Kate Smith-Atherton, Community Arts Apprentice
Wednesday 21st March 2012
Morning
During my first morning at TMC, I arrived at 10am, where I met Jackie and Daisy for the first time. Over a cup of tea, I had a chat with Daisy about what TMC is, does, and aims to achieve. We also spoke about myself, why I wanted to work for TMC, and also what I was doing before I came to TMC. After this Daisy lead me to the office, where I was shown where my desk was, I was shown the shared drive and how to access it, I was also shown how to read, send and reply to emails. I was introduced to Yammer, the TMC website and also asked to create an Avatar. Before lunch I was shown around the office, and introduced to the rest of the team, as I went round each member of staff introduced themselves and told me what their role is at TMC.
Afternoon
I went to lunch with the rest of the team, we went and had an all you can eat buffet chinese, here I spoke to members of staff on a more personal level about themselves, and everyday life. After lunch, with Jackie, I went through contracts, the EE form, we also discussed holiday and I was given documents to read on procedures and policies of TMC. I was then given a tour of the building by Daisy i. e the café, outside, toilets, kitchens etc. I was also told about and shown where the fire exits are and where we meet when the fire alarm goes off. For the rest of the day, I spent a couple of hours reading through the TMC website, as well as looking at a few documents from the shared drive i. e notes on meetings, and presentation notes etc.
Thursday 22nd March 2012
Morning
During the morning, I was asked to catch a train to East Midlands Park Way, here I was met by Emma who then drove us both to Castle Donington. When we got to Castle Donington, we made our way to a parent and child event at Sure Start Children’s Centre. Here we met up with Sam, and also another member of staff who worked at the centre. We were there to observe one of the events that took place every week. In the centre there was a room which had different activities set up for the children. These consisted of ‘the black and white corner’ which was full of different fabrics, pillows, and objects which were only black and white. There was a water pit full of water and bubbles, trays full of ripped up coloured paper, and newspaper for collaging, pots, pans and spoons for the children to make noise, and also a couple of plastic pipes for the children to roll balls down. Slowly the children turned up with their parents. After a while, me and Emma joined in with the children and their parents, I ended up playing in the water pit with the children, getting splashed and covered in glitter (as one child, then all of them decided to put glitter in the water pit). We then had a break, a cup of tea and the children had a drink and a snack. Afterwards, each child was giving a tub of bubbles, we then went outside and started blowing these. We left a few minutes into this, and drove back to TMC’s office. Once back in the office, me, Emma and Ben then met with Ruth and a couple of her colleagues to enrol/register us with Leicester college. The meeting took a couple of hours, we filled in forms, discussed the apprenticeship scheme, talked about goals, and were given tasks to complete by the next meeting. I then had lunch.
Afternoon
For the rest of the afternoon I spent it reading through my policies and procedures documents, I filled in some forms regarding emergency information, bank details etc. I then did some reading upon Arts Award, and a few other bits on the TMC website.
Friday 23rd March 2012
Morning
I attended a bridge planning meeting, this lasted all day. During the morning session we talked about the bridge, goal 5, NPO’s, organisations, partnerships etc. We then went round and explained what we each thought our job role was, as I had never seen my job role this was quite difficult for me, but i think I did okay. After this, we were then given a piece of paper with each other’s job description on it, we had to read the job description, decide on who’s job we had, and then feedback what we thought this persons job role/main tasks were. I found this task very useful and helpful in relation to understanding what me and everyone else did. Before lunch, we did a fun activity, which was called ‘head, heart, hands’ we had to write down what we knew, what we were passionate about and what we could do, basically what we thought we could bring to TMC through knowledge, belief and skills. This was also very helpful and enjoyable.
Afternoon
The afternoon was spent going through what each person/team was working on, and what we aimed to achieve by doing it. This involved everyone speaking, writing down ideas, and planning what was eventually going to happen. Basically a starting point for us all until our next development meetings. We went through a work programme and we allocated leaders for the time being for each action, this was a big help.
Monday 26th March 2012
Morning
For the first part of the morning I wrote up my notes from Fridays meeting. I then had a safe guarding and equal opportunities with the other apprentices. Straight after this I met with Mary and Daisy to update Daisy on Fridays meeting (as she wasn’t present). We discussed the tasks we had been allocated, and I was given a couple of tasks to do before our next meeting. After this, I had a meeting about standards and equality and also the somewhere to programme. I was also given a task to do which related to the somewhere to programme.
Afternoon
I started the afternoon off by starting the task I had been given by Vikki for the somewhere to programme, this was to research and write down any events that are happening over the next year that we could attend to promote somewhere to. Towards the end of the afternoon I had a HBR standards and award meeting, here we did some more planning, I then finished off by carrying on with research.
Tuesday 27th March 2012
Morning
Throughout the day I was asked to shadow Sophie and Dan, before doing this though I completed the tasks I was given by Mary and Daisy; typing up notes, creating our own plan chart etc. I then went to a meeting with Sophie about the DMU framework evaluation, followed by another meeting about the framework evaluation, this was to put the participation teams views across. We then had lunch.
Afternoon
After lunch, I had a meeting with Dan about Our State Of The Arts, he introduced me to the programme and website, and asked for my help on a presentation he had to give. I helped him by finding good, strong, positive and negative quotes young people had written on the website about an art or cultural event they went to. I really enjoyed this. For the last hour of the day, I had an introduction to Journals and Mobile TMC.
Ben Tuddenham, Finance Apprentice
Hi, my name is Ben and I am the Finance and Administration Apprentice at The Mighty Creatives. I applied for this role as I wanted to get into a career in finance/accounting, and it seems to be a great opportunity.
I have been involved in all sorts of tasks relating to the role, such as processing invoices and expenses, and assisting with the supplier payment run. I am now beginning to understand and take responsibility for the tasks I have been given.
I have met most people in the office now, and everyone seems to be very welcoming and friendly (I’m sure the people I have not yet met are just as fabulous). I have been
taken out for lunch (twice), to get to know my colleagues, which makes it a great place to work!
I have really enjoyed my first week here and am getting on well with both my work, and colleagues, and I’m looking forward to what the future holds!
