SpunOut.ie Blog
December, 2007
Happy Christmas from SpunOut.ie
Blog: Thanks for supporting SpunOut.ie in 2007!
Happy Christmas and a HUGE thanks to all of SpunOut.ie's users, contributors and youth board for making sure the website rocked over the past year!
If you wanna get more involved in 2008 drop us an email or check out the information at:
www.spunout.ie/about/get-involved/main/718
So, until next year, the crew at SpunOut.ie wishes you a brilliant Christmas holiday and an even better start to 2008!
SpunOut.ie volunteer has helping hands!
Blog: Ian Howley wins first runner up in Barnardos Young Volunteer awards.
SpunOut.ie Youth Board member, Ian Howley recently won first runner up in the Barnardos ‘Helping Hands’ Young Volunteer of the Year awards.
Ian, a 22 year old student from Athlone, was nominated by SpunOut.ie staff for his outstanding voluntary contribution to SpunOut.ie, and his advocacy work over the past year.
Ian has spoken out about his teenage suicide attempts and his journey to survival to millions of people. He has talked at dozens of conferences, at suicide vigils, to parent and support groups and on television, radio and in the national press. He was a key spokesperson during the recent Tough Times youth mental health campaign and conducted over 30 interviews whilst managing to keep his part-time job and studies on course.
Ian’s message is one of survival and hope, something all too rare in our negative publicity and news era.
On receiving the Young Volunteer recognition, Ian said:
"I am absolutely delighted to receive this award. For me this show people are listening and that anyone can make a difference. I would like to thank all the gang at SpunOut.ie for their help and
support and if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have the chance to help people in the way I can today."
A HUGE congratulations from all the SpunOut.ie crew to Ian!!!
SpunOut.ie November digest
Blog: What we were up to during November.
As part of our efforts to let everyone know what goes on behind the scenes at SpunOut.ie HQ here's a summary of what we were up to during November.
Another exciting award!
We scooped the 'best charity website' at the prestigious Golden Spider Awards at a plush ceremony in Dublin's Burlington hotel on October 22nd. The award gave us a great boost and helps us go into 2008 more confident than ever in order to further develop SpunOut.ie and make it the best youth site on the net!
You can read more about this on our blog here.
Developing our team
We finalised our recruitment process and welcomed our new Administrator, Elma Grealish to the team in mid November. Elma joins us from her role in HR with a major construction firm and is already transforming our HQ into a den of super efficiency.
You can read Elma's bio here.
Meanwhile we continued the hiring and training process of freelance discussion forum moderators and hope to finalise this in the next few weeks.
New marketing strategy
We've always done our best to promote SpunOut.ie throughout the country. This has included countless TV, radio and newspaper features, tons of online marketing, heaps of talks, workshops and events and distributing over 100,000 promotional materials.
Overall we've been quite successful but we are nowhere near where we need to be as we've been without the necessary people and money to make marketing happen on a huge scale. However, this is about to change. Our Communications Officer Susan Quirke is leading the development of a new marketing strategy and big changes are due in the new year.
Anyone interested in getting involved SpunOut.ie marketing should email Susan at susan@spunout.ie.
Media and promotion
In addition to sending out dozens of promo packs to schools, colleges and youth centres we secured a Google Grant, meaning we'll now be receiving improved publicity via the Google search engine. Thanks to the Google team for arranging this!
We received considerable online and national press coverage as result of our Golden Spider Award as well as three features in the Galway media and five in the Donegal media. We also continued our media partnerships with The Scene and The Donegal Democrat.
Youth participation
As well as promoting the usual ways of involving young people through youth media, moderated discussion forums and our Youth Board, we have started to look at how best to improve youth participation within SpunOut.ie. This means we're looking at how to involve young people in running SpunOut.ie so that it is truly youth led in every shape and form. We're busy doing research and consultations into this and hope to agree on new structures in January. Stay tuned!
Highlights of youth participation in November included Youth Board member Ian Howley appearing on the BBC Spotlight programme. Ian also spoke at a mental health event in Sligo and appeared in the North West media as result.
Developing SpunOut.ie
As usual we were developing, editing and publishing new content with over 20 new youth written articles, action opportunities, true-life stories and factsheets published on SpunOut.ie during November. We were also busy moderating the SpunOut.ie discussion forums, managing our Bebo and MySpace accounts and reviewing and improving our national service database.
Other bits and bobs
-Fundraising to ensure we can meet our increasing funding needs and to pay for the next stage of development and marketing for SpunOut.ie.
-Meeting and greeting dozens of agencies from the youth, health and media sectors and exploring potential partnerships.
-Continuing to revise and develop our policies and procedures.
-Planning for our annual content review and overhaul.
-Managing our growing office and administration needs and dealing with increasing volumes of queries and requests for information
That's the summary of happenings for November. More updates coming in early January. As always, your comments, ideas and suggestions are always welcome. Please email info@spunout.ie.
