Tyneside Outdoors was founded to fill the gap left by the closure of the National Trust Inner City Project. Two of the Youth and Community Workers from that project, Gerard New and Kath Lohfink, set out to create the new charity to meet the needs of disadvantaged communities on Tyneside through the provision of Youth and Community Work activities out-of-doors.
Which area do you cover?
We wanted our name to ‘do what it says on the tin’ so Tyneside had to be our focus. We love the wider region’s outdoor spaces and try our best to get further afield when time allows, at weekends or school holidays, however, our focus is on enjoying the benefits of the brilliant outdoor spaces we have on Tyneside. These include: Local parks like Hodgkin Park where we host our West End Outdoors Youth Group – taking fortnightly trips out to other local outdoor spaces for a range of activities; Orienteering at Prudhoe or Beach Volleyball at South Shields or Kite Flying on the Town Moor for example. We run a weekly outdoor games sessions in Walker Park, with the aim of helping young people there enjoy some active fun in their local park. In Temple Park, South Shields, we run the Temple Raiders young people’s bike group. This group is about having as much fun as we can on a bike – this currently involves taking part in a novice series of BMX racing over the winter months but bike repairs, bike games and rides out from South Shields form the mainstay of the group’s activities.
What type of fundraising events do you have?
In previous years we’ve hosted a number of fundraising events including a sponsored bike ride The Tyne TO’er from Hexham to Newcastle. However, one of our favoured fundraising activities is Tea for TO, a coffee morning-type event but involving Tea for TO, which can be hosted by anyone to raise funds for specific group projects or to support TO’s other activities. However, as with many of our activities these have been impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic meaning we’ve not been able to make the most of these.
How have you adapted during the Coronavirus pandemic?
As an outdoors organisation we were ideally placed to take advantage of the need to take activities outdoors. Whilst we had to take our group meetings online during the strictest lockdown measures we were able to meet with our groups outdoors fairly regularly during most of the pandemic. Our use of a minibus became almost impossible as this restricted our group size to only four young people – a trip to go mountain biking in Chopwell in December 2020 for our Temple Raiders took three minibuses, plus two shuttle runs in between, to get our group of 13 young people there and back.
We adapted some of our activities to ensure social distancing, however, most of our activities were well suited to fit in with the restrictions and we experienced very little change in our offer.
What have been your proudest moments so far?
Our biggest achievements have stemmed from our BMX Track Heritage Project in Temple Park, South Shields. This project started from a conversation with a young man about his use of the BMX Dirt Track built in 1983. Young people involved in that project helped to undertake the first archaeological survey of a BMX Track in the UK. They also took centre stage in a documentary created for the project with Archaeosoup Productions. During this project we also hosted a number of Big Bike Revival events, funded by Cycling UK and re-cycled more than 30 bikes, mostly BMXs, donated by Recyke-y-Bike in Newcastle, to give to young people in the South Tyneside area, for free. Because of that one conversation with a young man in the park we now have our Temple Raiders bike group with its own logo and racing jerseys.
Who are your main trustees and patrons?
In starting off TO we had great support from colleagues, parents and former youth group members, many of whom were happy to sign up as Trustees to support the new charity. This support was instrumental. Setting up a new charity during the early years of austerity, when numerous other organisations were closing, was a big struggle. Whilst it is still a struggle and our Trustees are key to helping us achieve our success, we’re still looking for more support to help the organisation build on its successes.
What are you currently working on?
We’ve just secured enough funding to buy our own minibus, a key priority for our work in the future; to reduce hire costs, consolidate our work with our current groups and to develop new work. Our next priority is to find a base for the organisation. As an outdoors organisation this was always a low priority. However, despite our ability to work from home for most administrative functions we now need a base to house our ever-growing outdoors equipment resources – there really is a limit to how many bikes you can fit in a garden shed. A new base would also provide a place to meet with, support and develop our growing team of staff and volunteers.
What does the future hold?
It’s difficult to talk about feeling positive about the future for the charity as this essentially means the issues we’ve been trying to tackle have either worsened or we’ve added more complexity to them. The Coronavirus pandemic highlighted the need for greater emphasis on using our outdoor spaces more, to exercise more and to take care of our mental health. The impact on the mental health of young people became a major concern and it was a real worry to us during the darker days of lockdowns. The Build Back Greener agenda is another situation where the climate crisis may become an opportunity for TO to promote it’s already low-environmental-impact activities as options for a cleaner and greener lifestyle. This, coupled with the impending financial situation particularly for low income households could see TO turning its attention to promoting its already low carbon, low cost activities as a source of help and support for residents in disadvantaged areas of Tyneside.
How do you get involved?
TO’s work is currently targeted in three geographical areas, West Newcastle (Elswick, Benwell and Scotswood), East Newcastle (Walker Park) and South Shields (Temple Park). Young people living in or close to those areas are encouraged to get involved. Parents are asked to complete a group membership form, and weekly consent forms provide information about the dates, times and locations of each group’s weekly activities. All our activities are provided for free. We’ve been keen from the very start that our activities should be free for anyone to attend, there should never be a charge to enjoy the outdoors. The free-toattend principle means that young people enjoying our activities, which in some cases take place in their local parks, don’t face any financial barriers.
1We are also very keen to encourage support from volunteers in face-to-face settings with young people and to support our development and administration activities that underpin our work outdoors, for example with marketing and communications or fundraising.