Durham Works Episode 10 - version 2

Hey guys! Welcome to the final episode of the 2020 (award-nominated-but-didn't-quite-win) Podcast. We have taken on board feedback from a lot of you this week as you've been asking for less info and more of our early lockdown rambles. Needless to say, we were more than happy to oblige - we all know by now how much we love to chatter on. So, if you'd like employment/training advice - please see our FB job groups or drop us a message. If you just want to hear us chatter, laugh and play some games - you are in the right place! So, sit back, relax and switch off from the world for 30 mins. We wish you all the merriest of Christmas's and all the very best for 2021. As always, stay safe and be Merry - Kirstie and Steven :). P.s - This is the first episode that I've (Kirstie) edited as I managed to get out of it for the previous 12 episodes - I can only apologise that you'll absolutely hate 'let it snow' by the end of it!

Hey guys! We hope you are all doing well. As we've now began lockdown 2 (who'd have thought we'd start numbering these occasions?!), we thought we'd have a bit of a look back on Lockdown 1 to reflect on the crazy time we been through so far. We found looking back, the podcast has really been a reflection of real life. We started out with the hope of engaging with you all, letting you know what we were finding hard or beneficial, having a bit chat about what we were doing to fill our time and generally giving you all something you could pick up the phone, give us a ring and start a conversation with. Lots of baking, fence painting and Tiger King as I recall. As things started to progress, we began getting you all ready for getting back into society, bringing guests on to discuss volunteer opportunities and training that you could take part in from home. By the end of lockdown, we began giving hints and tips on interview techniques, improving your CV and bringing job vacancies direct to your headphones each week. We've adapted each week depending on what was happening in the world and we hope the podcast gave you a little light relief from the craziness of the world at times. It's been a bit of a roller-coaster really and in some ways we have gone full circle back to looking after out mental health as the World slows down around us once again. So now, as we head into lockdown 2, we will be focusing more on looking after our health and well-being as we get through this weird and wonderful time once again. Please do come and join us on Facebook if you haven't already, in the 'Health, Fitness and Happiness' group, we'd love to see even more clients taking part before the end of the year. Thanks again for listening, please give us feedback and let us know if you'd like to take part in the next episode. As always, stay safe - and remember, we're all in this together - Kirstie & Steven :)

Edited version of episode 10 for Durham County Council use :)

Hey Everyone! This week we are joined by Chelsea Mcgarrel from Optimum Skills as she tells us about the fantastic opportunities they have for our DurhamWorks clients. We also have our usual 'tip of the week' from Successful Steph and we are joined by a current Durham Works participant, Sinead, as she shares her journey on the programme so far. We also reflect on our GNR Group challenge and you'll fine out if we hit the mammoth task of completing 400 activities amongst the team... Thanks to everyone that gave us feedback on last week's podcast, we are tweaking it each week and have taken on board all suggestions again this week. As always let us know what you think and if you'd like to take part next week give us a shout :). Take care everyone, until next time - stay safe, Kirstie and Steven

Hi Guys! Well... Here is week goodness-knows-what of the podcast. We've had a little break from recording these over the last couple of months as we looked at what we wanted to get out of doing this podcast for you all. We felt like the chatter of what we were doing throughout lockdown was becoming a little outdated as things have started to get back to (dare I say it) some sort of normality? So, we're back, and we've mixed it up a little with the focus now being about getting you all back into work or training if, of course, that's the stage you are at in your Durham Works journey. We discuss live job opportunities in our Jobs with Jason slot, hear how to best increase your employability with tips from Successful Steph as well as hearing from the lovely Eve Galloway about how our partners over at CAB are changing their engagement offer to be able to deliver the very best support and training to you all in a virtual way. For those of you not quite ready for work and training, we also have a chat with our Michelle and 2 young people from her youth group about the kids of activities we are offering to keep you all engaged. We're talking intergenerational events, online youth clubs and we also may/may not announce the winner of the recent cooking competition... You'll have to listen to find out... (bake off has got nothing on us!). If you'd like to get involved in any of our youth activities, we are looking to get there back up and running in other areas in the very near future so give us a shout if you'd like to know what is going on near you. Lastly, we hear from our wonderful Durham Works client Paige as she chats about her achievements so far in setting up her own vintage clothing company. Paige discusses the challenges that have came with this as well as the fantastic progress she has made so far. If anyone would like to have a look at Paige's business, check out 'Canny Vintage' on Facebook :). Paige is hosting a (socially-distanced) craft fair on September 24th at Refuse Cafe in Chester le Street for anyone that would like to pop along to buy, or even have a table to sell, please drop Paige a message for more info. Any feedback on this week's podcast will be appreciated as we try to tweak it to be exactly what you want to listen to and as always if anyone want to come and have a chat with us on the next one about absolutely anything just give either of us a shout and we will get it arranged :) Thanks for listening and stay safe, Kirstie and Steven

Welcome to week 537892782 of the podcast! Your guess is as good as mine on what week we are up to of all of this with days and weeks now fully merging into one. Thanks so much for coming back to listen to yet another episode of our ramblings. This week it was mine (K) and my Mam's Birthday so you'll hear all about, what can only be described as, the most disastrous isolation Birthday celebrations ever. I mean, if you can find someone that had less luck on their Birthday, I'll personally buy you a bunch of weeds... Lots going on this week in The World of Groundwork - we've got the #MileChallenge for everyone to get involved in and support us to reach our 1407km target. We also have an '8 ball pool' tournament to get involved in through which a takeaway on us is up for grabs! With Men's Health Week coming up next week, we talk about our plans to raise awareness of this by encouraging all of our clients, friends and colleagues to track and post just ONE mile on Monday 15th June. This can then be posted on Facebook with #AMileMarchForMen to raise awareness of the #menshealthweek campaign. We were also joined this week by our lovely colleague Steph, who discusses the current volunteering opportunities and the value from taking up these opportunities to support with future employment. Our 'game of the week, game of the week, game of the weeeeek' - Scatagories was attempted by Steph this week in a bid to get Steven off the top spot - you'll have to listen in to find out if she managed... Thanks again to everyone that is listening each week. It's lovely to have feedback and it's great to know that our ramblings are brightening your day and taking your mind away from the current situation, even for just a little while. As always, stay safe, wash those mitts and ....stay indoors?...Outdoors?...Two meters away? - Ahhhh we've no idea on the rest of the guidance these days so maybe check out Steph and Jack's coronavirus Q&A Podcast for the who, what, where, why and when's... Until next week - Bye for now :) Steven and Kirstie

Hey guys, welcome to this week's podcast! Another week over and done eh?! Where's the time going? This week we're revisiting our most random jobs and hearing about Steven's love of Golf. Our Durham Works client Mia pops in for a chat about how she is finding her time in isolation while being in the shielding group, her NHS role-model and what she's been doing to stay busy. We hope you enjoy listening, as always stay safe and stay ALERT (also, wash those mitts!). Enjoy the bank holiday - Steven and Kirstie :)

Week 6 of the podcast is here ☺️! This week, we are discussing the (very slight) relaxation to isolation rules and progress towards our #260 challenge. In the usual TV review there's a magician, meth head, tiger tamer, country singer, gay polygamist, presidential candidate and convict - and that's just one character! This weeks game-of-the-week (game of the week, game of the week, game of the weeeek - I hope you sang that in your head as bad as I sound each week!) - anyway, this week's was a challenge set by our colleagues at Groundwork Tees Valley. They are running a leaderboard on their own pod-cast. Not one to turn down a challenge, (and being SUPER competitive), we had to give it a go - you'll have to give it a listen to find out if we managed! If anyone would like to have a go themselves at making it onto the leaderboard, give us a shout, as long as you promise to place above Steven I'll be happy 😝. On a more serious note, we really want to say a huge thank you to everyone that is listening to our rambles each and every week. Being able to engage with so many of you, while doing something we enjoy every minute of, is genuinely keeping us sane throughout these strange times so thank you all. Stay safe, stay ALERT 🧐 and as always, wash those mitts! - Steven and Kirstie :)

Week 5 of the podcast is here! ☺️ Hoping this isolation doesn't last much longer as there's only so much more Avengers talk I can take🤣. No guests on this week so you're stuck with the two of us for a full episode - we're talking TV reviews, talent shows and fundraising challenges as well as the much anticipated 'game of the week, game of the week, game of the weeeeeeek' - I hope you sang that in your head too and I hope it sounds worse than my rendition that Steven definitely wasn't supposed to be leaving in the final cut and has entirely stitched me up with - cheers mate, I'll get you back soon.... We just want to say a big BIG thank you to everyone that is listening each week, giving us feedback and suggestions and sharing the podcast with friends, it's very much appreciated. We really do love making (not so much listening back to) the podcasts and we're glad you all seem to be enjoying/tolerating them too ☺️. Remember, none of us have been through this before and if you have anything that you think we could be trying out please let us know - no idea is a bad idea and we really are open to anything! There's lots to get involved in through the powers of social media though so do stay engaged and take part in whatever interests you most, whether it be the talent show or the band, the health, fitness and happiness group with the daily challenges and cooking inspiration, the enterprise groups or joining us on Zoom for our home workouts...don't sit around being bored - get involved! We hope you all have a fabulous weekend, enjoy the sunshine and I hope to see some of you on Zoom, this Sunday at 6pm, for the quiz! As ever, stay safe, stay home and wash those mitts 😉 Kirstie and Steven p.s if anyone would like to sponsor us in our 260 miles in May challenge our Just Giving page is below... thank you. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Kirstie-Mactaggart2

Week 4 of the podcast is here - where is the time going? Thanks so much everyone that is listening each week, it's certainly helping to keep us both sane and we hope it is helping some of you too. This week, we had a catch up with one of our DurhamWorks participants about how he is keeping himself busy by chatting to celebs on Zoom! Dean also challenged Steven in this week's head-to-head game of the week - with previous week's in mind, place your bets on who won that one.... We also caught up with one of our colleagues, Phil Johnson, and had a chat about how he is finding his time in isolation whilst he also tried to educate us on the apparently amazing - Tiger King - we promise this week we will definitely give it a try and review it for you all next week. We hope you are all doing well, as always, if you'd like to get involved in the podcast or have any feedback at all just give us a shout. Don't forget we also have lots of opportunities for involvement, so if you'd like to take part in our enterprise group, tik tok challenges, the health, fitness and happiness Facebook group or if you fancy joining us at our Quiz Night on 3rd May - please speak to any one of us or your own youth coaches and we will sort it with you. Once again, thanks for listening, stay safe and wash those mitts, Kirstie & Steven :) (p.s. I'm not explaining this week's podcast image either, let's see if Steven gets it for once...)