RHYLYOUTH ACTION GROUP
Prepared by:
David Evans
Director
March 2012
01745 334500
Table of Content
Executive Summary
Mission Statement
Project
Background
Product/Service
Market
Outline of Market
Market Research
Swot Analysis
Market Segments
Promotional Strategy
Customers
Legalities
Key People
Administration/Systems
Premises
Costing/Pricing
Financials
Risk Analysis
Appendices
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Rhyl Youth Action Group is a Not-for-profit Company Limited by Guarantee, managed by, and for, the young people of Rhyl and the surrounding area, with the specific aim of creating ongoing generations of young community leaders and the empowerment of young people to take positive action in their community through innovative education, participation and empowerment.
Currently, innovative projects improve health, confidence, education and employability, in one of the most socio-economically deprived electoral wards in Wales (Currently number one in the latest WIMD).
RYAG works in partnership with a number of organisations such as the Princes Trust Cymru, WEA, WCVA, DVSC, Children in Need, Local County Councils and the Welsh Government and, has received funding to maintain and develop its aims, from a variety of sources.
Over recent years RYAG has focused on the long-term sustainability of the organisation, rather than having a total reliance on grants, through income generation projects that will enable us to provide additional services and facilities to our service users. The aim is to make RYAG 75% self-financing within 10 years, and 100% self-financing within 15 years whilst continuing to provide the free services to our beneficiaries/service users.
The previous business plan focused on Phases 1 & 2 of our sustainability plan – the regeneration of a derelict building in the centre of Rhyl, Denbighshire adjacent to our current premises.
This building, known locally as The Hub, is now virtually completed and transformed to provide new project opportunities in the form of a ‘Virtual Shop’ – where participants can undertake initial retail training, an Information Shop – where the community can ‘drop-in’ to access a variety of information on community and other services, The Youth Café has been extended offering more space and enabling RYAG to offer a Parent and Toddler Flying Start facility of the local community.
The facility, when fully completed, will offer a number of office/training rooms which will be leased/rented by a number of organisations, including: Want2Work, Princes Trust Cymru, Rathbone UK, Scope, Jobcentre Plus, local community groups and agencies and a centre for RYAG where people of all ages are able to access a variety of information and training services which is available in West Rhyl.
We have built 3 self contained flats within the building, which are currently being leased to Nacro, as move-on accommodation for their service users, and generates income for RYAG.
RYAG is hailed as a successful, flagship organisation, not just in Wales but across the world, with visits from World Wide Volunteering and Serco Australia who visited with Chris Ruaine, the local MP, to see how our project works and how it could be used and/or adapted to meet the requirements in other areas and other countries, giving us the opportunity for working in partnership, forging new links with other groups.
By working with local groups and participants and with local employment services and employers, we are recognised as an organisation capable of creating the opportunities for employment, training and education and by doing so we provide the supportive environment; for turning around the lives of young people who may/or are suffering through social exclusion.
This recognition comes from agencies many and varied, including the Welsh Assembly Government, National Youth Agency, Royal Bank of Scotland, OXFAM, Princes Trust, Rural Youth workers Partnership, and many youth groups across the UK. RYAG was awarded the status of ‘Welsh Social Enterprise of the year’ by The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
Since RYAG was established in June 2003 it has grown from an initial membership of 8 to over 450, with services users and beneficiaries more than doubling that number; we have supported more than 100 young people to gain recognised qualifications, ranging from millennium awards to Duke of Edinburgh, as well as other qualifications;
As result of our recent building developments we have been able to create a number of fulltime and part-time jobs running the Information Shop, the Parent and Toddler Group, Flying start, workers in the Youth Café as well as recently taking on an Admin to undertake office work.
David Evans (Director)
Rhyl Youth Action Group
NAME OF BUSINESS:Rhyl Youth Action Group Ltd (RYAG)
COMPANY REG. NO:06395882DATE OF INCORPORATION:September 2007
SHAREHOLDERS: RYAG is a Company Limited by Guarantee and not having a share capital.
REGISTERED ADDRESS: 1 Elwy St69-71 Wellington Road, Rhyl, Denbighshire. LL18 1BE
BUSINESS TELEPHONE NOS:01745 334500
BUSINESS FAX NOS: 01745 344866
BUSINESS YEAR END: April
ACCOUNTANTS: DVSC, Naylor Leyland Centre, Well Street, Ruthin, Denbighshire. LL15 1AF
Sage & Co. 102 Bowen Court, St. Asaph Business Park St. Asaph Denbighshire LL17 0JE
SOLICITORS: Edward Hughes Solicitors. 29-31 Kinmel Street, Rhyl, Denbighshire. LL18 1AH
OTHER ADVISORS:
Pamela Neal, General Support for Business Advisor.
David Roberts, Business Eye, Denbighshire.
PERFORMANCE DATA:
Past Performance Data 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07
Turnover / 15710 / 43528 / 86053 / 195850Gross Profit / - / - / - / -
Gross Margin / - / - / - / -
Overheads / 12174 / 38153 / 87653 / 182810
% Growth Year on Year / - / 36.1% / 49.4%
Note: We are not-for-profit organisation.
RHYL YOUTH ACTION GROUP’S MISSION IS TO:
To make Rhyl a better place to live for our peers and all others by working with local and statutory authorities, voluntary organisations and the local community in a common effort to advance education, promote facilities and ensure genuine meaningful involvement of young people in the towns’ decisions. The pursuit of these objectives shall be undertaken within the framework of Community Development and inline with National Youth Work Curriculum.
OUR OBJECTIVES ARE TO:
- Establish, Manage, deliver/provide social, leisure activities and Formal and Informal learning opportunities for our service users and staff.
- To be a self-sustainable youth led project that encourages youth to actively participate in project’s decision making process and to express their views.
- Improve the prospects of young people by offering training, volunteering and work experience via our programs.
- Work closely with local and national groups with the same ethos and to share good practice and develop new skills
- Promote young people in a positive light to local and national media, residents and other stakeholders.
OUR KEY PRINCIPAL’S:
RYAG embraces the Welsh Joint Education Council Curriculum Statement for Youth Work, which identifies Youth Work as being:
Educative: Enabling young people to gain the skills, knowledge and attitudes needed to identify, advocate and peruse their rights and responsibilities as individuals and, as members of groups and communities, locally, nationally and internationally.
Participative: Through voluntary relationships, in which young people are partners in their learning process and decision making structures which effect their own and other peoples’ lives and environments.
Empowering: Enabling young people to understand and act on personal, social and political issues that affect their lives and the lives of others and the communities of which they are a part.
Expressive: Encouraging and enabling young people to express their thoughts, emotions, aspirations and cultural identity, through creative and challenging activities, particularly those which increase their understanding of the bilingualism and, the heritage and culture of Wales.
What we are:
RYAG is an organisation driven by young people living in Rhyl and the surrounding areas, for the benefit of the young people of this part of North Wales between the ages of 11 and 25.
We identify and highlight gaps in provision / failing services and then take action ourselves and/or with our partner organisations to fill them.
Our goal is to create ongoing generations of youth and community leaders and the empowerment of young people to take positive action in their community.
Through our projects, we hope to improve the general health & well-being, confidence, self-esteem, feeling of citizenship, employability and the position in society, of young people living in areas of multiple deprivation.
We do this in partnership with youth organisations such as the Princes Trust Cymru, WEA and WCVA, Youth Inclusion Programme, Youth Justice Board amongst others, to enable us to provide; services, facilities, training and development opportunities all our service users and the local community in general. We will do this through innovative projects that focus on social and leisure, formal and informal education, training and citizenship activities.
We will ensure that young people have the ability to help steer our organisation in a direction that will produce the best results for our service users. We enable our service users to enter into an environment of peer-mentors, positive role models and dedicated youth/community workers. The young people of Rhyl are encouraged to participate in decision-making, formal and informal education, and volunteering activities to help build self esteem and confidence and when trained, to present themselves as positive role models to their peer groups.
We will create a “can do” culture for our young people.
Key Strategic Objectives
To ensure the long term financial sustainability of RYAG through income generation projects that provide services and facilities to our service users, to make RYAG 75% self-financing within 10 years, and 100% self financing within 15 years.
In the interim, to research & secure grant funding in order to sustain and develop current projects over a 3 to 5 year period and to enable us to work on our main goal of withdrawing from grant-dependency to self-financing sustainability.
To provide sustainable social projects, with minimal or no cost to beneficiaries that have been identified..
To identify new ways of creating income while providing free services to our beneficiaries/service users.
To do this we have:
Purchased and refurbish premises adjacent to current premises in order to fulfil income generation vision for RYAG and in-keeping with the Townscape Heritage Initiative for Rhyl.
Hosted and supported the development the Rhyl “Virtual Shop”, which has already attracted a number of local groups and agencies into using the available facilities at RYAG establishing a centre where people of all ages have the opportunity to train and learn.
Provided a ‘one-stop’ Info Shop based in The Hub where members of the local community can call in and access information on a variety of subjects.
Expanded the activity facilities for Rhyl young people, providing, facilities in which young people can be trained in those specific areas to increase their own skills.
By working in partnership with Nacro, we provide ‘stepping stone’ accommodation, in the form of the three self-contained flats for young people combining housing with training and mentor support to motivate the young people before they move in to their own or other supported accommodation.
Work in partnership with the Rhyl Youth Inclusion programme and a number of training providers, to develop a formal and informal education projects for young people not engaged in formal or informal education.
Re-invest generated income into RYAG to enable us to develop programmes we offer in our youth café which is currently open 5 days a week.
To undertake a social audit, led by young people attending the project and to seek to implement its recommendations.
We also want to:
- Create links with current and retired business owners for supporting, mentoring and training of young people.
- Maintain our funding by Comic Relief and Children in Need, etc. in order to continue to attract two volunteer young people every year and train them as community/youth workers enabling them to work with us while they gain valuable work experience and skills to re-invest into our community.
- Follow the ‘Stop, Look, Listen’ programme in order to continuously Plan/Do/Review and generate best-practice organisation management. through consultation with our stakeholders.
- Further develop our capacity to deliver accredited training to young people and groups working with young people.
- Develop a Promotional Strategy in order to engage the wider community and create a greater understanding of what we do.
- Meet and exceed the minimum standard for IIV and IIP status with the next 3 years.
- Develop and deliver our own internal review system based on Estyn standards within the next 12 months.
PROJECT
Our main aim for this project is to ensure the long term sustainability of our group and all its projects by provide services that are identified and needed by local people that provide educational, social, leisure and capacity building for those involved. This will be achieved by generating income from providing housing to homeless young people and renting our facilities to other groups at discounted rates that will attract/be affordable to them.
We have sought financial support in the form of a loan from the WCVA and other funding from Denbighshire County Council and Welsh Government to help finance the purchase and re-development of the building.
Our Project overview:
1. Regeneration of a derelict building in West Rhyl, Denbighshire which is the most deprived area in Wales (WMID) and is also a target/aspiration of Rhyl Going Forward, Council Regeneration Unit and Communities First amongst others.
The provision of a high profile facility for the “Virtual Shop” and the Info-shop to develop further provisions of office/training rooms for a variety of local community groups and agencies whose aims, like our own, are to help develop Rhyl as a regionally competitive business location, where the majority of residents are in work and making a positive contribution to the local economy.
Individuals are encouraged to fulfil their fullest potential - moving up the ladder of opportunity regardless of the point at which they enter.
The project currently consists of a virtual shop within the town which will give people of all ages the opportunity to train and learn all aspects of the retail trade.
An Info Shop where people are able to access information on a variety of issues.
Young people are able to access information on contraception, and the issues around teen-age pregnancy and sexuality issues as well as healthy eating and nutritional information about a healthy lifestyle, as well as drug, alcohol and substance misuse information, etc. to promote healthier life styles.
Our hope is that all those enrolling on courses with us will be able to move into either employment or further education following their attendance on our training provisions.
3. A multiuse Gym for community use. We hope that the gymnasium will attract those who would never usually go to a gymnasium due to costs or feeling uncomfortable. We will run “group” specific nights such as woman’s nights, under 18’s, pensioners etc to help to try and make people feel more comfortable.
4. Working with Local Training providers and other agencies we plan to run formal and informal education programme for the young people who are most at risk in Rhyl and the surrounding areas on a regular basis and offering programmes identified by our service users. The course will involve young people undertaking community projects, work experience and informal education sessions to receive ASDAN and Agored Cymru qualifications, in things like; volunteering, food hygiene, Health Eating, Nutrition, Per Mentoring, etc. We hope that every year at least 80 young people will pass the courses and gain their first qualifications, helping them move forward into further education, return to school and where appropriate, into employment or volunteering.
5. Accommodation for youngster who are currently working with Nacro, which has been furnished by ourselves to provide “stepping stone” accommodation to ex-offenders and provide them with training and mentor support to help them to be able to keep tenancies when they move on to private or local authority housing so that the facilities can be used with other vulnerable people helping develop their Independent Living Skills.
Each flat is pre furnished and residents will have access toRYAG’s training facility to enable them to access a computer with internet, to enable users to search for jobs, create CV’s on our portal and undertake online training courses. All income from the project will be reinvested into RYAG to enable us to enable us to continue to run our youth café 5 days a.
We identified the need for accommodation following our STOP,LOOK & LISTEN consultation event with local young people last year where youths involved highlighted Jobs, Safety, Housing, Benefits and Places to go and their five key actions they wanted RYAG to look into.