YWCA NSW Blog

A positively exciting year ahead

As we head into a new year, hopefully feeling refreshed and revitalised after the Christmas break, I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you to all of our supporters for helping to make a difference in 2011. From our corporate partners, trusts and foundations to members, donors, volunteers and staff, each and every [...]

What does the game of “Simon Says” have to do with Mentoring?

Hi, it’s Sharne again, coordinator of the Big Brothers Big Sisters™ program. I wanted to share some thoughts I had around the game “Simon Says” and mentoring. I was never really any good at following the rules in the game of “Simon Says”. It’s a game that if the “players” follow an action (usually physical) [...]

Update from the Commonwealth Youth Forum

Hello from Fremantle, Western Australia, site of the Commonwealth Youth Forum! After spending a relaxing weekend with the family at glorious Bunker Bay (near Margaret River) I was ready for some serious discussion around issues facing young people in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Youth Forum (CYF) 2011 is a parallel event to the Commonwealth Heads [...]

Big ideas for our Bigs

“Experience in itself is neither productive nor unproductive, it is how you reflect on it that makes it significant or not significant” (Bolton 1979) Every week we get check-ins from our Bigs (the adult volunteer mentors from our Big Brothers Big Sisters™ program) where they talk about the experiences that they have had with their [...]

A touch of the theatrical

Yesterday, some of the team attended the Youth Action and Policy Association (YAPA) 2011 NSW Youth Work Conference in Sydney. The conference aimed to ‘inspire, energise, support and connect’ youth sector workers around their professional and personal practice. I went along to present with some of the team… We arrived at the conference with plenty [...]

Team spirit prevails at City2Surf

My lead up to the big race started out strong, but as the day got closer the training became less important. There are a million excuses but a combination of work, “alpine training” and an injured hip kept me away from the pavement and inside the office. My spirit hadn’t wavered and I was still [...]