11 people braved the snow and fought off winter illness and made it through to doors to G:up's forum meeting!

They were: Nafisa Mathia, Nathan Dennis, Ethel Sinclair, Claire Pennell, William Clemmey, Arkle Bell, Jim Jenkinson, Gail Mattocks, Barry Lockwood, Bruce Kirk and Alison Straker.

We had a packed agenda, which became even more so, as we compressed things to allow for an early escape in the ever-thickening snow.

Here's a flavour of what we did:

welcome and introductions, showing off your own organisation

We used the elevator pitch introduced to us by b arts through a slice of the cake the G:up toolkit for sustainable funding. Everybody gave a one minute pitch selling their organisation and its services.

setting the scene, G:up past and present

Alison did a quick run through the background to the project and the outcomes to date.We looked at numbers and values, and other things too, and a quick game of G:up team bingo gave the chance to compare where we are at today with where we started in 2005. This led on to an introduction to DfES VCS Engage programme. G:up is overseeing the West Midlands part of the regional programme, which mean a substantial amount of our funding comes from this programme. This comes to us through NCVCCO who are managing the work in the regions.

The 9 recommendations from our independent evaluation provided a good starting point for moving forwards.

sharing learning

Nathan introduced a DVD from the G:up urban meets rural youth residential and then led an interesting discussion around urban and rural needs, interests, similarities and differences. This also sparked some interesting debate around gangs and chnaging gang cultures from 1960 to the present day.

Bruce presented the learning through the project's case studies, both around children and young people's particiaption and regeneration. He also introduced the joint work that had taken place around the regional integration strategy for refugee children and young people. Although our project partners have not been able to take the work as far as had been hoped in terms of strategic influence, Bruce talked of the benefits this work had brought to some grass roots organisations.

creating a ‘world map’

Another exercise from a slice of the cake. This time Jim took the lead as small groups worked on creating world maps of G:up, i.e showing where we fit into the region in relation to other service providers.

lunch, provided by a local women's cooperative

The food was good, so we can use them again!

participation and young people’s involvement in G:up

Jim, armed with a step ladder and a load of sticky dots, got us all thinking about how empowered we are within our own organisations as an introduction to looking at the role young people play. He presented back his research on young people as governors and raised some challenges for G:up. Watch this space for more information about that.

sharing what we’ve got – getting the word out

Barry got people thinking about marketing G:up and it's outomes and our re-launch with a practical design exercise. It looks liek we are moving towards a toolkit on CD with a facny insert outlining who we are and what we do. Gail gave us a short informal seminar on marketing which will, at least as far as I am concerned, have a lasting impact.

dreams, reality and priorities

We had a vision that we wanted to collect everybody's visions but the snow was snowing and we really had to call a halt and get home...

As it was, weather and vehicles hitting railway bridges meant I didn't get back until Saturday morning - can anybody beat that?

Some things will have to be saved for another occasion...

Watch this space to find out more.