In March, Karen and Amanda (director and development worker) loved attending the UK Youth ‘staff residential’, where they met many of their fellow grant recipients, and ran a workshop introducing circus and exploring the ways Eruption meets Wales’ ‘5 pillars of Youth Work’, which are Empowering, Expressive, Educative, Inclusive and Participative. We also ran a short skills workshop as part of this, and even ended up teaching skills in an impromptu session later on in the evening! It was brilliant to learn from and share with others in the youth work field from all across the UK.
Volunteers enjoyed their residential, once again at a bunkhouse, and had a great time with some training, and a lot of relaxing, a fair bit of circus, and some lovely walks, once again volunteer led!
In May, the YP residential took place on Gower once again; always a highlight of the young people’s year! It’s somehow always transformative; an opportunity for friendships to form or strengthen and for the group to gel. For some young people this is their first or only opportunity to be away from home. We actively include Junior Circus, who visit for 4 hours on the Saturday, and as always there was a LOT of prep, amazing food, lifetime memories, a ‘midnight’ walk, fire training and fire skills, and unbelievable sleep deprivation for some of the incredible staff and volunteers who make it possible, and love it too! Like everything else, the residential is always free to attend and we provide transport if needed.
May was busy as it also included – once more at the behest of a large number of the young people in our Youth Circus, participation in the Swansea Pride parade as Circus Eruption, which we gladly agree to facilitate and support. Whilst this is a classic example of young people in the lead (in LGBTQ+ YP and allies driving this happening)- it also meant a lot to a number of our volunteers and staff, some of whom have been part of Eruption for a long time and can acutely recall different times, when it would have been unimaginable that they could have participated in a Pride parade as Eruption. Our YP do love a parade but this one meant a lot to many of them, and we were incredibly proud once again not just of those who led the charge, but also of the large number of allies who are equally proud to stand with them.
For the third time, in June, Circus Eruption ran games and workshops in the ‘Green Kids’ and ‘Theatre and Circus’ fields at Glastonbury Festival. This is an extraordinary opportunity for our staff and volunteers to volunteer in a very different environment - to engage new audiences with Circus fun - to learn and to communicate with a wide range of people, and to share a unique experience. We provided training and briefing beforehand and support throughout, including from seasoned, experienced practitioners. Several Eruption people have engaged in this work previously with a partner organisation and so the transition to Eruption in the lead has been smooth and well managed, and everything went brilliantly again this year. We hope and anticipate that this will continue to be a fixture in our calender for years to come.
June was also voluntary sector conference season (!), with our director and volunteer coordinator attending the national ‘Gofod3’ event run by the Wales Council for Voluntary Action at the Cardiff City Stadium, and the Swansea Council for Voluntary Service member’s event later in the month.
July/August tend to be busy with trading workshops - although this is a busy time, they also represent highlights for our team! For example, we took a large team to the National Play Day once again - always great fun, with around 3000 attendees again this year!! We often meet children and young people at these events who benefit from joining us in the upcoming September intake, too. Community Centres, festivals, fun days, dedicated workshops for groups facing challenges, church fetes, you name it… We also loved celebrating founder, volunteer, former Trustee and all round play/participation/inclusion guru Phill Burton for his 70th birthday in our building in early August (after a swim in the sea earlier in the day!). Loads of circus, loads of people from the many and various projects and people he’s inspired and been inspired by! And, of course, by consistent order of Phill, puppets. We really appreciate his presence, the way he’s handed over the reigns but supports, trains, works for us when we need him, and cheerleads for us all the time. Diolch, Phill!
And we ended the year with another successful ‘Love Circus’, with loads of people flooding the space for circus fun two mornings running! It’s a great ‘shop window’, enabling people to pop in and have a go, and a lot of fun for all.
And then we look ahead to the coming year as it rolls around again!
SORP QUESTIONS – SUMMARY OF IMPACT AND REACH
As a tier 1 charity, we are required to provide a summary of their main achievements (see above) and address two core questions:
1. In what way has the charity’s work made a difference to the circumstances of its beneficiaries?
Our beneficiaries increase in confidence, resilience and a sense of belonging. For some, the friends and fun they have at Circus Eruption are unrivalled elsewhere as a result of various challenges. Our monitoring and evaluation framework enables us to track increases in social interaction, motor skills, confidence, communication with peers, communication with adults, and external feedback (from parents/carers, and external professionals) consistently validates our observations. We also gather information from the children and young people we work with which corroborates these impacts.
2. Has the charity’s work provided any wider benefits to society as a whole?
This is hard to quantify, and isn’t part of our charitable objects, but we’re happy to respond as we hope and expect that our work has a far-reaching impact beyond our workshops.