Manton Sports & Social Club

Marden Boxing Club

Marden is a community boxing club based in an old church hall that was built in the 1930s. Located in one of the most disadvantaged wards in Newcastle, Marden gives local young people a safe environment in which to train, compete or just make and see friends.

In April 2019, 17 young students from Gateshead College volunteered to help improve the centre as a VIY-Sport England partnership project. None of them had visited the boxing club before. They helped to increase the size of the main gym, removed a partition wall, and extended the training area into an old kitchen space. They also created a new changing room in a disused storeroom and installed new cubicles in the bathrooms.

This work has allowed the club to host extra participants, as well as to improve safety, at their training sessions. They are also now able, for the first time, to attract female boxers to the club due to the newly-created separate changing rooms and toilet facilities.

Dean Preston, manager and coach at Marden Boxing Club, explains: “The project has been a great success and a massive boost for the club. As a not-for-profit community club, we depend on external support. VIY and Wickes have been amazing. We have managed to increase our space and give existing and new members a safer facility to train in. Without their help none of this would have been possible.

All 17 college students/young volunteers earned a City & Guilds Health & Safety accreditation as a result and Allen Hooker, their course tutor at Gateshead College, said: “The learners were buzzing about volunteering on this project and can’t wait to be involved in more opportunities like this at the club and with VIY down the line.”

Market Harborough Rugby Club

Marlpit Community Centre

Project Contact:  JoJo Yohannes, email jojo@teamviy.com

Marlpit Community Garden

Marlwood School

Mayfield School

May Project Gardens

Meadowbrook Pupil Referral Unit

Meadowbrook College is a PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) that works with young people who are excluded, or at risk of exclusion, from mainstream schools and among the most vulnerable young people in Oxfordshire.

Our work with Meadowbrook covered the involvement of 18 of their students, all aged 15/16, as volunteers in the refurbishment of four community facilities between August 2017 and June 2018.

The work carried out across the four facilities (Barton Leisure Centre and Ferry Leisure Centre in Oxford, and Meadowbrook College’s own campuses in Abingdon and Bicester) included skills such as painting and decorating, plumbing, plastering and tiling, and the young people were mentored on the job by a team of three local professional tradespeople. In the process, the young participants contributed more than 500 volunteer hours whilst working towards achieving multiple City & Guilds Entry Level 3 trade skills accreditations.

One of the participants, 15-year-old Jason Higginson, had been at Meadowbrook for a year prior to signing up for the VIY project. He was attracted by the opportunity to volunteer and do something for his community at the same time as learning new skills and improving his employment prospects. He successfully achieved the Entry Level City & Guilds qualification and is now targeting a starter job as a painting and decorating apprentice on leaving Meadowbrook in June 2019.

Meadowgate Academy

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