Tag: CLD

Connecting Communities – Our Newest Weekly Club for adults in Paisley!

Beginning this September for the first time, Paisley YMCA will be running a free daytime Tuesday club for adults called Connecting Communities. The space will include skill-building workshops including coding, graphic design and more with help from our experienced Community Learning and Development (CLD) team. If you are an adult in Paisley looking to build up some skills, come in and see what you’re capable of! Connecting Communities will begin every Tuesday 1pm – 3pm from 13th September and tickets will be available from our Eventbrite page and also by calling into 39 High Street, Paisley.  

Since 2015 we have been supporting young people with a fun, safe and inclusive space where they can explore STEM and digital skills-based learning opportunities with our experienced CLD team. With Connecting Communities, we are offering the same experience to adults living in and around Paisley.  

Our digital Makerspace includes resources such as our vinyl cutter, PCs, 3D printers and coding software which adults in our community space will be able to access, giving them the chance to build their digital skills.  

Connecting Communities is a wonderful opportunity to come build up new skills, explore and develop new interests and meet new people!  

Come join us, we’d love to see you there! 

Connecting Communities is free.

You can book your space in the following ways: 

 Book your space via Eventbrite

Call us on 0141 889 2876 

Call into 39 High Street and chat to one of our friendly team 

Or send an email to claire@paisleyymca.scot.  

Looking Back: Paisley YMCA Summer of Fun Programme 2022 ☀️

As our Summer Fun Programme enters its final week, we are thrilled at the high number of young people that have signed up and attended our weekly digital and STEM clubs each week. We are so happy to be welcoming faces old and new for some digital fun and plenty of gaming!  

We are happy to have returned to in-person youth work following an extremely challenging time. Paisley YMCA was affected greatly by both the fire that destroyed our William Street building in 2021 and the Covid-19 pandemic. The time during the pandemic meant that our clubs were moved exclusively online via Zoom, which was a hard time for both our youth workers and young people at a time of isolation. We did have some fun times answering Kahoot quizzes, though! 

Our new base at 39 High Street is where we have managed to re-establish ourselves and reach out to the community with new resources that we offer to help young people in Paisley. We have received new funding and equipment that we have been able to use to design a Summer Fun Programme this year with the aim of providing young people in Paisley with free, fun and engaging club activity using technology they may not have access to at home or via education.  

Our clubs offer a wide variety of digital skills-based learning such as regular coding clubs, helping to develop our Jacquard Loom Game to be displayed in Paisley Museum and make use of our gaming consoles and other youth work resources. For example our recent podcast studio, which allows our young people to make use of professional sound equipment to record their own podcasts talking about what is important to them.  

We also have a badge maker and heat press, which we hope to make even more use of in the future as we encourage our young people to design and create their own prints, which can be used to create items such as tote bags, mugs, t-shirts and badges. They can also play more traditional games such as Cluedo or Jenga if they wish. We also provide regular healthy snacks and plenty to juice to keep hydrated in this very warm weather! 

When asked their favourite club of the programme, one of our young people said; “The podcast club, I like talking about just anything,” and continued when asked why they came to Paisley YMCA every week of summer “I like to get out, I don’t like sitting in the house all the time and I don’t like going out that much, but I like coming here. This is part of my routine.” 

Another young person, who also had their favourite clubs, cited our Summer Programme as a great way to find some activity and fun, as opposed to staying at home; “I have really enjoyed the summer programme so far. I think my favourite bit of it is Wednesday and Friday because we’re doing a project but at some point, we can also just do our own thing. And on Friday we get to just play about and play games. 

“I want to go to YMCA because I like seeing my friends and also, it’s actually something to do instead of just sitting around the house. I go every Friday. I’ve made new friends, it’s definitely nice to come in and feel like you’re not going to be judged.” 

Our Summer success marks an important milestone for us, after setbacks and hardship in the events of the past few years. Times may have been tough, but we have persevered! We are so grateful for our incredible team of staff, trustees and volunteers. And most importantly we are grateful the young people themselves for showing up interested and excited each week, we love getting to be a part of their journey into the amazing adults they will no doubt become. Whether they are regular faces or new, we are proud of every one of them! 

Our Summer Programme will end next week and we will return to our weekly club activities in the evenings and weekends. With the popularity of our in-person coding club and our museum project, we will continue these clubs in the evenings once schools’ return. All information about our club activity can be found on our Eventbrite page or by emailing youthwork@paisleyymca.scot.  

Watch this space because while summer may be ending, we have lots of more exciting projects coming! 

Summer Begins with Our New Podcast Studio at Paisley YMCA! 🎙️

Our Summer Fun Programme has officially begun! 

For a six-week period, we will be offering free youth club activity focusing on creative projects using the new technology that we recently have set up in our Makerspace. Our first Digital Media Session this Wednesday began with the set-up of our official podcast studio in our space. Our young people have access to a professional soundboard, microphones, headphones and software. Our digital media sessions will give them the opportunity to create their own podcast sessions with their own thoughts and feelings on whatever they would like to speak about.  

This new studio provides our young people with exciting opportunities to learn about podcast development and technological skills, as well as aiding their personal development and boosting their confidence as they find their voices in a safe and encouraging environment. We are also looking forward to developing creative artistic projects, including opportunities our young people will have to design their own badges, tote bags and prints.  

We are excited for the opportunities our new equipment will create over the summer such as coding, game design, playing with sound and editing, art projects and much more! All of these activities and more can be experienced in our weekly digital media sessions, along with our coding clubs, mix of technology and creative projects and just chilling and having fun. Our clubs are free and weekly in Paisley. For more information, contact claire@paisleyymca.scot and tickets are available from Eventbrite.  

Celebrating Sma’ Shot Day with ReMode Youth! All About Our Latest Animation Project 🎥

This year in preparation for Sma’ Shot day 2022, our young people have been working on a short animation project to tell the story of how this historic day came to be. Taking place 2nd July, Sma’ Shot day celebrates the weavers of Paisley, who fought for their workers’ rights to be paid fairly for their use of the Sma’ Shot; a woven yarn used to create Paisley shawls that was invisible to the human eye but invaluable to the construction, for which the weavers were not compensated. After reaching the height of protest, their work was recognised and they gained the right be paid fairly, making a historic moment in the history of Paisley.  

In collaboration with ReMode Youth, our young people have been creating storyboards and stop motion characters to show how creatively they can tell this story of victory for those in Paisley to be paid for their valuable work.  

One of the facilitators from ReMode Youth Joseph, who has been working with our young people to show them the creative process of stop motion animation, states;  

“We’re about halfway through the project, it’s going well and we’re starting to properly get into animating. The goal of the project is trying to explore this story of Sma’ shot day, creating a simple story that encapsulates the idea of who’s in control of products […] and helping people to understand the power dynamic then between boss and employee.” 

Through the creation of sets, stop motion animation, story development and sound design, our young people are on their way to have a finished product they can be truly proud of and signifies an important day in the history of Paisley and equality.  

By the end of the 6-week project, our aim is to have the short film completed and available to watch on our social media channels. If you would like to see the completed project, follow us on Twitter (@YMCApaisley), Facebook (We Are Paisley YMCA) and Instagram (paisleyymca). It will also be shown on ReMode Youth’s social media channels, such as Instagram @remode_youth, Twitter @ReModeit and Facebook @ReMode.  

Developing Our Makerspace! Technology, creativity and what has our young people excited 🖥️📱💻

In the past several months, we have been working hard to re-establish our Makerspace. New kit, toys and equipment have arrived in the past several months and we are thrilled at the new opportunities this equipment will offer to our weekly clubs.  

In addition to our 3D printers and Smart Gardens displayed in the window of our space, our recent new additions include a vinyl cutter, a printing press, VR headsets, a Podcast studio and our new greenscreen room.  

This technology enables our digital CLD (Community Learning and Development) team at Paisley YMCA to develop innovative and exciting projects for our young people allowing them to use these tools to open up their own creativity with guidance from our Youth Workers. It also gives them access to equipment and technology they may not be able to access from home or learning facilities. All of our clubs are focused on empowerment, building confidence, developing relationships, learning new skills and peer support.  

When asked what they were most excited to use in our space, various young people responded; 

“3D printer, I also want to use the greenscreen.”  

“I want to make t-shirts with the vinyl cutter!” 

“Making cats in the 3D printer.” 

“I want to make little 3D skulls, to decorate.” 

“I’m going to step out of reality. I want to look at virtual reality.” 

“I love the space. I can’t wait to use VR.” 

“VR is enjoyable.” 

Our exciting new projects include developing our podcast studio to amplify young people’s voices, working with ReMode Youth on a Sma’-Shot animation project currently in development, creating our Jacquard Loom project in collaboration with Paisley Museum with our young people designing an exciting new game to be displayed and other exciting new projects planned with our new technology.  

At Paisley YMCA, we utilise STEM learning and technology in our space in order to help young people with their personal development and expand their skillset. We are very excited to see what the future holds for our new kit and where our young people will take us with it!  

Tickets for our weekly clubs are available from Eventbrite. All of our clubs are free to attend and our base is located at 39 Paisley High Street. If you have any questions or queries, please contact claire@paisleyymca.scot.  

Seeking Additional Board Members

Paisley YMCA delivers nationally leading youth work services based on digital technologies which make a real difference to young people – helping both skills and character development.

We’re based in the centre of Paisley, but we also deliver services in local communities.

Our recent AGM led to significant change on the Board as long-standing contributors retired and new people were elected as office bearers (Chair and Vice Chair) and other members joined the Board.

The changes bring to the Board new people and new capacity, but we’re feeling the loss of experience, and we’re looking for others to join us.  We no longer have a Treasurer, and we could really benefit from a Board member with financial management experience.

We also recognise that we’d really be helped by people with HR and properties management experience joining us. 

We find that volunteering to support the work of Paisley YMCA to be rewarding and useful for our own development. 

If you share our values, as outlined below, and you’d like to help Renfrewshire be a better place we’d like you to think about joining us as members, and if you’ve a financial management, HR or properties management background and some time to help and gain from personal development, we’d like you to think about joining the Board.

Back in the day, membership of Paisley YMCA was designed for people of Christian belief, but we’re now a membership organisation based on values, rather than religious belief.

We’re based on two core principles:

  • that people should treat others as they’d like to be treated themselves, sometimes called the ‘Golden Rule’.  While inspired by Christian teaching, we believe that this is a universal value found in some form in most religions and humanist movements.  We believe that if everyone stopped to consider their actions in this manner, the world would be a better place.  We’re proud that our members include people of different faiths and of none; and
  • that people in need should be helped regardless of who they are.  Again, a universal value, this one derived from the ‘good Samaritan’ parable.  We want to help people in Renfrewshire, particularly young people, have opportunities to learn and develop, and to thrive, whoever they may be.   We’re not just for people of any particular religion, ethnic background, sex or gender, age, sexual orientation or other way of dividing people, we’re for everyone.  (But we’ll remain mostly focussed on supporting young people).

We face some serious challenges and we’re looking for the right people to join us and help.

Our financial position is precarious and while we’re going to be focussed on applying for funds to carry us through, we also need to improve our financial management and reporting to the Board. 

Our HR policies and practices need to be overhauled and modernised. 

We own property which is currently draining resources without contributing to our work, but which could be a massive asset for Paisley. 

We’ve also got strengths.  We deliver sector-leading digital youth work and we’re building our new makerspace facilities right in the heart of Paisley.  We support young people to develop useful skills, and we know that some of the skills most important to young people aren’t technical but related to the ability to confidently interact with peers and with adults in authority. We support young people to think about our core values as they apply to their own lives.  We see young people develop in character and we’re proud to have been a part of their development.  We’ve a capable, knowledgeable staff team. We care about Paisley and the rest of Renfrewshire and its people.  We’re part of local community networks and the national and international YMCA movement. 

If you share our values and would like to support us, by becoming a member, we’d like to welcome you.  You can join from our website.  If, in addition, you’d like to help us based on HR,  property management or financial management experience, and you’d welcome the opportunity to develop your own experience by applying it to a different context, then please get in touch with Craig Green, the Chair, at craig@paisleyymca.scot.