I hope you are keeping warm- winter is here!
End of semester has been so busy for everyone, inside and outside of the NOISE project! It seems that we have a lot to share… which is a good thing!
Pod Update: On November 15th we held one of our first official pod events. Social Media For Change (SM4C) hosted a candy sale in Vari Hall to raise funds for their social action project. They plan to create a media project around understandings of community. They were quite successful with sales and it was especially nice to see the pod connecting with students, discussing the social action project and talking about their experiences with NOISE.
A couple of weeks ago, NOISE joined Kids Up Front Toronto. This organization provides surplus an unused event tickets to charitable and youth serving programs in Toronto. On tuesday we received our first tickets (4 court side seats to a Raptors game). Nathan, Shaun and Randy were the first youth fellows to arrive for their pod meetings that night- so it was their lucky day!Eventually all NOISE fellows will have a chance to attend a game, concert, theatre performance or exhibitions! Although we are really excited about this new partnership, we will NEVER be able to match the energy of our three youth fellows when they found out they had court side seats for that game 🙂 Â
Since I was last in touch, Talisha was officially named a Toronto Community Foundation Playing for Keep Ambassador. Â Congratulations Talisha!
On Friday Uzo was recognized by the Golden Key Society for her contributions to research, community and social change. NOISE Research Intern and Golden Key Executive member, Henry, nominated Uzo for this award. Henry has been working with ACT & NOISE for over two years and brings incredible spirit and warmth to NOISE. He wrote a blog about the award, please see bloew.
Speaking of our website, we have a couple of new blog entries posted- Sev Arslan wrote about her experience of attending a Social Planning Toronto Research Round Table on youth and employment, we have pictures from the Candy Sale and a few new blogs entries will be posted early next week. Our Flickr  account also has some fun photos from our OMG Photobooth!
We have finally finished up our first round of reflection evaluations in the pods. We were doing a ‘check in’ to see how everyone is getting along. Thank you to all for sharing your time, experience and voice! It seems that the pods are in a very healthy, happy and productive space right now… and they are having a lot of fun too 🙂
 York’s MSW students are busy designing and pitching their major research papers. I have met with several students about data collected from both ACT and NOISE, so it will be very interesting to watch how the data is taken up and used by the MSW students. We were very happy to see so much interest.
Pod Update: The pods are busy, busy, busy! They have been having conversations about project design, meaning & social action. Important questions are being asked: why do we want to do this project? what do we want to accomplish? how will we know if we are successful? what is success? NOISE pods are also seriously thinking about potential community partners and are reaching out to activists, educators and existing organizations for suggestions, support and partnerships. This is such a fascinating process to watch and I can’t say enough about the dedication and vision of our NOISE community.
What’s Coming Up: We are thrilled to announce that EVERYONE (NOISE community, family members, community partners) is invited to our Social Action Pod Pitch event on December 9th!
Our 8 new Social Action Projects will be unveiled, community partners will have a chance to weigh in and we will share a meal together. Please RSVP to let us know you are attending- we’d love to see you!
The NOISE alum dinner is being held on Dec 17th. Many of last year’s grade 12s are making their way back to Toronto from their various schools. We can’t wait to re-connect and hear all about their adventures! Almost all of our NOISE alum have said that they want to stay involved with the project. So, at the dinner we also going to figure out what this new kind of participation might look like- lots of great possibilities have been suggested.
For the next phase of NOISE we are talking about NOISE debates, an ‘Amazing Race’ type event and even a day for Pod Olympics. If you want to be part of the planning, please let me know.
Finally I want to say a HUGE thank you to all of our NOISE youth fellows, Seneca Interns, BSW Placement Students, NOISE Interns, BSWs, GAs, MSWs & PhD students. Everyone is balancing exams, papers, presentations, family, work, classes and still giving so much to NOISE!
I also want to say welcome back to Uzo. Uzo was away for a couple of weeks and NOISE just isn’t ‘NOISE’ without her.Take care all and I hope to see you out on December 9th to support the hard work of our NOISE-makers.
 ~Jen