Holland Assessment Expo on Film! Pass it on...

Presentation tomorrow at 5pm!

We will presenting our experiences and findings back in our presentation in the RBKC Mayors parlour tomorrow evening at 5pm. 

Please let us know if you would like to attend!

Thank you to every one that has supported us and please keep subscribed to our blog as we will be keeping it updated with future plans etc

x

Research Days

We learnt some amazing things from meeting some great organisation, professionals and young people in Holland. 




Young parents have to..

• Go back to work after 2 years or their benefits stop
• Don’t get as much help with rent etc as young mothers in the UK - They get 700 Euros a month but have to pay rent, health insurance, childcare etc out of that. 
• Have to do a voluntary work placement 1 day a week, 3 months after have baby. They have to pay childcare out of their benefits for that day if they have no friends/family to have the baby
• Do not have legal guardianship of their child if they are under 18. They have to go to court to fight for this and prove they can be a good parent. 

More facts to come.....

Day 4 of our Assessment...By Harmony

Best Bit:

The end!!!

We returned to camp triumphant to be greeted by our assessor who was beaming with pride... It was finally over!!

We returned to tents that the staff had very kindly pitched for us, freshened up and went out for a celebratory meal then we slept in tents for the last time!

Learnt: I think we all learned to communicate better over the course of this expedition, we gained the ability to work better in high-pressure situations and utilised our skills in creative problem solving.

Pics!

Day 3 of our Assessment... by Laura

Best part.

Had to be the morning. We had all started out really positive, happy and doing well for timing. The kids were having fun because the campsite had a play ground.

Worst Part.

Well the whole day was pretty traumatic but the worst part was getting back to the campsite, finding our pitch and realise it was nothing but sand!!! There has to be nothing worse then a field of wet sand! Sand just gets everywhere and it meant that we couldn’t even sit down!!! Aaliyah was ill, she had an ear infection and I just felt so selfish and guilty to put her through it all!!

Learnt.

I personally learnt how emotionally strong I am and that we all our also learnt the importance of determination!! There were many points along the way where we wanted to give up but we just kept going!

We are all so proud of how well the kids coped and think that they definitely deserve an award!!!

Day 2 of our assessment...By Rennice

Best Bit

We supported each other and used teamwork in taking turns to ride the tandem. Most importantly the weather kept up there is nothing worse than the kids being wet and cold. The kids also got to ride their bikes and were very good at taking turns in riding the bikes.

Worst Bit

I wouldn’t really say that there was anything significantly wrong with day.

Learnt:

We learnt how important it was to keep the kids stimulated by having a day full of activities not just cycling the whole length. 

Day 1 of our assessment... By Hayley

Day 1 of our assessment!

Best Bit

As a team I think we were able to highlight things we need to improve on and actually made changes in the forth-coming days. I.e. not leaving people lagging behind.

What I learnt

Looking back on the experience now I think what we learnt from day 1 is no matter how hard things can get if you work as a team and keep going you will eventually make it through to the other side. Also if u give up at the first sign of hardship you will never get anywhere out of life.

By the way...

By the way...

We passed!!!!

:-)

WE ARE BACK!!!!

WE ARE BACK!!!!

Sorry it's taken us so long to update the blog. We have been soooooo busy! 

We hope you enjoy the pictures and comments. 

Video and upload of our presentation is to be uploaded after our presentation at the RBKC mayors parlour tomorrow evening!

Wish us luck!

xx

Nearly ready to go!

We are nearly ready to go and just putting the final touches to our kit list and plans. 

We are meeting at 4am on April 5th to start our journey :-/ Eek!

Please keep checking our blog incase we get the chance to post some updates on the day!

Raffle Draw Extended to Monday 2nd April 2012

Thank you to those who have 

already bought tickets...

Raffle Draw Extended to 

Monday 2nd April 2012

RAFFLE TICKETS £1EACH OR

10 FOR £5

PRIZES INCLUDE:

Sony MP3 Player

ELC Playdough Set

Bottle of Wine x 2

Cut and Blow Dry at any Headmasters

Meal for two + Wine at the Leinster Arms, 

Bayswater

ALL money raised goes towards our

Young Mothers Gold Duke of Edinburgh Expedition!

Raffle will be drawn on Monday 2nd April at 

6pm. 

Good Luck!

Thank you Mr Clarke!

Thank you to Mr Clarke from Hardwicke Barristers Chambers and his family 

for his generous donation towards our expedition. 

You have made a world of difference and we are so grateful!!!!

New Raffle Announced!

RAFFLE TICKETS £1 EACH OR 10 FOR £5

PRIZES INCLUDE:

Sony MP3 Player

ELC Playdough Set

Bottle of Wine x 2

Cut and Blow Dry at any Headmasters

Meal for two + Wine at the Leinster Arms, Bayswater

ALL money raised goes towards our

Young Mothers Gold Duke of Edinburgh Expedition!

Raffle will be drawn on Sunday 18^th March at 6pm. Good Luck!

Pub Crawl For Donations Tonight and Tomorrow!

We are out in our PJs tonight selling raffle tickets and asking for donations as a final push to gain some more funds for our trip on April 5th. 

We are hoping to raise at least £200 tonight so fingers crossed!

Pic from last times pub crawl

Wish us luck and come back to see the new pics!

Thank you for our Donation Friend of Cremorne!

Friends of Cremorne has pledged us £500 if we go out on the river at Cremorne and learn to Kayak! 

Some of us are complete beginners and a little scared so they might have some tears and shrieks :-) 

Thank You, We are all looking forward to it!

www.kayakinglondon.com

Quiz Night!

We hope to see you at our Quiz night on Thursday in Ladbroke Grove!

Let us know if you can come along!

xx

Donations and cake selling down portobello road!

On Saturday 2 of us mums sold some lovely home - made Lemon Drizzle cake and asked for donations around Ladbroke Grove and Portobello Road. 

We were only out an hour and managed to raise £60! :-)

Pub Quiz @ The Leinster Arms Update

We had an amazing time at the pub quiz fundraiser on Tuesday night. 

The raffle went down well with bottles of whiskey, crates of Alcopops, games, books, chocolate, beer, wines and some girlie gifts!


The quiz was a also great (Although I did terribly and hardly knew any of the answers!) 


Cupcakes were sold on a minimum donation of 50p basis and for 16 we raised about £25 so that just shows how amazing the customers were to us!

We raised just over £250!!! 

AMAZING!!!!!

Many thanks to Lucy, Andy, all the staff and customers at the Leinster Arms. 

Change together highly recommend you take a visit. 

The food, staff and atmosphere are amazing!

Leinster Terrace, Bayswater, W2 3EU

Call: 020 7402 4670

Planning Day 2 completed and we are ready to go... Almost.

One of the main things we learnt from our practice expedition is that we need to plan a lot more so we have met up twice now to plan plan plan every aspect of our expedition including activities to make sure the kids are kept entertained, a food rota, cleaning rota, and every other rota you can think of!

We have made up our own games to keep the kids entertained such as leaf sketching, street bingo and treasure hunts so we hope to add these to the long list of planned activities we have arranged in Holland such as exploring castles, lighthouses and flower fields!

Practice Expedition Video! Take a look!

CLICK HERE to see our Practice Expedition Video!!! 

It's Amazing I promise!

Weekly Cake Sales

Any one for Cookies and Cakes?

From now until our expedition in April all member of the Change Together team 

will be baking and selling cookies and cupcakes! 

We aim to make at least £50 per week! Any tips?

 Let us know if you want to order some for a bday or the office etc!

Pub Quiz Night @ The Leinster Arms!

Join us for our Pub Quiz Night @ The Leinster Arms!


http://www.facebook.com/events/166216133494891/

£2 INCLUDES ENTRY AND RAFFLE TICKET

All money raised will go towards our Young Mothers Gold Duke of Edinburgh Expedition!


Call us for more details about the event or to book a table/buy raffle tickets!

See You There!!

ANYTHING FOR A TENNER!

The Leap Day on 29th February 2012 has been designated a special day in the calendar where good causes across the UK can get help and 

we are hoping 

every one can spend a little time helping us :-)

We are asking every one to do what ever they can to raise £10 and send it to us by cheque, cash, paypal, bank transfer etc before on on Wednesday 29th Febuary 2012. 

Ideas so far have included:

Shave you head

Sponsored jog/walk/run

Sell something on Ebay

Clean your mates flat/car

Ask your family!

Face painting for your cousins

A bet with your mates

Poker game

Take a look at our facebook event-

 http://www.facebook.com/events/255349807876758/

And more details here- 

http://leapday.co.uk/volunteer/view/anything-for-a-tenner-anywhere-139/

I hope you can help! 

xxx

Change Together Team

Planning Day

Plan, Plan, Plan!

A couple of weeks ago we held a planning day to complete our route cards, we have now sent off our route of DofE to be approved and booked our campsites, ferry and vans!!!

We also got in contact with some organisation in Holland to try to arrange meeting up, we have not heard anything back yet but we will keep trying so if any one can speak Dutch or knows who we should contact please let me know!

This Sunday is planning day 2 (The final one) and we have a lot to get through!

Wish us luck!!!

                            

12.00pm -1.30pm	·         Plan for the day ·         Food Shopping List & Menu ·         Rota for Expedition ·         Activity Rota plus design of Activities to be delivered while we are on assessment expedition ·         Pass ports/ Medical Cards  ·         Gold expedition presentation at the mayor parlour 3rdMay 5-7pm with the Mayor ·         Kit packing date to be set ·         Fund raising up date ·         Times for departure and returns of expedition
1.30pm -1.45pm	·         break
1.45pm  - 5.00pm	·         Complete rota / meal planning ·         Complete activity plans

Valentines day cookies!

V-Day Cookies for sale!

Hayley did a great job baking Valentines day cookies 

and managed to raise £70. 

She had a little trouble at first but she carried on and the second batch were amazing! :-)

Batch 2

Batch 1

Sorry for the gap in blogs!

We have been rrreeaallllyy busy recently fundraising and planning our trip to Holland so sorry we haven't written in for a while!

We will update you all soon on how we are getting on and our plans for Holland :-)

xx

Over £100 made at School X-Mas Fair :-)

A few of the Change Together team had a stall outside Middle Row Primary School on the last day of the Xmas Term and made over £100 by selling cakes, raffle tickets, lucky dip and balloons!

Thank you to Middle Row Primary School for all you help and support!

We will be doing loads of things like this in the next couple months so will keep you posted!

x

Young Mothers at Buckingham Palace!

One of our team, Emily Mailes, was given the amazing opportunity to give a speech at Buckingham Palace last month and meet a few members of the Royal Family.

Emily spoke about her experiences of the Duke of Edinburgh Award and all about the upcoming Gold Expedition (She also managed to drop a hint about wanting donations she we will see if that worked soon enough!)

'It was an amazing experience and one I will never forget, I hope some of the audience take a look at our blog and maybe even donate or offer some help! I was do nervous I was shaking but every one was really nice and my mum's really proud!'

Pictures to come!!

Winners of the RBKC Apollo Group Award 2011!

Change Together were the proud winners of the group award at the Apollo Awards on Wednesday 21st December 2011.

We got to meet some great singers, watch great comedy and were also given an amazing glass award with our group name on it, a certificate and a summer boat trip for us and the children.

We are really happy and proud to be the winners and have our certificate and award displayed!!