April 1st – This was no April Fool!!

WOW!! What an experience – we have just found out that we have won the Dragon’s Den in Sheffield. How good is that! There were three of us there to represent our organisation called SHINE (Self Help Independence Nutrition and Exercise – www.shine4u.org ). We are a small non profit making social enterprise that presently runs entirely with volunteers, a combination of adult and also young people volunteers aged 10 – 21 years. We help obese young people to not only lose weight but also to increase in confidence and self esteem and feel better about themselves as a person and now we have won this award. How cool! And how did we do it?

Well we first met with the volunteers from SHINE and talked about this opportunity to present a Pitch at the Dragon’s Den. Kath (the Project Leader) asked who wanted to be involved. Not surprisingly not many initially came forward. They had seen the TV programme and thought the experience would be too daunting so me and Luke Volunteered. I have been with SHINE for 4 years and have lost over four stone. SHINE made an amazing difference to my life so I wanted to give something back. I have worked as a volunteer sports facilitator and do some of the admin work. I was up for a challenge and we put our pitch together and trundled off to the Northern General Hospital to meet the fire breathing Dragons. How nervous were we. Kath was tongue tied for the first time ever!! and Luke was MR Cool until we got in there and the questions started firing. I think we did a great job as a team and I really enjoyed it. I was on a roller and surprised myself about how much I knew. This wasn’t so bad after all. The Dragons just needed to know about us to make their decision and we won!! I am sad for the others who were equally as worthy. There were some really good projects and it was great talking to the others and to the governors. They were really friendly. Well I guess we now need to think how to spend our winning of £1,000. We aim to develop our volunteer services better. We want to encourage more young volunteers to join us.

Emma Hincliffe
aged 18 years

I didn’t really know much about the Dragon’s Den until I was asked to take part. I am 15 years old and have been with SHINE for a year and have lost five and a half stone. I was always in trouble at school and was at the point of exclusion when I joined SHINE for fighting. Not that I was a bad guy, I just got so frustrated with all the bullying a comments about being a ‘fattie’. That really got to me. I joined SHINE and never looked back and I am now doing well in my GCSE’s, much better than I had ever hoped. I now work as a volunteer helping out at SHINE and I have built up my confidence to take part in conferences and you guessed it – taking part in the Dragon’s Den. I was not phased, took it all in my stride until we got into the room and I sat there looking at the panel!! God they looked a surly crew and at one point I just froze. I was asked a question and I just lost it. Now what should I do. I remember Kath telling us ‘be yourself, you don’t have to be perfect’ and things like ‘we all make mistakes’ so I composed myself and then heard me say ‘I’m sorry I’m really nervous, I can’t remember what you asked, could you repeat it for me please’. Kath said after that was a really mature response and I felt very proud. I would have just got up and walked out before. I always run away from situations that stress me out but I stayed. I think the panel were impressed too! Well at least it made them smile. I think we did a good job together and believe it or not I enjoyed it.

Luke Pyatt
aged 15 years

Phew!! Thank God that’s all over!! I was really nervous, the kids thought it was really funny because I am normally so confident but they were the ones that were reassuring me – talk about role reversal!! The kids were amazing and really did us proud. I was really emotional listening to their pitch. I tried to let them present and answer as much as they could and only stepped in at times when I thought they were struggling, which wasn’t that much really. Knowing these kids from when they first started SHINE I swelled with pride. They had no confidence, beaten out of them after years of bullying and feeling worthless and here they were doing something even adults would find difficult. Well look at me! I’m sat shaking and they are brimming with confidence and telling the story of SHINE. Outside they are buzzing. They don’t know yet whether they have won or not and they really don’t care. The experience was far more important for them and they are off now asking for photos with the team. We have a serious moment where we meet with the advisors. This gives us a great opportunity to celebrate our strengths and work on our limitations. We are told we are doing a pretty good job and we are offered good advice on PR work and media communications. We are given an exceptional little book to read which gives simple tips and a fantastic website www.ngomedia.org.uk which gives exceptional tips and guidance on media matters. So from now onwards and upwards! Lets concentrate on developing our volunteers, for without them SHINE just would not exist!!

Kath Sharman, Project Leader
8th April 2008

What a week ! Loads of stuff sent from Gideon from ngomedia. This is an amazing site. We became a member and gained some good free tips and the courses look fantastic but sadly way out of our price range. This is what holds volunteers back, funding is always lacking and because many volunteers work full time, their work is often diluted. I am always humbled by the amount of time our volunteers give so freely and I often wonder why. They say it’s because of the satisfaction they receive from the work they do. They say it’s seeing the kids grow and develop and feeling that in some small way they may have had an important role to play in their change process. Some say it’s seeing that obesity is not just about being ‘fat’! or being greedy or lazy. The troubled life the kids at SHINE lead, moves us to tears at times. Walk in their shoes and then criticise. We have six more volunteers sign up today. We send the forms off to Jane Dawson at TimeBank, who fully appreciates the role volunteers play. Thousands of pounds each year are saved that can be channelled back into supporting the organisations. We are small scale and even we estimate a saving of over £105,792!! To keep volunteers you need to value them. We hope when we receive the winning money we can use this to provide further training and do quality appraisals which will help volunteers to use their work experience to perhaps develop career pathways. Maybe one day we may not be so reliant on our volunteers but until then they are our saviour. SHINE survives because of their commitment. We remain indebted.