On 25th May 2010, a group of Take Action volunteers, took part in this years launch of the Annual Pumpkin Festival and were rewarded for their hard work, with a tour on board the Jubilee Sailing Trust's tall ship, Lord Nelson.

The volunteers have been helping out at the event for the last two years, and contribute their very own home-grow pumpkins, from the SYA allotment.

This year, they were amongst forty people at the Pumpkin Festival's main fundraising event, to be shown around the historic tall ship, moored at Southampton Docks

From 17th May 2010, a group of Take Action volunteers took part in the week-long Silver Surfers Week across Southampton.

It is a national campaign to promote use of digital technologies by older people.

The volunteers helped show the residents how to use a computer, and how it can help them in everyday life.

One resident was hard of hearing and her son lived abroad so talking to him on the telephone was difficult.

Volunteers helped her set up and email account and a face book page so that she could communicate with her son that way.

On Friday 4th June Solent Youth Action vinvolved volunteers from as far away as Lee-on-Solent, Gosport and Eastleigh came together for a morning of fun at Kings Worthy Day Centre.

The centre provides a place for older people to go to socialize, have lunch and take part in activities from Monday to Friday.

Our group of enthusiastic young people spent their time getting to know the day centre regulars and playing games such as Connect Four, ludo and Guess Who. A few people even gave the Nintendo Wii a go.

As part of Volunteers' Week 2010, volunteer centres across Hampshire held award ceremonies to recognise the contributions of volunteers in their area.

Solent Youth Action was lucky enough to have two of our volunteers nominated for Young Peoples Awards at the ceremonies in Eastleigh and Gosport, and with the Mayor of each town handing out the awards they were very prestigious events.

Our volunteers had certainly dressed for the occasion and advisors from Hampshire also attended to see both of them receive their awards. The ceremonies were a great success and the volunteers were really chuffed with their awards and all the kind things that people had said about them.

As part of Volunteers Week, Solent Youth Action opened up their doors to volunteers and organisations from across South Hampshire.

We had the bunting out at the front and plenty of food and drink inside to keep the visitors happy.

There were also a variety of boards displaying information on each of our projects that the visitors could read while touring the building.

In the course of the open afternoon we saw trustees, volunteers, staff from local volunteer centres, Connexions and One Community and even a new born baby came in with his mum for a cuddle!

All the staff were really pleased with how the day went and want to say thank you to everyone that dropped by and learnt a bit more about what we get up to at Solent Youth Action.

On Monday 31st May, Solent Youth Action volunteers from the Respect Programme in Portsmouth helped out at the Healthy Towns Healthy Picnic on Southsea Common.

The Picnic was organised to invite families to come along and find out about healthy living whilst promoting sport, physical activities and undertaking a good diet.

There were loads of stalls promoting the healthy themes of the event and the volunteers were involved in encouraging people to join in the fun and games.

Amber, Natalie and Louis dressed up as pieces of fruit and veg and competed in an obstacle race to encourage people to enter a competition to win a free place in the Great South Run.

On Wednesday 26th May, volunteers from the Respect Programme in Portsmouth met at for a volunteer drop-in at Eastney Community Centre.

The session had many aims from signing up new young people to the Programme to recruiting for upcoming taster-days, short –term and part-time opportunities.

The drop-in ran at the same time as the Soccer Aid fundraiser in the park and one lucky volunteer got the chance to dress up as Portsmouth Football Club's mascot, Nelson to meet the children taking part and the news teams reporting on it.

On 29 April 2010, Solent Youth Action ran a recruitment evening for the Youth Action Team (YAT) at the Southampton office

The YAT Recruitment night started with an introduction of staff and YAT members and a brief introduction of everybody's roles.

This then led into a ten minute presentation about SYA and the principles of volunteering presented by Gary and Sharlien the Southampton Youth Volunteer Advisors.

Team Building Exercise

Once the presentation had finished the group were led outside where they were confronted with a half filled bottle of water inside a roped perimeter.

Four 10 ft lengths of rope were on the floor outside the perimeter.

The group were tasked with transporting the bottle of water using the ropes provided without entering the perimeter and without touching the bottle with any parts of their bodies.