The missing twosome

Chris and Marcus couldn't attend the Celebrate Success event in Bristol last month. Chris was unable to get time off from his college course and Marcus failed to persuade his boss to give him time off work, mainly because he needed to take time off for Harley's operation the following week. The op was successful - big relief. So here are pictures of both proud dads with the Trophy, Chris with Mckenzie and Marcus with Harley.

Our friends like the calendar!

Here's some feedback:

"Thank you so much for the amazing calendar you have produced - I feel so honoured to be a recipient."

"Thank you very much for the wonderful Dads Matter Too calendar. It is taking pride of place."

"Thank you .... so much for the calendar - it's really inspiring. We will put it up in the office so all our visitors will be able to see it too!"

"I was so impressed with the images on the Dads Matter Too calendar - I just wish you guys did a leaflet too!"

"I've just seen the 2009 Dads Matter Too Calendar, and I just wanted to let you know I think it's beautiful."

"... thank you so much for the 'Dads Matter Too' calendar which I think is absolutely brilliant ... I think everything about it is really excellent, photos, quotes, quality of print, format - wow!"

"... a tribute to the young dads involved in its production. These guys are so aware and keen to establish lasting and strong relationships with their children – a wake up call to all of us showing just what these dads can do given the right opportunities and support ..."

And I know someone who decided they wanted to display all the pictures at the same time so the calendar is no more but they now have a rogues gallery of young dads on their office wall.

Photo in new Arts Award booklet

This picture of Marcus was taken by Lisa during the trip to see street art at Tate Modern in the summer. Here 's the photo as used in the new version of the Arts Award silver booklet for young people...

9 Dads and Mums achieved bronze awards in the summer ( go to blog archive to see posts and pictures from the visit and the award).

Travel for the trip was funded by the Arts Award Access fund, and this is one of the photos sent in with the funding report. Bayford Arts is the name of Jackie's Arts Award centre, through which we took part.

Nice to see Lisa's photo inspiring lots of other young people around the country working towards their awards!

Find out more about the Arts Award at http://www.artsaward.org.uk/

'Behind the Scenes' of the news interview

More from the Celebrate Success evening, 'behind the scenes' the Dads being interviewed for ITV news.

Getting Seen

The DVD trailer, on YouTube and on the blog, has been seen over 200 times, including 9 times from USA and 2 times from Canada.

'Google Analytics' reckons the blog has been seen by over 516 different people, mainly from the UK but also from USA, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and Spain. The average time people look at the blog is 3 minutes - so hopefully they're finding it interesting! It seems so, as 686 more visits are by returning visitors. There's a steady, growing stream of new people visiting the blog each week.

The counter on the blog, added a month or so after it started, shows 3611 today - that's the number of times pages from the blog have been looked at!

About half the blog's visitors come direct, others come through links from websites including fatherhoodinstitute.net, youngfather.net, jackiecalderwood.com, sparksite.co.uk and bbc.co.uk.

Whilst I've got my 'numbers' head on, the Dads Matter Too myspace has had 73 views, and the music tracks have been played 35 times!

A Few More Photos...

Celebrating Success!

Here are, reading from left to right, Mark, Steven, Rob, Brett, Gareth, John, Den, Karl and Chris at the Bristol Marriott last Wednesday night. Smart, or what! Looking proud and happy. You bet! And every right to be so. They had just won the Award they'd been shortlisted for. It was just a pity that Marcus couldn't get time off work and Chris couldn't get time off from his college course to be there and join in the celebrations. Den met Theone, another Award winner, who was so impressed with Den's lyrics that he offered to record him. So who knows where this will lead. A great evening.

Video: Community Impact Award Winners...

Celebrating Success on ITV News

Dads Matter Too won the Prince's Trust SW Community Impact Award - presented at the Celebrate Success reception in the Marriott Hotel, Bristol last night. Fantastic!
The Dads were filmed receiving the award and interviewed afterwards for ITV news, broadcast thisevening.

Watch the news item on the link below (let the 30 seconds advert finish playing, then watch or forward the news - Celebrate Success and Dads Matter Too starts at 14:35):
http://www.itvlocal.com/west/news/?player=WST_News_15&void=260481

More photos and video of the evening to follow...





Screenshots from news item at http://www.itvlocal.com/west/news/ on 20th November 2008

In the News with Swindon Artsmad

We're in the news again - in the winter 08-09 newsletter from Artsmad.

You can download the newsletter from:
http://www.artsmad.org.uk/

Calendar - Second Print Run

Jackie's just completed the artwork for a second print run of the calendar, with revisions.

here are the new look front cover and back label:

 

Getting ready for Bristol

Steven, Den, Brett and Mike were interviewed today in Swindon Foyer for a short film which will be shown at the Celebrate Success evening in Bristol next month. Marcus has just started a new job and can't get time off work because he already needs to take four days leave the following week when Harvey goes for his operation - at last. So he won't be able to go. Great shame, because he was the lead applicant for The Prince's Trust grant for the film workshops.

YouTube clip

The clip that Jackie put on YouTube has now had over 100 views. It's a start! A couple of positive posts have been left:

"You've arrived - on YouTube. Great stuff. I hope you realise how much impact your DVD has and will have for young dads in the country. Well done and thanks a million."

"Nice DVD lads well put together, tune's nice too. Good to see something about dads for a change."

Another milestone

Over 200 copies of the DVD have now been sent out. John has 'sold' 7 so he's winning!

News from My Space

ManCub would like to be added to our MySpace friends list. He says "you guys are utter heroes. . good luck."

We've made the shortlist

We have been shortlisted for a Community Impact Award and have been asked to attend a Prince's Trust Celebrate Success evening at the Bristol Marriott on 19th November. However there are some problems. Partners are not included because their names did not appear on the nomination paper. My fault, I'm afraid, but I didn't think there'd be a problem. And children won't be able to go. Transport is also going to be a challenge as group members have to travel from Swindon, Calne, Melksham, Southampton and Paignton. So some sorting out is needed before we go.

Dads Music on MySpace!

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=412954029

The two tracks recorded for the DVD are now up on myspace, click the link above to go and have a listen!

Trailer on You Tube

Just finished - a short (2:45) trailer with extracts from the DVD. There's a copy here on the blog (top left of main page). The idea for this came from another Dad's information website, so hopefully they'll add a link to the trailer and more people will get to hear about the film. If you want to add the trailer to your website or blog just get in touch or leave a comment. Or if there are other videos it'd be good for us to add as links, let me know...

The Dads Matter Too Calendar 2009

The calendar's gone off to print. Most of the photos were taken by Terri back in the (sunny!) day(s?) of summer. All the Dads chose words of wisdom to share their thoughts on being a Dad. Jackie's put it all together (a couple of times, as print costs were higher than expected, so a different format was needed..) and it's ready to order with plenty of time for Christmas! Phew!

Happy New Year!

Watch this space for costs/how to order.

Preview of sample pages below...

Wiltshire Young Parents' Guide

Here's Stuart being interviewed by Jane Morgan in Melksham yesterday. Jane is the Supporting Young Parents Project Worker based in Chippenham and is updating Wiltshire's Young Parents Guide. Stuart agreed to be a 'young dad case study' for the Guide. Good for you, Stu!

Good BBC Breakfast news

Well, the piece went out twice this morning. Steven texted me to say, " Just watched the Marcus interview on BBC1 and thought it was great. It was really positive and the interview with that man after was really good as well." Says it all really. Well done Marcus, and Charlotte and Harley. I hope we'll get a copy some time. When I do I'll put it on the blog. And someone has posted a fantastic reply to my previous post. Check it out!

BBC Breakfast

I've just spoken to Louise, one of the programme's producers. Our piece is now going out on Monday. Louise has decided to use Marcus's interview as the basis for the piece and was very complimentary about his contribution. Somebody from Fathers Quarterly magazine will be in the studio, along with a young dad from Sunderland. She says that 'our' bit will go out at 7.40am and at 8.40am on Monday. Watch that space!!

Prince's Trust update

I've just received a letter from Sue Porto, the Regional Director of the Trust, confirming our nomination for the Community Impact Award. There have been 58 nominations, and these are being shortlisted down to three finalists for each of eight Award categories. The judging panel meets next week to shortlist three finalists for each Award, so we stand a 40:60 chance of being one of those. If we are we'll be asked to attend the Celebrate Success Awards evening on 19th November. We should find out in a week or so. Well done you guys!!

Watch us on BBC Breakfast this Friday!

Much excitement in Wiltshire this afternoon when Tim, the reporter, and Neil, the cameraman, came to film us for a segment of this Friday's programme. A BBC producer had come across the Love it! article and decided that it was worth following up. Good for her. So Charlotte was filmed letting Mike into the house (twice), Marcus was interviewed about the Young Dads-To-Be course, and Mike was able to give his views on its value.

The idea was for Tim and Neil to go over to Trowbridge to interview Paddy but Paddy had to go off to another appointment. So we tried to get hold of Stuart but he was seeing his Connexions adviser about his EMA (most important) so we got hold of Chris in Calne and a second interview took place there.

Tim is going to let us know more details about the programme but it may mean getting up earlier than usual on Friday morning to watch it. So keep checking the blog for more details.

Jessie has arrived

Stuart and Leia are now the proud parents of Jessica who arrived on Sunday 15 days late. She weighed in at 8lbs 7ozs. Not surprisingly Leia is rather tired. She went through two bottles of nitrous oxide, broke the bed, bit Stuart, but managed without pethidine or an epidural. Stuart's doing the night feeds and his paper round, so he's tired too. Welcome you two to the wonderful world of parenthood!

Feedback from California

"What a top-notch project! ...(It) has given us many ideas for our own outreach."

The DVD reaches a milestone

Just sent out the hundredth copy of the DVD. And we're getting some really positive feedback. One respondent calls it "a brilliant addition to my teaching aids". Another says it's "well put together" and "very inspiring". All of this reflects great credit to the young dads in the film because of their ability to describe their experiences and feelings so articulately.

Are we chuffed?! Even more than Den and Rob appear to be. Here they are, gracing the front cover of the August e-dition of The Source, the UK Youth magazine. We'd like to think that they'd been chosen for their good looks, but we may have got that wrong.

Here's part of the reason - a feature on the use of "the arts" as a means of enabling young people to communicate, with each other and to a wider audience. The article featured several case studies, one of which centred on our film and the media workshops that we ran along side it.

And here's 'our' case study, with Den and Rob looking happy once again. John gets quoted, as does Jackie and there are links to both our blog and Jackie's, as well as info about how people can get hold of the film.

So copy this link or just click to go to THE SOURCE (August 2008 edition) at http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/Launch.aspx?referral=other&pnum=&refresh=t14A8H0fXm51&EID=09a5efac-0c98-4aa6-ad6a-21ac6c6b6fa2&skip=true

Dads Matter Too goes international

Well, one copy of the film has gone to California, and two have gone to Scotland! Copies have also gone to Brighton, Bury, London, Mansfield, Northampton, Sittingbourne and York as well as several towns in Wiltshire, including Chippenham, Malmesbury, Salisbury, Swindon and Trowbridge. Among the agencies and professionals obtaining copies are Children's Centres, Family Resource Centres, FE Colleges, film companies, Health Visitors, Midwives, Mother and Baby Units, YOT workers and Youth Development Services. So it looks as if our hopes for the film are being realised.

We're up for an award!

Asha, our contact from The Prince's Trust, was sufficiently impressed by the film when she saw it at the launch that she is nominating us for a Community Impact Award. None of us quite knows what this is but it sounds pretty good. So we've had to write lots of stuff about the film and the effect it's having. We're not sure how long it'll be before we hear anything, so please keep reading this blog.

We're now a school!!

A reporter from Love it! magazine contacted us as a result of reading about the film. She was interested in the young dads-to-be course rather than the film itself, and interviewed Chris, Marcus and Mike. It's always a bit of a gamble when you talk to journalists. Chris wondered where some of his quotes came from, and a School For Teen Dads is an interesting spin on the course. However we shouldn't complain because it's the first time that anything has been written about the course and, as it's the foundation of all the work we do with the dads, it's good to see it written about in such a positive way.

Michael Wills does us proud

A week ago Michael Wills devoted his column in the Swindon Advertiser to the launch of Dads Matter Too. Michael found the film moving, and said that "watching the film and talking to the makers afterwards of it afterwards, it wasn't only their commitment and sense of responsibility that shone through, it was also the pride and joy they felt in their new families and in what they were doing. It was an uplifting occasion. I felt that everyone who has ever grumbled about young people today should have been there."

Hurray! 9 Bronze Arts Awards Today!

Well Done! Congratulations to Steven, Markus, Den, Marcus, Brett, JJ, Lisa, April & Charlotte who have all passed their Bronze Arts Award.
Four parents represented the group at the moderation today, with Jackie as Arts Award Adviser and Mike doing the behind-the-scenes co-ordination and taxiing.
The moderator commented on the 'brilliant project' and 'well put together portfolios' and urged us to find funding to continue, encouraging the group to go for silver...