Dot Dot Dot News – Haunted Houses

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It’s been all go at Dot Dot Dot this month! We’ve been very busy expanding our work to new areas, growing the team, winning accolades and carving pumpkins…
We’re excited to be getting started with bringing empty buildings into use and supporting volunteering in Cambridge. We love the city, and several of the team have strong personal links with it, so it’s great to have the opportunity to contribute there – and since the city combines high housing cost with a strong culture of volunteering, we’re confident that our work will be a great fit. We’re currently recruiting guardians who’d like to move into properties which will become available during November, so please do spread the word.
We’re also very glad that three new team-members have joined us this month. Laura Sujang and Siobhan Coombs have joined us as Operations and Social Impact Coordinators, and will be working with our guardians to make sure that they are happy in their homes, that the buildings we’re protecting are taken care of, and that guardians are supported to make as much difference through their volunteering as possible. Clare Payne has also joined as an assistant, helping with our guardian application process and office management.

And we’re extremely proud to be able to announce today that we’re one of two UK finalists  in the Join Our Core competition organised by social enterprise support organisation Ashoka and ice cream makers Ben and Jerry’s. The global competition aims to celebrate people creating exciting new models for sustainable business to help make a difference in communities. We’ve also been shortlisted for a Security Excellence Award, for our contribution to the communities where we work – a prize we won in 2013, so we’re crossing our fingers to bag the award two years in a row.
Finally, we had a great time getting together with our guardians, neighbours and supporters at the new Emmaus charity shop in Chrisp Street earlier this week for a drink, a chat and to carve some pumpkins to make a display for the shop window.

Happy Halloween!
Katharine and the Dot Dot Dot team

Make a difference yourself…

Doctors of the World clinic in east London are looking for volunteers, both medical and non-medical to provide care, support and advocacy for some of society’s most excluded people, helping them access mainstream health services.

WDP Westminster Drug Project drug and alcohol service runs a Saturday social club that provides a safe space for people with drug & alcohol problems to socialise. They need a volunteer support worker to work with abstinent and non-abstinent clients every Saturday.

For more details on these opportunities and many others check out our weekly round up.

Spotlight on…

This month’s spotlight falls on two of our amazing guardians, Alex and Jonas, who volunteer at Body and Soul, a charity for young people and families living with and affected by HIV.

Jonas and Alex assist and deliver music workshops to empower young people to create their own pieces of music or spoken word. These four week workshops aim to record and produce finished pieces that young people have made and feel proud of.

Jonas said: “Volunteering with these groups is so rewarding because as soon as they get here, they can relax and do what any other kid or young person would want to do- and it’s great to see you’ve helped work towards that”

Some of the amazing guardian blogs this month…

Former Dot Dot Dot guardian Harriet, sent us a blog about the amazing volunteering she is now doing in Malawi helping people get justice in court.

New guardian Jamie has also written a brilliant blog about why he volunteers, a question he had never thought to ask himself before.

Make sure to check out all of them here.

October Newsletter

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Dot Dot Dot’s October News

One of the best things about working in social enterprise is being part of community of people and organisations who are determined to innovate and graft to deal with the problems we face.

Growing something from an idea into a sustainable business which delivers significant, measurable impact is often hard work. But the whole thing is made easier and more enjoyable by being surrounded by others with a similar mission, who face comparable challenges in turning plans into a concrete reality. And it’s extremely motivating to see other organisations making a difference to important problems.

So it was great to go to the party celebrating the announcement of the New Radicals awards for ‘Britain’s brightest innovators and entrepreneurs’, as chosen by The Observer and Nesta. At Dot Dot Dot, we’re proud to be on the list of 50 individuals and organisations – chosen from more than 1000 nominations – who are doing the most to change and improve life across the country. It’s fantastic to be recognised and celebrated. But the best thing is being part of the community that the New Radicals list is drawn from – lots of inspirational people and organisations who are, in different ways, working effectively and intelligently to change things that they care about, and helping each other along the way. You can see some of us talking about the work we do in Nesta’s video from the event.

John Mulholland, Editor of The Observer, called the list “an antidote to apathy and cynicism”. Being part of the social enterprise sector regularly feels like that – it is possible to change things for the better through hard work and good ideas, so it’s worth battling through the stressful, boring and painful bits.

If you need a little bit more inspiration, have a read of our blogs about some of the great causes our guardians have been helping out this month – the Ian Mikado school, the Great Men project and the Big House Theatre Company.

All the best,
Katharine and the Dot Dot Dot team

Mural painting & being generally great…

We’ve made a video highlighting the work that our guardians have been doing at Positive East – London’s largest community based HIV charity. Their volunteering ranges from painting a mural to helping out with all aspects of the charity.

Spotlight on…

This month our Guardian Spotlight falls on Becky charities including GoodGym, Positive East, The People’s Kitchen and Hackney Pirates, and is always lending a hand where it’s needed.

Becky says: “Volunteering with east-end community projects allows me to do the things I love the most; run, cook, paint and meet so many interesting and amazing people, but with the added bonus of benefiting others at the same time”.

Make a difference yourself…

A brand new branch of GoodGym has started in Newham. GoodGym is a community of runners that run on missions together to help the community, through clearing community gardens or painting a wall at a community centre. Follow them @GGNewham

Become a Silver Line Friend volunteer. Silver Line friends offer a befriending service to older people, calling an older person once a week to check they are ok and to have a chat.

For more details on these opportunities and many others check out our weekly round up.