YouthNet blog
An insight into youth issues, volunteering trends, charity life and more from the UK charity YouthNet
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Thursday Dec 21, 2006
Hoodies, Second Life and safeguarding: bring on 2007
The pre-Christmas sherry is making me a bit giddy. In a perfect, magical world, here's what's going to happen in 2007.Youth
John Reid comes to his senses, decides that perhaps young people aren't all evil good-for-nothing layabouts. He convinces his colleagues in parliament to adhere to the recommendations in the YouthNet/BYC Respect report. Political pressure on the tabloids also sees a change in the way young people are discussed in the media.
Meanwhile, instead of focusing on a minority of long-term unemployed, the government gets tough on wealthy tax-evaders and those behind dubious business deals.
Technology
Wi-fi enabled digital media players which can be used to seamlessly download subscribed podcasts and swap music and other media with friends arrive. And as pigs fly over Islington, a realisation from the music industry that fair pricing and DRM-free music will actually see their fortunes rise.
Virtual worlds don't become clones of the real world. Instead, a new ethos emerges online. These worlds don't duplicate rampant commercialisation and free-marketing; the residents of Second Life et al, foster a new culture of community and egalitarianism.
Volunteering
The mania around safeguarding and risk management subsides, enabling organisations to get on with recruiting, training and managing their volunteers. All those potential volunteers who were put off by overly-invasive checks now come forward, bringing their expertise and enthusiasm to the organisations they volunteer with.
YouthNet
TheSite.org cements its position as the leading information and advice site for young adults. Partnerships with key youth media sees the site's reach explode. The drive to new platforms continues, as does the creation of useful, targeted content in text, audio and video formats.
do-it.org.uk continues to drag the volunteering world into new areas, making major strides in youth volunteering and virtual volunteering. Because of do-it and its partnerships, volunteering is easy to get involved with and just something people... do.
We move to new offices that match our growing ambitions and fancy lifestyles. Win loads of awards.
Charity World
A new three-year voluntary sector consultation committee is created... no, not really. What does happen is innovative, sustainable charities become better understood and respected. CSR money and public sector contracts go to organisations that do stuff rather than just talk about it (or document it). The public gain a better understanding of the breadth of voluntary sector organisations and don't just give all their money to saving kittens, babies and Top Gear presenters.
Happy New Year everyone.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 11:43 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Tuesday Dec 19, 2006
Goats bite charities
How should a charity respond to adverse press coverage? Is it betrer to stay quiet or come out fighting?
At the end of November, Andrew Tyler, director of Animal Aid published an article in The Independent arguing that the heavily promoted "give an animal for Christmas" schemes run by charities such as Oxfam, Christian Aid and Farm Africa were counter-productive.
Ultimately, my objection is to the commercial forces that are seeking to persuade people of the poor world that their best nutritional interests are served by buying into modern, high-throughput farmed animal production processes. With that comes an addiction to high capital input systems, additional stresses on precious water supplies, environmental destruction, a loss of control over the means of production, bad health, a nightmare animal welfare scenario and more human poverty and malnourishment.
Tyler also cited a report from another charity, World Land Trust that called animal gift schemes, "environmentally unsound and economically disastrous", primarily because goat farming was leading to desertification.
Other sections of the press soon picked up the story. The Daily Mail showed barely-concealed glee that "fashionable gifts" for the PC crowd were, apparently, doing more harm than good. The Times ran a similar story and, although both quoted rebuttals from Christian Aid and Oxfam, the overall effect can only have been damaging.
It's a nightmare scenario for charity fundraisers and press officers, potentially threatening a major campaign.
Farm Africa issued a strongly-worded press release (.pdf file) but, as far as I can see, neither Oxfam nor Christian Aid have done the same. Perhaps they didn't want to give any more publicity to what they see as unfounded allegations, or perhaps they feel there is enough information elsewhere on their site.
As a potential donor, however, if I'd heard these stories in the press, I'd want to read a direct response to them. The issues are complicated. But surely it's better to put the evidence in front of people rather than pretending that a controversy never happened.
Update: Intelligent Giving have their own analysis of goat giving - not the pros and cons, but whether your money will actually end up where you think it's heading.
Posted by Tom Green ( 11:52 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Friday Dec 15, 2006
New content on TheSite.org
Wednesday Dec 13, 2006
Time to fill in our blog survey!
We'd love to hear more of your views on our YouthNet blog. We've extended the deadline for our survey - so there's still a chance to win a £25 Amazon voucher!
Posted by Kirsten Olson ( 4:43 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Monday Dec 11, 2006
I consult, therefore I am
A new Committee On Consultations has been established to explore issues relating to consultations within the voluntary sector. A steering group drawn from across the sector will oversee twelve months of surveys, workshops, plenaries, and a national roadshow.
The Committee will seek views on a wide range of current, past and future practices relating to consultations, with guidance from leading consultation consultants. The aim is to produce a practical 280-page guide to running consultations, along with a draft Consultation Strategy. Following meetings with the relevant authorities, the Committee will then circulate the Strategy for further consultation.
Initially you are invited to complete one or all of five online surveys. Where possible you are urged to complete one copy of each survey in your professional role (following internal consultation if appropriate) and one as a private individual. If necessary you can complete further copies of the same survey wearing other ‘hats’, e.g. as a trustee, parent, private donor, volunteer, dog owner etc. A prize of a subscription to Consultation Now! magazine will be awarded to the person who completes the highest number of surveys.
A spokesperson for the Committee said: “Recent surveys suggest that there can be as few as a dozen consultations happening within the voluntary sector at any one time. We hope to raise the profile of consultations and increase their frequency so that we can, one day, reach the point where work is only ever talked about rather than done.”
Posted by Tom Green ( 5:14 PM ) Link to this post Comments[5]The Octi's
TheSite.org 2006 awards are here!
Vote now for everything you loved and hated this year and be in for a chance of a stellar star prize.
http://www.thesite.org/community/beheard
Posted by Jim Valentine ( 12:47 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]Early coming, telemarketers and dodging debt
Here's the weekly roundup of new content from TheSite.org (and a new section on sister-site do-it.org.uk)
New Content on TheSite.org
Lovely, Entertaining Threads from the Boards
Updated Content on TheSite.org
New Section on do-it.org.uk
Posted by Jim Valentine ( 12:22 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Wednesday Dec 06, 2006
Many hands, not pixels, make light work
Alex Tew has done it again - he's captured our imagination. The million dollar money spinner has something about him. Is it his seemingly miraculous ability of conjuring the jackpot from within his computer? Is it the sight of someone so young thumbing his nose to all those oldies who say they know better? Is it the quaintness of hiring his Mum as his personal secretary? Whatever it is- there's something that we find irresistible about this Tew story.
"Alex your tea's on the table... and I've got the world's press on line two shall I tell them to hold?" Visions of turned tables in the Tew household aside, the one enduring vision here is of an inventor's dream: the internet truly is the home of supreme creativity. Not for a generation, has a medium got the grey matter going as has ye olde webbe.
Why then has Tew provoked as much criticism as plaudits? How could we let - dare I say it - envy get the better of us and criticise him? After all, he's achieved a level of financial security in his youth that many of us would find hard to argue with. And the best bit - he's done it using an ordinary computer with an ordinary internet connection (well maybe he had extraordinarily generous friends and family when it came to start up cash). Surely, the message of the Tew story is that there's hope for us all.
Yeh but... let's face it Tew's story's not the real internet miracle- it's the exception and not the rule. The miracle is not that the online world can make one or two of us fabulously rich. The real rule to watch is that the internet is at its most miraculous when money is not even mentioned. Open source software, creative commons and collaborative online ventures have allowed thousands and thousands of people to work together and complement each other. This is the real conjuring trick we should be getting excited about. Early prominent examples such as Wikipedia and Mozilla have shown us the true power of the internet. Here at YouthNet we're pretty taken with how thousands of young people have built and contributed to the archive of information readily available in our discussion boards and askTheSite Q&As.
Information is how the net makes most of us richer and wealthier. Auctioned pixels are for dummies- unless you want to show your mum who's boss.
Tuesday Dec 05, 2006
Side-stepping the studios
Attending the Digital Hollywood conference in London about the digital future of broadcasting last week I was struck by the fact that, despite all the technological change, the major Hollywood studios are still very much in charge.
The success of a new technology, whether it be video on demand or mobile TV was measured by speakers according to how many studios were on board.
Services like BitTorrent might have tweaked the media megaliths’ tails, but increasingly they are being brought into the mainstream media fold (see YouTube, for example).
So, even though it’s now possible to make feature films for micro-budgets, and more and more people (especially young people) are not watching TV, the same execs seem set to determine what turns up on our large and small screens. The broadcasting networks decide the TV schedule. The Hollywood studios, with a few exceptions, dictate what’s showing at the multiplex.
A glimpse of how things could be done differently came at the Digital Hollywood conference from one Tim Sparke. He’s the managing director of Mercury Media, a company that, along with Aggregator TV, is setting up a new broadband documentary channel called joiningthedots.tv. He told the conference that he felt people had become bored with mainstream media and were looking to broadband for an alternative. When they launch next year, he hopes to attract around 15,000 subscribers. Not only will they be able to get a wide range of documentaries online, they will also be able to invest in programmes that have not yet been made – what Sparke calls “the democratisation of finance”.
If joiningthedots.tv succeeds it could be replicated to provide other types of programming. We’ve got used to interactive media. Why shouldn’t that extend to being involved in actually commissioning and financing films?
Posted by Tom Green ( 10:57 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
