MTV March 2017 Newsletter

MTV Newsletter 17. March 2017

View this email in your browser

This term we’ve run MTV Youth from two sites – outdoor sports from St Mary’s school and indoor activities from Hampton Baptist church. We’ve hosted an average of 50 children a week enjoying activities on both sites. We’d like to thank our incredible volunteer team who have turned out each week to run things so we’ve been able to keep things going.

We’ve also collaborated with ‘Cut Films’ this term who have been helping a team of young people create a short film to show to peers about the dangers associated with smoking. It has been fantastic to watch the young people rise to the challenge, working as a team and learning new skills in filming and editing, finding a lot more out about the dangers of smoking and using their creativity to present this in an exciting way.

Pic below shows some of our young people learning how to screen print.

Jack Petchey Awards

MTV Youth has been able to make Jack Petchey awards to some very deserving young people. The winners have all been among the club’s young leaders who have shown a huge level of commitment to the club. The young leaders help set up and clear up equipment, run activities and act as good role models for the younger children. These achievement awards, voted for by their peers, recognise their contribution and enables them to use the prize of £250 on something that would benefit the club and its members. Club awards over the last year have gone to Piers Cramp, Eleanor Bidgood, Emma Strong, Ben Croucher, Nathan Harbid, Rebecca Robley, and Sasha Bentley-Thoburn. Our most recent winners are Bradleigh Vaughan and Hannah Rowe. All of these young people have chosen to spend the money on activities they wouldn’t normally get to do and this has enabled us to really enhance our programme for our young people. During the Christmas holidays, a group went ice skating. At February half term there was a bowling excursion and most recently go karting. Next term there is a paintballing day and a high ropes adventure in the diary.

Focus on Fundraising
During the month of March we’ve had a focus on fundraising including encouraging the young people to think about how they can raise some funds for the club. We also held a games evening and want to thank everyone who supported this. There was a lovely mixture of youth club volunteers, children and parents together with supporters from St Mary’s Church and the wider community. Ninety people joined in the games – including beetle, an observation quiz and our famous toilet roll game. The evening made £585.

On 26 March, a team of five runners (Geoff Grose, Samuel Waako, Daniel Clark, Ian Kersey and Tanja Marsen) tackled the Kingston Breakfast Run aiming to get sponsorship to support the club. They did terrifically well with personal bests all round! You can still sponsor them using the following link: http://my.give.net/MTVHampton Our target is to raise £1,500 for the club.

We’d love to thank all of you who help sustain our club through the supporters club. To try and grow our supporters at the games night we invited everyone who supported the club to try and find one other person who could do too. If you can help in this way please do and feel free to direct your contacts to the following link: http://www.mtvhampton.org.uk/mtv-supporters-club.html
Thank you to Bottomline Technologies for another cheque of £100

Venue update
One of the reasons for our fundraising push is in preparation for a new venue. Having almost run for 6 years, we firmly believe that the St Mary’s school site is where we are meant to be and this is borne out by the children – the majority of whom chose this venue each week, in spite of the lack of indoor space and inclement weather.

Although we are currently running from two sites, this divides the children and stretches our volunteer team so our aim is to try and return the club to one place at the St Mary’s School site.

Over the last year we have been exploring various solutions. Most recently we have been talking to Richmond Council about renting the bungalow (the caretaker's house) on the site. The house would be used for clubnight, for other MTV sessions and by other community users too.

This has involved planning permission and negotiating a lease (with option to buy) that balances the present condition of the property against the value of the site for development. This is still work in progress.

Once this is secured a good deal of essential repairs will be needed to make the property safe and useable. Once the work is done and the club is using the site the club will be paying 'near-market' rent - but we will have a base of our own!

MTV Youth returns for the Summer term on two sites:
St Mary’s School for outdoor sports
Hampton Baptist Church for indoor activities

Term dates:
Friday nights 7pm – 8.30pm
28 April – 21 July inclusive (except half term on 2 June)

Pic below shows some of our young people learning how to screen print.

Jack Petchey Awards

For more information please look at www.mtvhampton.org.uk, ring or text the club mobile 07469 147137 or email info@mtvhampton.org.uk