2008 Annual Reports

The Chair, Annette Milligan and Manager, Ron Kjestrup, reepoported to the AGM on 30 Sepytember 2008. Included here are also reports from recreation manager, Charlie Ainscough, and Youth Transitions leader, Chrissi Tamihana. Youth and Community Facility Trust

Report from the Chair

At the beginning of the year, the first stage of re-building The New Hub was complete. The entrance area of café and drop-in space, toilets and the upstairs staff and training rooms had been re-furbished. The building was only just re-opened to the public, and the after-school and school holiday programmes were just beginning. Staff were pretty exhausted from the first phase of re-building, and everyone was anxious to see how things would work out.

The past year then, has seen the second phase completed. Under the management of Chris Blythe, the team found which programmes were successful, established contact with many Nelson organizations, began to get new contracts with the District Health Board to support healthy eating and healthy activity for young people. The vision of creating a space for young people to grow safely into adulthood was strengthened as projects which supported their development were realized.

The second, and final stage of re-furbishment of the building was completed. Successful grant applications have resulted in the remaining rooms of the New Hub building being re-furbished to the same wonderful standard as the entrance areas. There are now many groups who call The New Hub, their home.

There has been much work completed in the background too. This is the work which is rarely seen, but is crucial to the sustainability of an organization. Chris has done a wonderful job of finally reviewing, and bringing up to date, all the procedures and protocols. Because of that work, we are now able to complete the process of accreditation with some government agencies.

The New Hub is now a place in which there are regular gigs √ many run by young people, there are recreational programmes involving up to 120 school students a day in holiday time, a café which produces only yummy and healthy choices, a range of free-to-use activities in the café area, sporting equipment for use on site, classes in dance, yoga, drama, motor-cycle maintenance, cooking, barista, fashion, skate-boarding to name just a few! There are now no excuses for young people having nothing to do!

The social development programmes continue to be a valued part of The New Hub. These include the programmes which support vulnerable young people into employment √ some with very intensive support, and very good outcomes. Others are focused on youth development and include a highlight in the production of the video ≥Squish≈, made by immigrant young people, of their experiences of racism in Nelson. This video has had a significant impact on the many who have seen it, both in Nelson and nationwide.

The future of The New Hub continues to be assured. We are so very grateful to the Nelson City Council for their continued support. The programmes funded by Work and Income, the Community Trust, Lotteries, Internal Affairs and other charitable funders, are vital for our continuing work. The accounts are in a healthy state, and managed with close supervision.

There have been some key personnel changes. Chris Blythe, after working long, hard hours for eighteen months of re-development, tendered his resignation. Thank you for your wonderful work in laying a sound foundation for the future of The New Hub, and for being available for such a smooth hand-over. The new manager is Ron Kjestrup who is bringing new expertise and enthusiasm to the role. The fantastic staff are to be commended for their work in tumultuous times. The turn-around of reputation in the city is a reflection of the great work you are all doing.

The Board has under-gone changes too. After giving the best part of two years of devoted time and effort to The New Hub, Zviki Eshet decided to return to his homeland. We hoped it would be for a year, but plans have changed and he is now staying in Israel. If it were not for Zviki, we would not be sitting here having an Annual General Meeting; the facility would have been closed. ≥Thank you≈ hardly seems enough when someone has been so vital to the survival of an organization √ but from the bottom of our hearts Zviki √ ≥thank you≈. We welcomed a new Trustee, Dimitrios Polychronopoulos, to take over some of his roles. Greg Allan, our Trustee from the Police. Also resigned and his place has been taken by Chris Baillie.

On behalf of the community, and especially the young people of Nelson, I want to thank all the many people and organizations who have given their support, the wonderful staff who make sure The New Hub is a vibrant, buzzing place day in, and day out, and the Trustees who freely give their time and energy to see to those details which ensure that The New hub continues to grow and develop.

We started the year exhausted from the first phase of re-development, and we finish it, with the assurance that the organization has a sustainable future. There are still challenges ahead √ our work is not nearly done. But we are ready to go for the next round of development in a thriving organization.

Annette Milligan Chair Board of Trustees Youth and Community Facility Trust

Report from The Manager

I would also like to thank Chris for his support during the handover (and after) and Chrissi, Margaret, Charlie, Suzanne and Angela for their forbearance and support as I get to grips with the job here.
Key Successes
Renovations have been very successful and several very helpful grants from Lotteries, Eureka Trust and Scottswood Trust contributed enormously. Community Trust approved a further $40,000 toward recreation services. Continuation of Youth Transition contract. Addition of a pilot project called Boost to assist higher needs young people through the transition process. Vastly improved community and public perception of The New Hub has led to increased usage of recreation facilities and more usage by the wider community. Several successful gigs attracting around 150 young people with no problems. Youth Leadership project had very successful outcomes with four events conceived and managed by young people: The Game of Skate; Passion (dance) a Youth Festival and Urban Pursuit. The Save the Children funded video project resulted in the ≥Squish≈ video which brought a great deal of very positive feedback. Steady improvement in the awareness of The New Hub≠s activities and positioning. Developing several valuable partnerships with other agencies and organisations. E.g. Way2Go.
Progress on last year's priorities
Developing an income model: While we would like to be in a situation where the core business is running smoothly and generates enough income to cover its costs, this is still some way away. Staff retention: Has greatly improved. Staff morale is generally high and there is a strong commitment to the direction and philosophies of the organisation. There is still some work to be done toward a truly effective professional development structure. Consolidating our recreation programme: The recreation programmes are still not self funding. The Options for the coming year include: sponsorship of some programmes, appropriate accreditations to access educational and other agency support and continued development of the delivery and marketing plans to improve the options on offer and increase uptake. Developing improved use of the whole building: Community usage of the building and facilities has greatly increased. The Way2Go partnership has led to increased adult recreational use; several groups lease space at the New hub on a regular basis: (Brain Injury Association, Nia Dance, Multi-Ethnic Mothers≠ Group, Barnado≠s, CAMS, Ngati Koata); and casual hire has increased (Youth Nelson, OEA, meetings and training sessions).. Getting the gym and café established as going concerns: The business model for the café was not initially successful and the café came under TNH management in December. Since then a DHB funded project to improve the healthiness of the food options and careful management by Charlie Ainscough has resulted in the café running at a slight profit and contributing more to the desired outcomes at TNH. The gym has not been a successful business model. It is difficult to get trained staff to run a gym in this environment and some of the suggested activities are not suitable for the age group to whom we cater. The room is used more and is generating a small income at present. Improving partnerships: There has been a great deal of progress on this and some very valuable collegial relationships have been developed. This has been especially true of the YTS services in which staff have worked very hard to lead agencies cooperation over the needs of young people. The New Hub is also a signatory to the Te Rito Memorandum of Understanding and has developed close working relationships with several agencies and organisations. Investigating how the music suite could be redeveloped. An informal survey of interested parties would seem to indicate that retaining the practice studio is probably sufficient. Most young bands have practice facilities and there are more appropriate recording facilities elsewhere. The technology available also means that recording could be done almost anywhere or in the current practice studio. The practice studio at TNH would become more of a casual venue for music activities.
Priorities for the next year
Build Recreation sustainability. A continued focus on increasing numbers using the facilities and providing attractive options for paid recreation. This will be a combination of trial and error, further market research and developing consistent delivery and marketing. Continue to develop youth service delivery within the recreation context. TNH staff have developed a very good process for referral and intervention when they identify young people with issues. This requires them to continually develop relationships with other agencies and skills to deal with issues ≥on the floor≈. It is envisioned that there are some services (eg health) that could be effectively delivered within the recreation model and this will require further funding and project development. Develop processes for more out of hours usage of facilities. More physical activity options at TNH √ including climbing walls and better equipped dance studio. Develop Training Room to better cater for community and business requirements. Youth Leadership. TNH has made application for funding for a project to build on Chrissi≠s projects from the past year. We hope to develop a group of young people able to act as leaders in the centre for activities and events and peer advocacy. I would dearly like to see the majority of activities at TNH conceived and led by young people. Investigate redeveloping old studios and store room into usable space. The storage space to the rear of the skate ramp has windows on to Halstead and New St, and is quite large. It could be used for classroom style facilities, an art room or even an alternative venue.
Project Updates
Recreation and Events The Hub now runs well attended after school and holiday open rec4reation programmes. We offer around 6 workshop series each term and further activities during the holiday period. Local media are supporting the programmes very well with on-going sponsorship from The Nelson Mail and regular news coverage of TNH events and activities. On average we have about 3-400 different young people using the centre each month, including our events, open recreation, workshops and other youth agencies usage.

Each week there are 8 workshops available for different tastes, with an emphasis on ‘holistic≠ development (physical activities, pastimes, health and the arts). Free activities include basketball, pool, table tennis, a skate ramp, internet access and the café area. We have run approx 1 or events each month The events programme is still a little sporadic but is growing in popularity and variety. In the past few months alone there have been two major concerts with touring bands, a Disco, a performance by solo artist Sarah Brown, a Gay/Lesbian film evening and a skateboarding competition.

The programme is managed by Charlie with support from Angela, Talia and Ron. There are currently three regular volunteers working in recreation plus the team from All Saints church.

Youth Active Leadership Project
This project ended with four very successful events √ Passion, The Game of Skate, Urban Pursuit and the Youth Festival. The 45 14-18s were recruited for the project, and 38 stayed committed. Several of the young people still visit regularly and we are working toward using their skills more often in the organisation of events. Unfortunately a follow up project envisioned to build on the success of this first project wasn≠t supported by MYD.

Save the Children Video Project
This grew out of the Global Education funded project led by Chrissi. The young people from this project worked with Chrissi and Chris to make a video exploring their experience of racism in Nelson. The launch of the video was a success with a large number of people coming onto the venue to see the work and hear from the young people involved. There has been national recognition of the success of the project with articles on national radio and acknowledgement from the Race Relations Commissioner, Joris de Bres.

YTS Services
This service continues to provide a valuable service to young people in the region. Chrissi and the team have developed a reputation for expertise and collaboration and are leading a number of initiatives to improve outcomes for their clients. Suzanne O≠Neill joined the team this year and Trish Krishnasami was employed on a short term contract to fill in while Chrissi took study leave. The team have had a steady list of around 50-60 clients throughout the year with consistently good outcomes. The service is now part of the national Youth Transition Service and contributes to the national database as part of that service. As part of this the YTS Youth Coaches at The New Hub are working in close partnership with other YTS providers √ JobTrac, ATET and Golden bay.

Boost
We were very pleased to be able to work with MSD to develop; the Boost pilot project. This project is being led by Margaret Earney and involves ten clients with high needs coming from direct referral from W&I. Margaret is doing a superb job of working with these clients to tackle the complex barriers behind their non-engagement with services, work or training. The pilot ends in November.

Cafe
Marina Gosnell passed the contract for management of the café back to TNH in December last year. Although she did a superb job of developing the business it proved impossible to make an adequate income from the venture. Margaret (then Charlie) and Ange have done a great job of developing the café to continue to provide food and drink options for our clients. The unit now breaks even and turns a small profit and is an integral part of the recreation facilities at TNH. Charlie has used a DHB grant to develop better healthy food options to conduct a survey of young people≠s preferences, develop a menu, buy some new equipment and start developing some marketing resources. The final version of this new menu will be launched in the September school holidays.

Ron Kjestrup Manager The New Hub

Report from the Recreation Manager

Recreation is open to the youth, between the ages of 11 √ 18; The New Hub is open Monday- Friday 3 √ 6 and Saturdays 12 √ 5pm, during term time, during the school holidays the centre is open from 12 √ 6pm. The New hub is a safe haven for the youth of Nelson/Tasman and here we have the facilities to provide free basketball, pool, ping pong, a café with free internet services and Nelson≠s largest indoor skate ramp, We also run workshops during Term time and fun and engaging holiday programmes. Recreation is run by one Manager and two Recreation supervisors. There have been extensive repairs and upgrades here in the Hub and as a result the centre is looking fresh and inviting, and the youth are more respectful of the centre since the changes have been made, and it is more welcoming to parents and other youth organizations in Nelson. The average ages that visit The New Hub is 13. 25% come from the Tasman region

Recreation Numbers

After an initial drop off in attendances related to both the renovations and new structures, numbers are trending upwards. Boys still make up the higher proportion of attendances.

Workshops

There has been a general steady increase in numbers for the workshops. I have tried to include workshops that have a practical nature and can be of value to the youth lives and future plans and goals. Getting on the Road workshop run by John O≠Donovan was a huge success, with funding supplied by Youth Transition Services, this course was aimed at getting learners≠ licenses and all 5 young people passed the road code test with 100 %. Cooking, Skateboarding. Art and Drama seem to be the most popular workshops available.

The New Hub café

TNH took over management of the Café during this last year. Immediate changes included changing the menu to be simpler and healthier and the removal of lollies from the counter sales. The café has broken even over the past year and sometimes run at a slight profit. Future plans include a new menu that will be in place in the Café as from the second week of the September school holidays √ the result of work done with the support of DHB over the past 6 months. The Menu will be fresh and exciting, and offering healthy and affordable food and snacks. We will finally have a juicer in place in the Café and a promotion of Do you Dare drink a green, purple and orange juice will be put in place and once all drinks have been bought a café voucher will be issued, a fresh approach at advertising the menu will be put ion place and posters of the kids enjoying the new food available will be used as promotion on the new Menu board. The biggest challenge will be to produce a homemade Moo Burger that is so good we can stop the youth going to McDonalds! An open night for The New Menu will be arranged and the board and other organizations and the youth of The New Hub will all be invited.

Recreation Successes

There has been a general increase of numbers here in The New Hub and behavior has generally vastly improved since the start of 2008. The Youth seem to have more respect for each other, the staff and there surroundings. Sadly there have been occasional behavioural issues that have been dealt with in a positive and controlled way. The 3 R rule works incredibly well - Respect the staff Respect the building and its contents Respect each other. There has been a massive change in behavior since all the lollies, and general sweet treats where removed from the café. We have developed very close relationships with Police and other agencies to support us when issues arise. The youth that come to the Hub seem very happy to be here.

Recreation Future Plans

We are planning on creating a Hub magazine called The Hub Timez, which will come out just before the summer, in this magazine will be the full Summer holiday programme, articles from The Hub and YTS teams, a puzzle page, coloring in competitions, recipes photos of the youth that come to the Hub a page on how to keep safe in the sun, and lots of vouchers for different stores around town, and for The Hub Café, we are planning on having 4000 of this magazine printed.

It is my goal by the summer to have kids running the Café, it is a fantastic opportunity to learn, many new skills, from Customer service to dealing with money and giving the right change, as part of my Term 4 cooking class, the class will all be asked to separately run a café shift during the eight week workshop, and from here we will hopefully find the staff required to create a really successful little business.

I would also very much like to turn the two back Rec rooms, into sewing rooms, that can be used at any time. We are running our first ever sewing workshop in Term 4 and from here we will find the students to help get it set up and running, many of our youth have requested a service like this and it will be our pleasure to be able to provide it.

I would like to see a climbing wall in the skate room and improvements to the skate ramp and floor rails which would make it very much the ≥physical activity≈ room.

Charlie Ainscough

Report from Youth Transition Services

Trish Krishnasamy, a Careers Guidance Student from NMIT did a great job filling in for Chrissy for 3 months as she went to the Hospital Child Development Service on placement for her Post Grad diploma in Family and Social Work. Suzanne has been holding the fort. It≠s been great having Margaret rejoin the team. This year we organised for youth and dads/mentors to attend a successful ‘Dad≠s and Lads≠ weekend at Whenua Iti.

The Youth Shadow staff have also prepared for a smooth transition into becoming Youth Coaches for the National Youth Transitions Service. This means the New Hub will be able to transfer our youth into other services as they leave the district. We will use different enrolment procedures now as well as a new database and enrol all our youth into the Connections database as they enter our service. It has been great to have Ange join our team and youth are making use of her by feeling they can drop in to get a copy of their CV, use the computer for applications etc. She also has a few clients which keep her 5 hours Youth Transitions per week busy. It has been good to have our office humming with busy staff and lots of youth.

Suzanne has done some positive work around the issue of Youth Housing which has been a huge issue for some of our youth with youth living in garages, unsafe situations, backpackers, on their friend≠s couches etc. 10%-15% of the 15-19 year olds on our youth transition client list have serious accommodation issues. We have an emergency situation on average twice a month in which a vulnerable young person simply has nowhere to stay that night. We have about 4 young people who we are very concerned as their living in situations are seriously inappropriate This issue has been taken up further by Nicola Robb from Connections and The Ministry of Youth Affairs.

The New Hub has also been an instigator in organising multi agency meetings around the issue of 15 year olds and being unable to access exemptions for them. Legislation changed at the end of last year which meant youth couldn≠t get exemptions until they turned 15 Π years old. There is a real need for something to be done for these young people as legally they can≠t work and financially the youth providers can≠t take them on until they get an exemption but they are not in school. There has also been a large increase in the number of youth who are pregnant and Margaret has organised interagency meetings around what can be done for these young women.-Work and income and Family Start are primary contributors.

The Hub Youth Transitions department continues to work hard for the youth of Nelson and as we have discovered compares extremely well with other youth transition services around the country. Chrissi Tamihana