Welcome to The Hunslet Club May Newsletter 2023! This little newsletter is our way of spreading recent news and mentioning exciting new developments for June 2023. Here you can catch up on everything we did and achieved in May 2023. Our newsletter comes out at the start of each month, and you can read our previous newsletter here.
Dedication, hard work, and commitment paid off for Brooke McHale, who represented the Hunslet Club Solitaries in her FIRST-EVER SOLO Baton Competition at the Northern Majorettes Association. Brooke won 1st place on Maximum points, and we would like to congratulate her again.
The Hunslet Rogues Theatre Company kicked off the first weekend of May with one of their spectacular Musical Showcase! After weeks of rehearsals, commitment, and practise, the Hunslet Rogues took to the stage and performed songs from some of everyone’s favourite musicals, including Mamma Mia, Matilda, Grease and more.
Over 400 young people attended Warrington Youth Zone on Saturday, 13th May for the annual Onside President’s Cup, and members of The Hunslet Club received an invitation.
We saw our young people participate in friendly competition while making friends, learning new skills, and trying new things – such as a VR headset.
While we didn’t leave with a trophy, our young people left with smiles and stories. It was fantastic to see so many young people together, cooking, climbing, playing, dancing and more, and we know they made memories to cherish for a lifetime.
A royal event occurred in May, The Oval held a Coronation Celebration to remember, with bouncy castles, refreshments, a BBQ, music and more to mark the Coronation of the King. We do love a reason to celebrate, and events like this bring the community together for a day of fun, friends, and food.
A massive well done to our U12 team who won the County Cup Final in May! 167 teams took part in this cup, and teamwork, dedication and skill were shown throughout.
The Hunslet Rogues is a South Leeds theatre company based at The Hunslet Club. The group is bursting with talent, as these young performers showcase dedication, commitment, and enthusiasm at each Wednesday session.
Budding young stars come to these sessions to start their journey into exploring the world of dance, drama, singing and musical theatre, and three members of the many rising stars in these sessions have currently moved onto the next step in their journey. Kian, Oliver and Annabel have secured roles in different shows due to their incredible talent and hard work!
Oliver, one of the longest-standing Rogues members, has landed the role of Alan on the new BBC mini-series ‘Boat Story’, Annabel was featured in a TV series that needs no introduction, Waterloo Road and Kian landed a role in a new West End Show, ‘Across the Line.’
These are just three amazingly talented young people attending The Hunslet Rogues sessions, as the room is bursting with musical and theatrical talent, and we know we will be sharing more news from this talented group in no time. Check out the South Leeds Life article here!
In May, our Volunteer Coordinator ventured to Leeds Markets for the Volunteer Centre Takeover. The Volunteer Centre helps you to find suitable volunteering opportunities and provides advice about local opportunities.
The Hunslet Club has a dedicated team of volunteers who are always willing to lend a helping hand at our events, evening activity sessions and more.
Volunteers’ Week is celebrated from Thursday, June 1st to Wednesday, June 7th, 2023. For over 80 years volunteers have been the backbone of The Hunslet Club.
We have a volunteer in almost every area of The Hunslet Club. We’ve seen volunteers come and go, while others have stayed for years, doing their part to help the community thrive. We’ve had volunteers leave us and come back, and members of staff venture onto the next step in their journey only to return as volunteers at our events. Volunteers are embedded into the fabric of our not-for-profit youth organisation, and we are incredibly grateful for their time, effort, and overall help.
These volunteers, whether they help for an hour a week, at one of our events, or in our youth clubs, are the reason so many young people in Leeds have the chance to reach their full potential.
Our volunteer coordinator will no doubt be highlighting some of our fantastic volunteers over on our Hunslet Volunteers Facebook Page.
Young people excel in different environments. Some excel in a classroom, but, others learn more with a hands one experience. From September 2022 to May 2023, young people in years 9, 10 and 11 living in South Leeds attended The Hunslet Club on Monday evenings to work towards a level 1 qualification in their chosen area.
Young people in South Leeds worked towards a qualification in either catering, hair and beauty or mechanics.
In May our students finished their level 1 qualification in their chosen area in our Monday Evening Project. Congratulations to every young person who achieved this qualification, as each one worked hard to achieve their qualification.
Our youth club have started their fundraising endeavours for their next trip, and they started off strong with a fundraising bake sale. We are incredibly proud of the young people who sacrificed some on their Saturday morning to help with this bake sale.
Money raised at our youth club fundraising events will go towards trips for our young people.
We had another incredible half-term activity camp this May, and we loved seeing so many young people making memories! We had over 200 visits throughout the week, and we saw each young person make friends, try new things, and have fun.
Our campers did a lot of activities throughout the week! Some activities include:
We were blown away by our future Rugby Champions today! From practising tackling to learning different types of kicks, and how to improve their technique, every player showed pure talent, dedication, and passion today – plus, they all had fun!
Thank you to everyone who attended our Rugby Activity Camp, we can’t wait for the next one!
We finished the month with our social action project, where we invite local care home residents to join some of our youth club members for an entertaining evening. This month we hosted a Karaoke night and enjoyed renditions of Sweet Caroline and some more classics.
We are always looking for new ways to keep young people entertained, while teaching them life skills they can use away from The Hunslet Club as they go through life. We want to continue benefiting the lives of young people by creating an onsite garden where our young people can plant vegetables, grow flowers, and learn more about nature.
To do this, we began our search for a volunteer gardening group in May to help steer our young people into making over the allotment to transform it into a welcoming space for all.
We started our search with an article in the local newspaper. As of writing this newsletter, we are still searching for a gardening group to help.
As mentioned in previous Hunslet Club Newsletters, we have had some fantastic guest speakers. Our guest speakers come into our youth clubs to give presentations and practical sessions to our young people. Contact our team today if you/your business would like to talk to our young people about a specific topic.
