Latest News from N-Gage HQ!

1st Feb 2012

We've had a great start to the new year with success in our schools and detached work and also in terms of expansion.

Christmas

We had a great run up to Christmas with our annual Quiz and Awards night. This was a great opportunity to recognise the achievements of a number of the young people that we work. Inspector Dave Nutsey from Greater Manchester Police was present to give out the awards and he highly commended the work that N-Gage are doing with young people. The Quiz element of the evening was also a great success raising funds for the continued work of N-Gage.

Schools Work

The majority of our schools work has remained the same this year. Christie is continuing to go into 3 primarys and 2 secondarys. We are still involved with the running of the Barlow Life programme which is an alternative educational stream run once a week for year 7s at the Barlow RC High School. We co-ordinate creative and sporting activities as part of their off curriculum provision. We are also investigating oppotunities to work in more schoolsa across Greater Manchestser.

Just before Christmas we got the fantastic news that we have been awarded money to take on a new schools worker which will greatly increase the amount of work we are able to do and also will give more time to developing the Step Up programme for wider use. We are in the process of putting together details for this post so please contact the office if you would like to request more information about it. The email is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Catalyst

Since beginning on the 1st October we have seen 463 young people. This work has had an increasingly postive effect in a number of the areas that we visit. Some young people regularly await the arrival of our team and the youth bus. Thanks to a grant we have also been able to buy some new games and activities for the bus which makes it an even better place to be. We have been in talks about expanding this work and look forward to announcing new plans soon.

Half Term

Following our success in receiving a grant from the North Face Explore Fund we are going to be running a residential activity week during the half term week with a number of the young people that we have met through our Catalyst work. Rachel and her team will be spending the week doing all sorts of outdoor activies and giving the young people opportunities to experience new challenges and spend some time out from their usual Manchester context. 

We have a number of upcoming events including:

Parachute Jump - Unfortunately two of our parachute jumpers were delayed due to adverse weather conditions before Christmas. They have rebooked so there's still time to sponsor them which you can do here www.justgiving.com/n-gagejumpers

Great Manchester Run - we have 5 places in the Great Manchester Run which is taking place on Sunday 20th May. If you are interested in having one of these places we require a £20 deposit for the place. Please contact Sarah Small on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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