IN JANUARY'S VOLUNTEAR:
SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT DEBATE ON PROJECTSCOTLAND
TV ADS, SELLING YOUR CHUMS AND WHY JOHN LOUGHTON IS AWESOME.
EMAIL OF THE MONTH
LAST WORDS OF A VOLUNTEAR EDITOR

SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT DEBATE ON PROJECTSCOTLAND

We all know how much politicians love a good wee natter. But this time they were given the chance to argue about something we actually care about: ProjectScotland. So we put a call out to you guys to come and show your support, and you made us proud. Scores of volunteers, line managers and partners descended on our parliament to watch the gears of government grind slowly on. After a telling off from the Presiding Officer (applause; the biggest threat to modern democracy?) we watched the MSPs debate ProjectScotland. When they were done arguing we piled into a committee room where, accompanied by a few MSPs, we discussed what had happened (or did we debate the debate?), and us volunteers were given the chance to tell the people that matter how much of a difference ProjectScotland has made to our lives.

We’re in yer living-room!

Not content with dominating the cinema screens and radio waves ProjectScotland is back on the TV! It tells the moving, heart-warming tale of a young adult called “Young Adult” and how he turns his life around with the help of ProjectScotland. If you’ve not seen this brilliant Bildungsroman, then go to www.projectscotland.co.uk and click on ‘Frustrated?’ to become enlightened.

You can still sell your friends to ProjectScotland for cold, hard cash!
January’s not my favourite month. Christmas is past, but the god-awful weather’s still hanging around like someone who doesn’t know when the party is over. On top of that January 1st greets you with what will probably be the worst hangover of the year. And you’re skint. While ProjectScotland can’t do anything about the temperature or your hangover, we can help with the cash. If you refer a friend to ProjectScotland we’ll give you £55! Check out www.moneyforyourmates.co.uk or go to the ProjectScotland homepage and click on ‘Skinted?’ That’s what friends are for.

Support John Loughton!


I’m sure you’re all supporting John through all the madness that is Big Brother Celebrity Hijack simply because he is Scottish, and, if reality TV history is anything to go by, that is enough to deserve our unanimous support, regardless of talent, ability or personality. But this time you can have a real reason!

Those of you who have been paying attention will have noticed that John was one of our voscar judges! I’m sure that he’s telling everybody in there how brilliant ProjectScotland is, except we can’t hear it because they put on those damn bird noises! See how John’s getting on in that famous house here.

Email of the Month

I finished university with a degree in law and politics and no desire to become a lawyer or a politician. In fact, I didn’t have a clue what I could do.

Then I found ProjectScotland. At first I was expecting a load of charity shop vacancies and opportunities to help out in soup kitchens – the typical volunteery, do good-er roles. But no. I stumbled across a placement within the Scottish Executive, at last, a chance to put my knowledge into practice.


So thanks to ProjectScotland I have decided to pursue a career in policy and law development and will be applying for a position with the Scottish Law Commission when I finish.

There is some truth behind those adverts then – volunteering isn’t just about old ladies with purple hair – it's about helping others, gaining experience, developing skills, meeting new people and learning to live on £55 a week!!

For me it has been a worthwhile and enjoyable experience and, from what I've heard, I’m not the only one who believes this. Hopefully, the MSP’s wishing to pull funding from ProjectScotland will realise this too and rethink their decision.


Natalie Frankish


Send us your words! E-mail us now at voluntear@projectscotland.co.uk if we like those words and the order they are in we will put them in next months VoluntEar for the whole world to read! We will also give you £55! Mmm, money for words!

“Calm down, it's not loaded”: Last words of a VoluntEar Editor

It’s been one year since I first walked through the glass door of the ProjectScotland office on Melville Street. A whole year. That’s longer than I expected. That’s 5% of my life so far. That’s quite scary.

Before ProjectScotland I was unemployed and unemployable.

I thought it was a great achievement if I was up in time for Countdown. I was what the Government would have referred to at the time as a NEET, or what my friends and relatives would have referred to as a workshy bum.


I can honestly say that ProjectScotland is by far the single most worthwhile thing I have done in my whole life. My placement has mainly been writing and editing this e-bulletin and setting up and maintaining the ProjectScotland pages on Myspace, Bebo and Facebook.


But these tasks have only provided brief islands of routine and sanity in the wild tempest that is the ProjectScotland experience. I’m pretty sure there was nothing in my placement description about helping to construct a 10 foot high abstract sculpture with a hangover roughly the size of Denmark, travelling the country dressed as Superman or been given free Tequila Sunrises only a couple of hours after sunrise at student career fairs.


ProjectScotland is brilliant and truly unique and if the people with the power and the money can’t realise that then they deserve to be terrorised by the hoards of marauding 16-25 year olds with no direction or prospects that will inevitably take to the streets in a hideous and bloody uprising against a system that continually leaves them on the scrapheap.


Well I better go. There are fires to be ignited, treasures to be plundered, revolutions to be lead, species to be discovered, coups to be averted and sushi to be eaten. And after all of that I might just get, whisper it now, a “real” job!