Regenerating across Nottinghamshire – UK Community Renewal Fund

What we’ve been up to so far

Following our vibrant start at The Pythian Club with Nottingham City Council, we’ve since set to work on the next round of 23 community projects we’re completing across the county. 

Since February, we’ve so far worked on five projects across four priority areas with Nottinghamshire County Council, regenerating spaces including:

• Vibrant Warsop Methodist Church
• Bassetlaw Citizens Advice
• Newark Amateur Boxing Club
• The Cuckney Club

Mansfield is one such priority area which includes our fifth project, The Old Library; a Grade II listed building used by the Inspire Youth Arts team for community arts activities, receiving a makeover to its interior and community cafe, to celebrate its 25th anniversary and revitalise the venue ahead of a busy summer of arts activity and performance.

15 young people, including painting & decorating students from the Mansfield campus of Vision West Nottinghamshire College and young people referred through Futures For You and the Inspire programme, have been gaining work experience through VIY whilst transforming the iconic building in their hometown. Executive Mayor of Mansfield, Andy Abrahams, recently paid a visit to the venue and he said:

“As a former teacher, I know that practical work experience is an invaluable part of learning. Working alongside local tradespeople will not only help develop their skills, but improve their confidence and inspire them to reach their full potential – hopefully leading to good quality employment. We want as many of our district’s young people as possible to take advantage of free opportunities like this.

“I’m so pleased that community assets in Mansfield are also benefiting from this project – it really is a win-win for all involved.”

One of our key Trade Partners, Travis Perkins, also began supporting our young people with work-readiness training, helping explore their career aspirations and how they can go about achieving them, with their first two sessions delivered at this project thanks to volunteers from their Apprenticeship & Kickstart teams.

Hear it straight from our young volunteers here, including Daniel, who heard about the opportunity for free work experience locally, whose ambition is to secure an apprenticeship in joinery, who shared the impact of this training and the project on them in this video.

Read about our work in the Mansfield Chad.

What we’re doing now and what’s coming up!

Elsewhere in partnership with Nottingham City Council, we’ve been working at Cavaliers & Carrington Cricket Club to renovate the outdoor seating areas (with great weather for it!) to attract a wider audience from the local, diverse communities, complete with renovated catering facilities to serve this audience and support the club financially.

At Clifton Boxing Club, where we are revitalising the changing rooms, facilities and exterior cladding for this local high impact community boxing club, we held our first ‘Taster Day’, welcoming partners from local youth organisations Groundwork and Futures For You, who have also referred young people onto our projects so far in the region, to see first hand what the VIY experience looks like, ahead of sharing the opportunity with young people they work with. 

Groundwork also successfully signed up four out of six eligible young people to progress from VIY onto their Towards Work programme, working to support with the first vital steps towards gaining employment through a personalised service and support to overcome any barriers they may face. A great step for our young volunteers!

We’re then going full green fingers throughout May, heading outdoors to create accessible, garden spaces at Vale View Summerhouse for older residents and at schools including West Nottinghamshire College, Mansfield and Elizabethan Academy, Retford.

Click here to keep up to date with these next projects coming up across Nottinghamshire and our full pipeline of projects elsewhere across the country.

* For more information on the UK Community Renewal Fund, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-community-renewal-fund- prospectus

VIY Review Launch: Our First Ten Years

We’re delighted to be marking 10 years of Volunteer It Yourself with the release of a review celebrating our first decade as an organisation – VIY: Our First Ten Years. This coincides with another milestone, awarding our 5,000th City & Guilds Entry Level 3 construction skills accreditation to the young people who volunteer with us.

Since 2011 (and our first project at John Corfield Community Centre, Streatham, pictured above), we have worked with over 12,000 young people, principally those disengaged or excluded from mainstream education and training, at risk of disengagement, and/or unemployed, with the aim of upskilling and supporting them to progress back into the workforce, education or training.

At the same time, we have delivered over 600 regeneration projects to transform, and in many cases save and secure, valued community buildings and facilities. In the process, we have also mobilised over 1,000 local professional tradespeople as inspirational trade skills mentors for young people, whilst also underpinning the delivery of the works on each project.

With exciting plans in the pipeline, including the news of our funding through the UK Government’s Community Renewal Fund across three local councils, we’re ready and raring to do even more in 2022 and beyond.

Read our 10 Year Review here

VIY wins Community Renewal Funding

We are delighted to announce we have received significant funding to deliver multiple local community projects in partnership with three local authorities (Nottingham, Nottinghamshire and Norfolk), thanks to the UK Government’s Community Renewal Fund.

The £220million national fund is designed to help pilot programmes and new approaches in local communities, to invest in people and boost skills. This is exactly what we do day in, day out, so we couldn’t be better placed to deliver this for these local communities.

Who we’ll be working with

We’re thrilled to be chosen as one of four projects working with Nottinghamshire County Council across communities in Bassetlaw, Mansfield & Newark & Sherwood, aiming to help more local people back into work and to support businesses following the pandemic.

For Nottingham City Council, we’re again one of four projects improving skills, boosting employment and helping businesses to grow across the city.

Finally, we’ll be working across Norfolk County Council as one of 14 projects across Great Yarmouth, Kings Lynn & West Norfolk, North Norfolk & Norwich, focused on building skills and fostering innovation.

How we’ll be supporting young people

Across all of our projects with the Community Renewal Fund, we’ll be supporting over 1000 young people at risk of marginalisation who’ll be volunteering with local trade mentors, learning and applying vocational construction skills whilst breathing life back into buildings at the heart of communities in Nottingham/Nottinghamshire and Norfolk.

As an official City & Guilds skills centre, whilst volunteering on our projects our young volunteers will also be given the opportunity to earn City & Guilds trade skill accreditations with us. They’ll then receive dedicated support to help them to progress into further education, training or employment.

Tim Reading, our CEO, commented: “We’re delighted to see young people, skills and employability outcomes recognised across this fund for all three councils, three things at the heart of our VIY mission, and we’re delighted to be one of many projects delivering further on these priorities, working directly with young people and communities in these local communities.”

We’re incredibly grateful to our growing team who have helped us reach this point, and who are continuing to work tirelessly to make this happen.

Fancy volunteering with us? If you are or know of an experienced tradesperson with skills and knowledge to pass on to the next generation in one of these areas, please contact us here.

VIY begins partnership with Sport England

To coincide with International Volunteer Day 2020, VIY and Sport England announced a new three-year, £2million partnership involving 4,000+ young volunteers helping to renovate and improve 225 grassroots sports clubs and other active community spaces and places in need.

More than 60% of the projects are located in local communities among the 20% most deprived nationally. The programme will also be open to less formal ‘active spaces’ such as community centres or youth clubs that host physical activity.

Projects are match-funded and delivered in collaboration with other stakeholders such as national sports governing bodies, local authorities, and building and construction sector employers, as well as key VIY partners Dulux and Travis Perkins.

Sport England Director of Sport Phil Smith said of the partnership announcement: “Local sports clubs and venues have never been more important. They provide places to play and ways to stay fit, while bringing communities together in a tough time. This partnership between Sport England and VIY will play a significant role in helping make our sports facilities better, while giving the many brilliant young people involved the chance to develop new vocational skills and boost their employment prospects.”

Guy Martin lends a hand at VIY

As part of our initial partnership with Wickes, we were honoured when Channel 4 presenter Guy Martin and a camera crew visited four VIY project sites. The resulting four short films are still live on All 4/Channel 4 online – they’re well worth a watch!

Guy is keen to encourage more young people to learn vocational trade skills and wanted to meet, and work alongside, young people doing just that at VIY projects across the country.

“I met great lads and lasses volunteering on all four projects. Their enthusiasm was a brilliant reflection of what the VIY scheme is all about. They all just just wanted to get on with it.” Guy Martin, 2018

Watch now

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