a favourable reference, and at least more self confidence, as well as a passion for something.

The main thing that became apparent, fairly quickly as well, was that cold calling would only get us so far. So, favours were called in, thank you to those people, old friends were remembered, which was how I got my placement sorted out. Cheers Tom!

Onto other exciting things now. Wednesday was a day spent away from the team for me, they went canoeing (you can hear about that from Jordan Knox below). I, on the other hand went to County Hall, where there was a rather lovely black Labrador cross at the door, who was so well behaved he actually sat, when I told him too!

But patting Dogs aside, my main reason for being there was setting up this blog with Jeremy. My grateful thanks for her expertise and grammatical corrections. “Uh oh, apostrophe crime!” will be for ever burnt into my cortex.

So next week we are, all of us hopefully, venturing out into the big bad world of work. Wish us luck!

Until the next time…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 6: canoeing trip

22nd June 2011 - by Jordan Knox

We met our canoeing instructor Roger and his dog Mr G at the Sea Cadets building at half past nine.

Firstly we had a briefing on different type of canoes. We then chose three and two man canoes. The three man canoes are called Canadian canoes.

Next we got all the equipment out of the sheds. Oars and life jackets being the most important but we also all got into waterproof clothing.

We carried our boats down to the river bank and were then briefed on how to paddle and steer our canoes.

After being on the river for a while it started to rain, but thankfully the rain didn’t last long.

We stopped for lunch at the side of the river and had pancakes and bacon sarnies. Then sailed back to the sea cadets building and packed away the equipment.

Everyone enjoyed the trip and asked to do it again.

 

Week 5: Community Project

13-17th June 2011

The real work starts now, no slacking - well, not that much. I am of the persuasion that we work better in the office at Gloucester Green, than the Scout Hut on Donnington Bridge.

Tuesday is when we actually started, as Monday was spent with me, Chris, Jamie, Steph and Lita coming up with more hazards to be aware of. All the ones that came up were new, so it did not feel like our time was in vain. If you want to know they were;

• Traffic, Oxford is the thirteenth most congested city in Europe, which is a lot of bikes!
• Other people, strange we hadn’t thought of that yet!
• ... and of course heavy objects. Remember, bent knees and straight back, I think that’s correct.

Emmanuel, who’s got a car, or more specifically, a boot, went with Corinna and Bradley to get the paint, and we dropped it all round to Aspire. We had at our disposal, paint, brushes, rollers, trays and other various knick-knacks. Later in the week we attached Brushes and Rollers to curtain rollers, for those difficult to reach nooks and crannies. At least I wasn’t put in charge of that!

Painting is not my strong point, if in doubt call the man in I say. Sacked by my own Mother no less, but at least I am better than my friend in knowing the difference between Matt and Gloss, though not by much. The others have not taken this on board, so consequently I am doing the Glossing, which I avoided on Wednesday, due to minor ear surgery. So it’s been doing little things, like filling in gaps the rest of the week, as well as writing this. My balance is more suspect than normal.

From what I gathered I missed little, with the Atrium and reception room being started on one day, and the interview room the next. Thankfully the green is not too bad, but I am not that convinced by it, if I am honest with you.

Other things I can report to you are that we got the first call back from my letters. Corinna’s the lucky lady, and it was the one she wanted, so well done to her, and I feel a little pat on the back for myself. It really does make you more positive about the world, if even only one person gets back. At least it shows I am doing something right.

Finally, as I write this out, it is Tayna and Chloe’s last day. I hope I speak for all of us that we will miss them greatly, they may be doing this as part of their Social Work Degrees from the University of Winchester, but it feels like they’ve become an integral part of the group, so hopefully they will pop in to see us from time to time. Tom I’m sometimes convinced will be glad for a break. Also thank your Tayna for the snacks, much appreciated.

Progress gathers, and next week we are calling up our work placement employers, which hopefully will not take to long.

Until the next time…

 

 

 

 

Week 5: Community Project Slideshow

13-17th June 2011

Week 4: Letter writing & measuring up

6-10th June 2011

So, this week we have been sorting out fundraising. The idea of a walk from Oxford to Abingdon and back, a 12 mile round trip was mooted, but thankfully it became clear that asking friends and family to help and contribute ourselves, would be more than sufficient.

Our other main tasks included writing up a risk assessment for the jobs involved in our community project at Aspire, for next week. These included paint, the dangers of paint, the bane of cigarette smoking, as well as the potential horrors of white spirit, God Forbid!

Measuring up was done by myself (Robert), Bradley (who’s our onsite manager or expert Painter and Decorator), Chris and Jordan. After some very rough estimates, myself and Tom (well, Tom really), our PT team leader, worked out how much paint we needed to cover the rooms we are allowed to paint. These are the Atrium, the reception and the back interview room. Our colours are an adventurous Magnolia, White Gloss for the doors and windows. On top of that we have a Primrose Yellow for the back wall, and a Lemongrass Green for the interview room, which is rather fetching I must say!

All of us have our tasks; our boardroom, a conglomerate of talent, or perhaps the loudest people, have drawn up rotas for cleaning, washing up and refreshments, because of course everyone is doing painting. Even yours truly!

The main excitement for myself this week has been being put in charge of this here blog, a big responsibility.

My writing skills were put to further use at the end of thee week, with typing up a generic letter for each of our group members to their prospective work placement employers. I cannot recall exactly how many drafts Tom looked at, but I should reckon that it was around six or seven. The final copy bore little relation to the first, but progress was made and it gave me an insight into how employers think. Keep it short and sweet, seems to be the key to me. Though I do now have some understanding how a writer feels when his or her draft changes so much. It may be your work, but are those actually the words you wrote?

Anyway, onwards and upwards we march, ready next week to start our community project at Aspire.

Until the next time…

 

 

 

 

 

Week 3 – Residential trip to the New Forest

31st May-3rd June - by Jordan Knox

Firstly we had to carry our entire luggage up a long gravel road, as the coach driver decided that he couldn’t drive along it. This got some groans from the group. After a while of exploring the building we were staying in, we met Elaine the team instructor for the trip.

We then made a rota for who was cleaning, cooking and washing up for each day of the trip. Next we were given a map of the camp. We had to find different points on the map, and write down the word on the sign post at that point. This was difficult in some areas as posts were missing and someone had hidden one sign post in a bush, which I managed to find. It was my team’s turn to cook on the Tuesday night. We made Chinese food. My job was mostly to chop up the ingredients, and cooked the chicken chow mein.

We played a game called meaning of life. This is where two tribes have to share the meaning of life. But there is a gap in the earth between them. The gap kept getting bigger. The teams were determined to beat the record for the game and after a few tries we did it. That night we played sniper in the woods. This is where you have to get to a base without the sniper seeing you. I managed to beat the sniper two out of three times.

The next day we went wall climbing. This was hard for some people as they have a fear of heights. But everyone conquered their fears and climbed the wall. The next task we did was crate stacking. This is where you’re on top of a stack of crates and see how high you can stack the crates. The crates were really wobbly and none of us lasted that long. We then all learnt how to make a fire. We then used the fire to make smores and then around the fire Elaine taught us line dancing.

The next day we did archery, we played a game where we had to shoot each ring on the target in order. My team lost this game, even though most of the team had done archery before.

We then did the assault course. Firstly we went over the assault course as a team helping each other over the obstacles. We were then split into two teams. Then we were asked if we wanted to race round as an individual, only three of us took up the challenge myself included. Mano beat the course time record.

We also did first aid training on that day learning DR ABC (Danger, Response, Airways, Breathing and Circulation) and CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation). We were the only Prince’s Trust team where everybody practiced CPR on the dummy. One task we did was to get an egg from one point to another using guttering and sticks. We went through a few eggs before succeeding. We then threw the egg to each other trying not to crack it. But this took another eggs life. We then made a rocket to send the remaining egg into space. We also played sniper again. This time was a lot harder as we were in a field so there was less cover to hide behind.

Friday we packed and cleaned ready to go home. But not before trying to send vlad the egg up into space before he fell down and cracked. We then said goodbye to Elaine and carried our luggage back up the gravel road where the coach was waiting.

 

Introducing the Team

22nd June 2011

Hello and welcome to you, this is the weekly blog for Princes Trust Oxford Team 6. The Princes Trust (PT) Team course is a 12 week placement for 16-24 year olds taking in Residential trips, Community Projects and work experience, and is aimed at building up leadership and planning skills and building self confidence in preparation for going on to employment of education.

The team went to Fernycrofts in the New Forest for their residential trip, and our community was at Aspire, a charity based in Oxford, which helps get long term unemployed people back into work and training.

The people on this team are myself (Robert), Corinna, Bradley, Cara, Ross, Chris, Jordan, Steph, Emanuel and Lita. Our team leader is Tom, with Chloe and Tayna on as part of their social work Degree from the University of Winchester.

Robert Webb is writing this blog for Spired.com as part of his Princes Trust Team

Find out more: Prince’s trust team explained