In Today’s Newsletter:

• Sparc Teams Workshop Programme for March
• Sparc Teams are moving!
• Sparc Teams Video on You Tube

We would like to invite you to experience our taster programme of March workshops…

A Community Interest Company based in St Pauls, Bristol, Sparc Teams work with unemployed and underemployed individuals to give them the time and opportunity to discover their passions, develop new skills, enhance their confidence, and gain direction towards a more fulfilled life and career.

All workshops in March are completely free to attend

• The workshops are open to anyone over the age of 18.
• Fairtrade tea, coffee and biscuits are provided
• All workshops run from 10.30am – 2.30pm with a break for lunch
• Our venue for the workshop is Wilder Street Studios, 27-29 Wilder Street, St. Pauls. BS2 8QA.
• Wheelchair Access – Please note that Sparc Teams endeavour to offer workshops in fully accessible spaces, however the workshop location for March unfortunately does not have wheelchair access.
• We have 12 places on the programme, so please book your place as soon as possible!

Sparc Teams are pleased to announce that we have successfully moved in to our new premises at Brave Enterprise in the Coach House, St. Pauls. Sparc has only moved two streets away, so you’ll easily be able to find us!
Our move will enable us to continue to have a base in the heart of St. Pauls and to offer workshops and training in several different locations across the city. Please do feel free to pop in and see us soon!
www.brave.org.uk

Feedback from 2010 courses includes:

.….‘thoroughly enjoyable and motivating - will recommend to others’; engaging’; ‘handouts, presentation and discussions most useful’; ‘left with lots of useful practical tips’; ‘it was great to share learning with others in a very warm and comfortable environment’ …

Please contact Sparc Teams on 0117 373 2565 or email sam@sparcteams.com to book your place.

To make bookings & for more information about Sparc Teams, please visit:

www.sparcteams.com
Enquiries: Ceri Clements and Samuel Bond 01173732565
sam@sparcteams.com

You can also check out our Sparc Teams Introduction video to find out more information on what we do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJcCBKLR2u4

‘Sparc Teams would like to thank George Shipley (Nightflyer Productions.com) for working with the Sparc Team to film and produce this Introductory video. George is a highly talented media graduate and can be contacted on info@nightflyerproductions.com if you are interested in commissioning work for your project.

Watch this space for future workshops and training offerings…

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Best Wishes

The Sparc Team

In Today’s Newsletter:

• Sparc Teams Programme January Launch
• Invitation to Sparc Connections Social
• Request for Business Clothing Donations

There’s been huge changes at Sparc Space over the last few months ~ Here’s a quick update on what’s been happening, and more importantly, what’s about to happen!

Sparc Teams are a Community Interest Company based in Bristol who work with unemployed and underemployed individuals to give them the time and opportunity to discover their passions, develop new skills, enhance their confidence, and gain direction towards a more fulfilled life. Our Mission is to turn on the potential of every individual through a community orientated, holistic approach to solving the problems of unemployment.

We have developed a brand new and unique programme which includes one to one guidance, training, workshops, volunteering opportunities and social events for those who are unemployed or looking to change career.

The full ‘Sparc Programme’ will go live in January. If you would like any additional information about the exciting new programme then don’t hesitate to contact us on 0117 373 2565, or email sam@sparcteams.com.

We are looking for partner organisations to work with alongside on our new programme, so if you feel that your skills and services will complement our own (or vice versa) then please get in touch.

Sparc Social
As our Launch is now only two months away, we are holding a Sparc Social to let people know what we’re up to, and to catch up with a few people we may not have seen for a while! Sparc Social is an opportunity to mingle, find out about opportunities, meet the Sparc Team and catch up with friends.

Where? ~ Arts House Cafe at 108A Stokes Croft
When? ~ Thursday 25th November from 6-9pm.

There’ll be drinks, discussions, debates and anything else you can think of beginning with D (Dancing?), so come along and have some fun!

Business Clothing Donations
We are looking for donations of second hand business clothing for our nearly new ‘Sparc Boutique’. As a part of our mission to support people to, ‘Turn On Your Potential’ we offer our clients quality business wear at affordable prices so that anyone attending an interview or starting a new job can dress effectively and sharply to maximise their chances of success.

Any donations would be hugely appreciated so whether it’s the shirt that you don’t wear, the shoes that don’t fit, or the jacket you don’t like, then drop them into our space at 105 Wilder St, St Pauls, any time between 9am-3pm, or call us to arrange a collection.

We look forward to seeing you Thursday!

All the Best,

The Sparc Teams Team!

Contact Sparc Teams
By Post or in Person at:
105 Wilder St
St Pauls
Bristol
BS2 8QU

Call: 0117 373 2565
Email: sam@sparcteams.com
Visit: www.sparc teams.com
Follow us on Twitter @SparcTeams
Like us on Facebook
CIC Number: 07010434

Future Jobs Fund

We’re really pleased to announce that Ten Sparc Teams have ‘gone live’ at JobCentre Plus. Five further vacancies will be posted at the end of May. The positions are funded through the Future Jobs Fund, and the eligibility criteria are that the applicants are 18-24 or live in a Bristol unemployment hotspot such as Knowle, Withywood and  Easton.

Sparc Teams Future Jobs Fund Employees

The Sparc Teams vacancies are as follows; Boutique Team Leader + 3 Team Members, Operations Team Leader + 2 Team Members, and Outreach & Communications Team Leader + 2 Team Members. If you’re interested in any of the above posts at Sparc Teams, contact your nearest JobCentre for details, asking for Sparc Teams Vacancies.

SparcSpace

We’ve spent the last three weeks clearing, cleaning and decorating the new SparcSpace in St.Pauls. The team has been brilliant with lots of volunteers chipping in and helping to get the space ready in time to open in May. There is still lots more to do, and we’ll have our work cut out this week doing the gloss work, floor and windows! See photos of what we’ve achieved together on the bar to the left.

Thanks for reading, we’ll be back soon with more updates!

Come along, and ‘Get down and dirty’ with us… Painting, decorating and setting up shop.

Community DIY Challenge – Phase I – SparcSpace

Where? SparcSpace, 105 Wilder Street, St.Pauls. BS2 8QU

When? Wednesday 7th April 10am – 7pm

Why? Sparc Teams is a social enterprise in Bristol working with teams, individuals, local businesses and the entire community to turn on our collective potential. This project is wholly focused upon creating a convivial, warm and welcoming environment on Wilder Street in St.Pauls for those who are unemployed or in transition. Over the next days, weeks and months we aim to ‘Revitalize’ our neighbourhood one step at a time – returning a sense of ownership, real opportunity and empowerment to the heart of the community. Create Value and be Valued.

If you have 1 hour or 5 hours, come and join in the fun – meet like minded people, share a few DIY tips, do a little painting, and find out more about how you can get involved with Sparc Teams (there’s jobs, workshops, work trials and more)

In exchange for your handiwork on the day – we’ll give you Sparc Points which you can use to spend towards any of our empowering and career focused workshops or one to one coaching.

There will be gallons of tea, acres of chocolate crispy cakes and ocean sized waves of radio tunes to keep the team smiling!

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Huge Thanks go this week to:

Vincent Brissenden ( Project Manager and Chief Advisor on removing rawl plugs ;0) for the Community Challenge), Simon Prentice (for unquestioningly lending me his power tools), and Shelley Bartlett for her ability to inspire the inspired.

Community Re-Paint http://www.communityrepaint.org.uk

Community Re-Paint a social enterprise with a store based in Knowle who see ‘waste paint’ as a resource and strive to collect and redistribute more and more paint each year providing a fantastic service for the environment and the local community.

Thanks especially to Vicky and Suzie - who have supplied the project with copius amounts of eco paint at a humungously discounted price.

Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC) http://www.prsc.org.uk/

The mission of PRSC is to help Stokes Croft (our nearest neighbourhood) to recognise its special qualities by improving the streetscape through direct action, by creating a sense of identity, a sense of belonging and of self-worth.
PRSC is determined to safeguard the unique character of the area.

Thanks go to Chris Chalkley for his interest in Sparc Teams and the Community Challenge, his exchange of ideas and for loaning us the equipment we need to decorate the space.  We’ve borrowed ladders, brushes, rollers, overalls, dust sheets… all without which we wouldn’t have been able to complete the challenge in time. A special mention to Jenny at Stokes Croft China for such a warm and welcoming introduction to PRSC.

Bristol City Council

Bristol City Council have been, how can we say it – our experience with BCC whilst setting up Sparc Teams has been uplifting. They have embraced our social enterprise, our team and our ‘mission to end unemployment as we know it’ wholeheartedly. We aim to honour their investment of time, resource and trust by creating a truly great offering for those who are unemployed, under employed or simply in transition.

We hope to see you all soon at SparcSpace! The next update will include: 10 Brand new Sparc Teams Future Jobs Fund vacancies, New Work Trial Opportunities, Photos of  SparcSpace and more…

Best Wishes, Sparcy

Fantastic news here at Sparc Teams – we have made a successful bid for 15 job places at Sparc Teams through the Future Jobs Fund!
See here for details of the fund: http://campaigns.dwp.gov.uk/campaigns/futurejobsfund/

“The Fund aims to create 170,000 additional jobs, primarily aimed at 18-24 year olds who have been out of work for nearly a year to deliver real benefits to communities. The Future Jobs Fund is a part of the Young Person’s Guarantee. From early 2010, everyone in between the ages of 18 and 24 who has been looking for work for a year will get an offer of a job, work experience, or training lasting at least 6 months. We are specifically targeting 50,000 jobs in unemployment hotspots and expect around 10,000 of the 170,000 jobs created to be green jobs”.

Sparc Teams will employ up to 15 previously long term unemployed people for a full six months between April and October this year. Vacancies will be posted next month through JobCentre Plus. The award enables us to both support 15 people back into meaningful employment, and put our business plan into the next gear up – working towards supporting as many people as possible to Turn on their Potential.

Thanks go to Mike Wheeler at Bristol City Council, Sarah Morrison and everyone involved in supporting us in making a successful bid!

SparcSpace is Open and Development is Underway!

SparcSpace has now been Open for a week and we working very hard to get the space ready to decorate for the Revitalize! Boutique (nearly new business wear boutique for smart people) and SparcSpace offices. There’s lots of fun DIY to be done around the space including painting the concrete floor and walls, window washing, shelf fitting, curtains, did we mention painting?, signage and more to make the space as welcoming and accessible as we possibly can for our community.

DIY Open SparcSpace Days are an opportunity for you to join our friendly :0) team and be part of the creation of an exciting new and local community project. Come along and join in the fun while we jointly create the new SparcSpace. Whether you are a dab and with a paint brush, have some tools and time to spare, are bursting with DIY knowledge to share, or simply would like to give some feedback, find out more about Sparc Teams and have a cup of tea – you are always welcome.
We look forward to seeing you at any of the DIY SparcSpace days in the upcoming weeks – check the Events calendar  at http://sparcteams.ning.com/events for details of this week’s DIY times.

Value Exchange – Sparc Teams Points

There are a few handy items we would like to ‘Revitalize and re-use’ to get us going at Sparc. We’ve listed the items in the side column, and if you can help us out in anyway – we’ll give you Sparc Points in return – which you can exchange as payment towards one of our workshops (full calendar at http://www.sparcteams.com and click on ‘Register-Now’), a one to one coaching session with Janice, or at Revitalize! our soon to be opened Nearly New business wear and accessories boutique. Thank you for your support!

Sparc Events and local events listings

Upcoming Sparc Teams Workshops, Events, local jobs fairs and more are listed here:

http://sparcteams.ning.com/events

Please also join our Sparc Teams Ning! Community for social networking, events listings, and discussions with like minded folk!

Great news is that we’ve found a workspace (otherwise known as SparcSpace) for Sparc Teams on Wilder Street in St.Pauls and will move in at the beginning of March! The space has its own entrance, reception area, workspace, and IT suite. Thanks go to Bristol City Council for enabling us to make this happen so soon in the year.

Journey in Pictures

There’s a photo of the front of the building on our Sparc Teams Flickr site. We’ll be tracking our progress and journey both visually on Flickr (see the link on the left), and on this blog, so go ahead and sign up (on the right) to receive updates from the blog as they happen

Work Trial Opportunities

As you can see from the outside, there’s quite a bit of DIY to be done in and around the space, sprucing the place up with new signage, painting and general making good.  We’ve partnered with another local unemployment agency to offer DIY work trial and mentoring opportunities to those who are under or unemployed in Bristol to create some real work opportunities in the painting and decorating field. Watch this space for links to the opportunities… in the meantime if you are an expert in DIY, or would like to learn, or would like to be involved in this community renovation project, please contact us ASAP at sparcy@sparcteams.com

Who’s who this month

This week we’ve been grateful for support from.. Social Enterprise Works for access to template documents, Sarah Morrison, Bristol City Council who has been very helpful with oodles of information and we’ve also met with Paul Harrod (Lib Dem) for some helpful advice from his experience setting up and running local organisation Aspire, and Remploy who provide an amazing array of work opportunities for those with barriers to work in their warehouse space in St. Phillips.

Upcoming workshops are:

Wednesday February 24th – Pierian Centre 9-12
Monday March 1st – Brave Enterprise Agency 9-12
Thursday March 11th – Co-Exist, Hamilton House 9-12

If you’re unemployed or in career transition and haven’t had a chance to experience one of these inspirational and motivational Intro workshops, do email us at sparcy@sparcteams.com to book a free place.

Sparc Teams Ning

Interested in Sparc Teams? Want to know more? Like to become part of a local community of like minded people? Unemployed or in career transition and like to meet a few like minded folk? Join us on our sister Ning site at http://sparcteams.ning.com Here you can create a profile, post a thought in the discussion forum, and meet other inspirational local peeps with diverse interests. See you there!

We’re pleased to announce four new dates for the Free Introductory Sparc Teams Workshops in February and March.

If you wish to be empowered or are in need of a career direction, this is the workshop for you.

This year promises to be a very exciting, productive and eye opening year for Sparc Teams… and we know it will be for you too!

What’s on the cards?

Well, you may say ‘who knows?’, however at Sparc Teams we know there are some exciting developments in store……

Future Jobs Fund

We’ve put in an application to the Future Jobs Fund to create 30, yes, 30! jobs at Sparc Teams. We are hoping to hear very soon if we’ve been successful and in the meantime we’re focusing on our mission to end unemployment in Bristol by creating a range of diverse and exciting work opportunities. Keep your eyes peeled for updates and check out the link to find out more. http://www.futurejobs.org.uk/

Sparc Teams Workshops

Quoted as ‘inspirational’ and ‘motivating’ these workshops are guaranteed to get you ‘back in the swing’ and open your eyes to new work opportunities out there in our local community. Watch this space for future Sparc Teams Workshop dates.  Feel free to suggest locations and dates for upcoming workshops – or if you would like to hold a workshop in your office or workspace, contact us at Sparcy@SparcTeams.com.

Catch 22

We are looking to create a local, motivational, open plan, welcoming, convivial…  Sparc Teams Workspace! This will enable us to hold a regular programme of workshops and talks, welcome Sparc Teams members, space for everyone to work on their projects,  and enable us to  continue to develop our work towards ending unemployment. Let us know where you think we should be located or if you have a bright spark for property!

Party People

Thank you to everyone who came to the Sparc Teams Festive get together! We kicked back, relaxed and enjoyed an evening of delicious home made snacks, glasses of festive wine and bubbly conversation. How fantastic to end the year with our new found work partners, Sparc Teams participants and friends. Thank you to Trefor for sending across photos of the evening which you can view here:

Let’s get started!

We look forward to seeing you very soon. Please do call or email us at sparcy@sparcteams.com if you would like to be involved, further details, or just to say hi!

New Year Good Wishes to you all,

Sparcy xx

Welcome to the Sparc Teams Blog for November 2009 – we have lots of news and updates this week.

Sparc Teams Workshop Dates

Following the resounding success of the last series of Workshops at Tobacco Factory and Pierian Centre, We’re pleased to announce new dates for the Sparc Teams Workshops as follows:

• Wednesday 30th November 2009 – Intro Workshop at the Tobacco Factory 12.30-3.30
• Wednesday 9th December 2009 – Intro Workshop at the Pierian Centre 12.30-3.30
• Monday 4th January 2009 – Intro Workshop at the Tobacco Factory 12.30-3.30

Please email us at Sparcy@SparcTeams.com if you would like to register for any of the Workshops. Spaces are limited so SIGN UP NOW!!

SPARC TEAMS Updates

This last few weeks we’ve had some great meetings with:

• @BristolBuddies, a Social network for people new to Bristol, (http://www.bristolbuddies.co.uk)
• Katie Moore at Start Up Business Community (http://www.startupcommunity.co.uk)
• John Bradford at Science City (http://www.sciencecitybristol.com)
• ‘Worklessness’ Solutions Meeting at Bristol City Council
• Elaine Flint at Social Enterprise Works http://www.socialenterpriseworks.org)
• Kerry McArthy (Labour MP for Bristol East)
• Connolly and Callaghan and Bristol Social Housing
• Bristol City Council

We’re actively meeting up with partners in Bristol – particularly focusing upon how we can collaborate to support the under and unemployed in our city and make our service the very best it can be for those who need and deserve it. Watch this space for more updates coming soon.