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London Blog

Monday, 13 October 2008

Maria Marin has been volunteering at the Street League offices since November 2006. Maria comes from Majorca in Spain (not sure what she thinks of the English weather compared to home!). The following is a blog about her voluntary work so far at Street League…

I have been volunteering with Street League for 2 years. I wanted to do voluntary work to help me to develop more effective computer skills and furthermore to improve both my written and spoken English. I love to play football and I also enjoy watching it on television. I searched the Internet to find an organisation that related to football, and that could offer me the type of voluntary work that I wanted.

I came across Street League and the reason I chose them was due to their connection with football and also their work with young people from different backgrounds. Moreover they encourage young people to take part in courses, such as coaching and refereeing courses, and CV writing workshops.

I find the work I do for Street League to be very interesting. At the moment I am doing administrative tasks in the office such as inputting the details of the volunteers and players into spreadsheets and files. I sometimes go to meetings with the staff outside of the office, for example I recently attended a meeting with Sony. I also volunteer one Saturday a month at the matchdays at Mile End. Here I help to take the scores for the matches, put up banners and posters, and also sort refreshments for the players.

Since being at Street League I have more administrative knowledge, and developed other skills.

The environment in the office is very friendly and I find the staff funny which helps to create a good and relaxed atmosphere in the office and more relax.

I wish to continue to build and develop my skills, and hope to gain experience in other departments at Street League.

Monday, 6 October 2008
Street League are teaming up with Camden Primary Care Trust to get more people in the borough into sport. We are holding a short presentation and meeting at the grand offices of the Football Foundation, 15th October from 2pm to 4pm. If you work in mental health or the homeless sector in Camden Borough and are interested please let us know by emailing ben.north@streetleague.co.uk before Monday 13th October. Tasty refreshments will be provided but we can't promise Hob-Nobs what with the credit crunch.
Friday, 26 September 2008
A bit of guidance from an experienced mentor can take you a long way!

Street League runs a mentoring programme throughout the year and are currently recruiting mentees.

One-2-One support in education and employment could be your opportunity to get where you want to be.

Our mentors have experience with writing CVs and filling out Job Applications.

They can help you with job hunting and finding study courses that you want.

You will meet every 2 weeks.

Its FREE – your travel will be paid for.

To apply: Tell your coach & ask them to pass your contact details to Sophie at Street League’s office. Or contact Sophie on 020 8536 5378 or sophie.hope@streetleague.co.uk

Sam Marshall undertook a mini work experience placement with Street League for 3 days in August. The following is an account of his time with us...

Day 1

I arrived at the Street League office in Stratford where I met Ben North and Sophie Hope who I’d talked to previously to set up the volunteer placement. I was introduced to various staff members, and learnt how Street League works and what its aims are. I also took a look at some videos on Youtube, which are a great way of finding out a little bit about what the organisation does and some of the variety of projects it’s been involved in.

I went to my first training session in Whitechapel with Ben where I met some of the players and one of the coaches. We had a good kick about and a good time. The players came from a variety of backgrounds. Ben spoke to me a little about the issues some of Street League players face, and I found it interesting to learn that finding a hostel is actually a very difficult process and it is often hard to get past the standard bureaucratic demands to provide evidence that you’re actually on the street.

After the session, Ben and I went to a summer barbecue at the Limegrove homeless hostel to chat to some of the residents and to promote Street League. We all played a few games and got to know each other, and had a really good time. It was a great evening, so thanks to everyone from Limegrove!

Day 2

I had a chat with Riz, one of the coaches, who gave me an idea of not only what it’s like to coach for Street League but also what it takes to be a coach in general. One thing I took away was how important he considered basic people skills to be in order to become a coach, and how important these are in getting a group of individuals who don’t know each other and have come from different backgrounds, to get them to work as a team.

I then researched organisations such as hostels, youth offending centres and refugee centres in the Hackney area, which might be interested in becoming involved in Street League. It was interesting to learn about all the different organisations working in a similar field to Street League.

After this I headed off with Sophie to a session at Kennington Park. I took part in the training session, and even though I was shattered after the warm up, I kept going and had fun with the guys there. It was a great laugh.

Day 3

I had a talk with Rob, Street League’s Progressions Coordinator, who follows up on players to give advice on education or employment.

After that I headed off to my final coaching session with Ben which took place in Tottenham. We did some basic stretching and fitness followed by a 5 a-side game.I really had a genuinely good time working for Street League. There’s no doubt I liked some things more than others, but there was a lot of good people I met who were either working with Street League, taking part in it’s activities, or who I purely met by happenstance. Either way I enjoyed the experience a lot and wish everyone there all the best in the future…

Sam
Football and music are uneasy bed fellows, witness this:
and this:
Just when you're thinking football and music should be never mix, along comes this:
And all is saved.
Now Street League is looking for a tune to represent us. Details are in the news section. Great prizes to be won. Anyone fancy a go?

Over the last few months Street League has worked to bring together a new code of conduct that is simple, clear and easy to follow. The first draft was discussed at this week's User Involvement Meeting. You can download the Code of Conduct here Street%20League%20Community%20Rules.doc

We'd really appreciate ANYONE'S thoughts on how this can be improved and additionally, how it can be implemented effectively. As ever, post your thoughts here.

Anyone ever seen the film above? Two Sheens for the price of one.

Monday, 15 September 2008
Aderito Francisco is one of Street League's apprentice coaches. Having taken over the mantle of managing the North London Rep Team from Jack Harrison, he blogged previously about how the training was going and his hopes for the upcoming matchday...
Unfortunately North London were overcome 2-1 by West London. Commenting on Aderito's tactics, Head Coach Jason McKoy stated, "Based upon their first half display, North London should have been out of sight. The way they controlled the game and the chances they created should have been capitalised on. However, they weren't clinical enough and West stayed in the game and eventually won it."
Aderito's reaction to a disappointing morning's work is here:
In the other game, South London romped to a 6-1 victory against a hapless East London.