Our chief executive, Nicola Youern, attended the Meet The Funders conference in Winchester last week. She was invited as a guest speaker to open the conference organised by Winchester City Council.  

 Nicola opened the conference with her talk entitled A Time to be Brave and was very well received by the 100+ people gathered there to learn wisdom from grant makers and local non-profits. The current financial climate seems to be taking no prisoners, with very few people not feeling the bite of tighter purse strings and economic uncertainty. The third sector has felt the pinch as much as any and when you’re not out to make profits, but change lives, the stakes can seem that much higher.

“Every charity must operate as a business first, “ Nicki says, ‘every charity must be entrepreneurial and  prepared to take considered risks if they are to survive”

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Tonia Redvers, our Fareham and Gosport Young People’s Service Manager, is a keen reader and believer in sharing stories. At the beginning of this year she signed up to become a ‘giver’  for World Book Night, an organisation that gifts free books to people every April 23^rd as a celebration of reading.

Every year each ‘giver’ receives a delivery of 20 copies of their chosen book to donate to whomever they choose. Givers are encouraged to give their books to people who aren’t regular readers, be they neighbours, work colleagues or even people they’ve just met on the bus!  Tonia has chosen to donate hers to a number of our services across the organisation and 20 service users will  receive copies of Alexander McCall Smith’s ‘The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency’.

Tonia says, ‘the whole idea is to get people reading and owning a book.  When you apply to be a giver you have to put forward your reasons why; I thought about all the people YOU works with, and wanted to give people a little escape from reality and a way to experience another world that someone has created.’

We love anything that promotes inclusion and community involvement, whether you’re …

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They’re saying that this Easter has been the coldest on record, but here at YOU we like to think we stay sunny even when the weather doesn’t.  Kate Wilson, deputy manager of our Supported Living and Resettlement service told us of the Easter festivities taking place in Portsmouth on Good Friday. A ‘Bring and Share’ day was arranged for service users and staff (every festive holiday needs a feast after all) and the table quickly filled with cakes, sausage rolls, biscuits, crisps and other goodies.  

Service users also took part in a quiz with two teams, the Eggheads and the Maltesers battling it out for the Easter egg prize. The Eggheads were declared champions after a nail biting ‘sudden death’ round, but all who took part were pleased to receive a mini Easter egg for their efforts. Kate says, ‘it was a roaring success, a lovely way to spend Good Friday and really brought all the service users from most of the houses together. One of the residents even brought along his birthday cake that his sister had made him and we all joined in together in singing ‘happy birthday’ which made for a lovely end to the event!’ 

We like …

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