They are a diverse group in terms of age and background; for example, one is straight from university, one has spent the last few years caring for her granddaughters, and one is our youngest employee. Nevertheless, all are working alongside experienced staff to gain job specific skills and nationally recognised qualifications, as well as helping TRO further the Reading Revolution.

The theme for this year’s celebrations is ‘Get With Apprenticeships’, something TRO has done wholeheartedly, as Director Jane Davis explains:

“We decided to create apprenticeships after we employed a number of really good people through Future Jobs Fund.  We realised that there were a whole lot of people – like Niall Gibney, for example – who would never have come to our organisation through the usual recruitment channels. Most of our staff are graduates or have highly developed professional skills. Niall had wits, energy, liveliness and loads of potential for development.  We realised that lots of people need some support and structure to realise their potential and Niall gave us confidence and the inspiration to think we could offer a range of apprenticeships.

We believe apprenticeships need to become more individual, more like person-centred education, not just about technical or work-based skills.  And that’s what we are offering (and fundraising for!) here at The Reader Organisation.”

In recognition of this, we’ve asked our Apprentices to tell us a bit about their experiences so far.

What is a typical day like?

Lisa Spurgin, Trainee Communications Assistant Apprentice

I’m not sure if there is such thing as a ‘typical’ day in the TRO office – but that is definitely a good thing! My main activities lie within the social media communications side of TRO, so day-to-day tasks include updating and handling TRO’s Twitter and Facebook pages; writing and researching blog posts, scheduling the blog and generally shaping it as an informative and entertaining online source for all things related to shared reading and literature (which is no mean feat…!). I’m never short of things to do, but everything is interesting.

There is nothing like developing working knowledge hands-on and I’ve found the best learning I can have comes from actually diving in, doing something and learning more as I go along, which is exactly what being an apprentice at TRO allows me to do.

What skills are you learning?

Sara Day, Community Administrator Apprentice

I’m learning more about reading and literacy, as well as IT skills, especially Excel. I hope to keep learning new things to help me in my job.

What is one of the highlights of your job?

Eamee Boden, Wirral Apprentice for Get Into Reading

Getting to do one-to-one reading sessions. I love working with this one little girl called Sarah. She makes my job reading to her such an enjoyment. She’s smiley, bubbly and just always willing to try her best in reading the chosen poem for the family group. She doesn’t find reading easy but she’s one of those kids I think that really does appreciate the time given to her and the attention, and she does clearly enjoy reading when I’m there to help her. I look forwards to reading to her every Wednesday.

What advice would you offer to someone considering an apprenticeship?

Marian Murray, Apprentice Administrator

To go for it, as it gives you the opportunity to better yourself by learning and achieving new skills, which is great. As an “older person” doing an apprenticeship, I would just like to say this has given me the confidence in my ability to achieve more.

What difference has the apprenticeship made to your life?

Niall Gibney, Community Development Assistant

 It has been of great benefit and has helped me grow more mature (even though at times I don’t seem it). It is not a place that I dread coming to work – I really couldn’t think of a place that could give me the freedom, trust and chances that TRO has provided me with.

Niall celebrates successfully completing The Santa Dash to raise money for TRO

Finally, how have your reading habits changed since joining The Reader Organisation?

Lisa: I’ve certainly read much more poetry than I ever have in the past – I’ve enjoyed discovering some wonderful poets who have really moved me.

Sara: I’ve read books I wouldn’t have considered. I’ve started on Millions by Frank Cottrell-Boyce and am already looking for others for the future.

Eamee: I’ve read a few books in groups that I attend. I’ve read Life of Pi and that was one really strange book that I just wouldn’t have read if I was reading by myself. I’m reading a book at the moment at home called My Sister Jodie by Jacqueline Wilson. This is the first book I’ve read since stating at TRO that I’m reading by myself.

Marian: I am now in a staff reading group and reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven at home.

Niall: Yes, when I first started I read a lot of non-fiction and over time I was slowly weaned off it. Jane had us reading Great Expectations(still reading it in the staff reading group 12 months later!). I recently ran my first real group at Liverpool Hope University and read a short story that went down great – it was a massive weight off my shoulders and seeing the people enjoy it because of me put a spring in my step on the journey home.

A big thank you to all our apprentices for the hard work they do; The Reader Organisation wouldn’t be the same without them.

Niall, Zoe, Mark Thomas from the Liverpool Post and Donna from WECC celebrate The Reader Organisation's Social Enterprise Mark award

Gaining the Social Enterprise Mark shows the world that our work is driven by an aim to positively impact people and the communities in which they live in on a day-to-day basis. Get Into Reading is continuously making that strong  and noticeable social benefit felt across Merseyside, providing group members with outcomes such as increased general positivity about life, a better understanding of those around them and enhanced social interaction – recent evalution showed that 95% of people enjoyed having the opportunity to meet people they wouldn’t usually meet in day-to-day life by attending a weekly reading group.

We were joined in our headquarters at West Everton Community Council to celebrate receiving the prestigious award by Mark Thomas, Editor of The Liverpool Post, and Donna Ellison, a WECC volunteer. Being officially recognised as a Social Enterprise will allow us to increase our activity in the local community, connecting more people with reading and meaningful social activity.

Zoe Gilling, The Reader Organisation’s Business Manager said:

“We’re really proud to have been awarded the Social Enterprise Mark. It’s really important to us that we are able to generate trading income to reinvest directly into the local communities where Get into Reading began, is growing, and is needed most.”

The Reader Organisation joins other ethical businesses that have been recognised by being awarded the Mark such as Age UK, Blackburne House and the Big Issue.

Lucy Findlay, Managing Director of the Social Enterprise Mark Company said:

“We are delighted to award the prestigious Social Enterprise Mark to The Reader Organisation. Social enterprises come in all shapes and forms so it’s great to see vital, local charities understanding the importance of being part of the wider social enterprise movement.”

My experience so far has been overwhelmingly positive and hugely beneficial to my professional and personal development. Much of this is down to the staff and environment here – the work can be challenging but there is a huge sense of achievement when it is completed successfully and I couldn’t have asked for nicer colleagues.

I have been given a wide range of responsibilities, gained valuable experience in different areas of the organisation, and gained new skills or built on my existing ones.

 (Current intern)

Once again, The Reader Organisation are on the look out for four keen, energetic, graduate-level individuals who want to take on a sixteen-week internship with us in our Head Office in Liverpool. Our internships give you the opportunity to gain practical and stimulating work experience as part of a dymanic and growing charity.

These sixteen-week internships are for 25 hours per week (unpaid, but with travel expenses paid).

• Communications Internship: Events and Publications
  (click here for full details)
• Communications Internship: PR and Publicity
  (click here for full details)
• Management Information Intern
  (click here for full details)
• Arts Administration Intern
  (click here for full details)

Previous interns at The Reader Organisation have gone on to take up posts such as Editor at Vintage books, Marketing Manager at Princes Ltd, Digital Executive at a design company, Marketing Assistant at an architect’s firm, Accountant Graduate Scheme at KPMG, and a variety of positions within The Reader Organisation, including our current Communications Assistant, Research Administration Assistant and Development Manager.

How to apply

Please read the job descriptions (above) in full and complete this application form and return by email to jobs@thereader.org.uk or in post to The Reader Organisation, The Friary Centre, Bute Street, Liverpool L5 3LA.

Deadline for applications is 9am on 13^th February 2012. You will be notified if you are to be called for interview by the end of the day on 15^th February 2012. If you have not heard from us by then, you have been unsuccessful. Volume of applications may make replies to everyone impossible.

Interviews will be held at The Reader Organisation Office on 21^st February 2012.

If you have any queries, please call The Reader Organisation on 0151 207 7207.

Our Northern Ireland project worker Patricia Canning fills us in the ongoing progress of Get Into Reading Northern Ireland, highlighting the powerful impact words and literature have amongst a wide range of people:

Every Wednesday afternoon I read with a group of women who tell me that being a part of this Get Into Reading group makes them feel relaxed, ‘chilled’, less stressed, and on the whole, liberated. The irony is, that this GIR group is in Hydebank Prison, Belfast. Reading an extract from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol a few weeks back, the women talked about how his depiction of the biting cold had made them all feel very chilly: ‘he really knows how to describes things, doesn’t he? I’m freezing here!’

Being able to ‘feel’ what the writer is describing – even if it is the cold – is a testament to the power of words, and of the benefits of reading good literature. These women, like everyone else who benefits from attending Get Into Reading groups across the mainland, enjoy that liberating feeling of being able to identify with other characters, with events and with feelings and emotions that they might otherwise struggle to understand, articulate, or even acknowledge. Words can do that – as Ferdinand Pessoa puts it:

To express something is to conserve its virtue and take away its terror. Fields are greener in their description than in their actual greenness. Flowers, if described with phrases that define them in the air of the imagination, will have colours with a durability not found in cellular life.

Reading a difficult Shakespearean sonnet recently, one of the women read the line, ‘I all alone beweep my outcast state’, and proclaimed, ‘it’s about depression, isn’t it?’ In our group, Shakespeare has helped us understand that depression is a timeless phenomenon and can chance upon the best of us.

Thankfully, these benefits are reaching further afield because people are attending to the positive effects of shared reading here, as Health In Mind’s recent poetry and prose event at Coleraine library so wonderfully demonstrated. We now have a fantastic Get Into Reading group in Queen’s University, Belfast, every Thursday afternoon, which is well attended by a spirited bunch of people who read, chat, drink tea, chat, read, and marvel at the ways in which reading together enriches both the reading experience and our day in equal measure.

The Reading Revolution has begun in Northern Ireland, but we need passionate people who believe in the power of reading to help take it even further. We are hosting an open Read To Lead training course at Holywood Library over three weeks: Friday 3rd, 10th and 17th February 2012. If you want to share the joys of shared reading in your community, there are a few places left on the course. For further details and to book your place, please contact Jessica Reeves for more information: jessicareeves@thereader.org.uk

It’s especially important that children are given the opportunity to express themselves openly, as well as respect and listen to those around them – and we’ve found that literature and shared reading sessions provide a particularly effective outlet for these things to happen. Quite spectacularly as a result of engaging in shared reading 89% of children in schools across Liverpool said that they were more confident discussing their ideas and opinions as a part of being in a group.

Even more encouraging is the fact that 96% of children agreed that they were more understanding towards the ideas and opinions of other people as a result of shared reading. Absolutely wonderful findings, showing that reading isn’t just about academic education - but emotional development too.

We celebrated both Dickens’ bicentenary, and the expansion of our Get Into Reading groups across the capital, with a truly magical line-up of readers, comedy, and music which had the audiences in stitches one minute, and tearful the next. The British Library provided a suitably literary venue and Vintage gave everyone a free Dickens novel to take home with them. No wonder the public tickets sold out in a day!

Charles Dickens casts a critical eye over proceedings

Whilst a portrait of the great man himself looked down on us, his actual DNA appeared on stage in the form of Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, his great-great-great granddaughter, who apologised for reading A Tale of Two Cities from a well-loved paperback rather than a precious family heirloom. This made no difference to the quality of her performance, however; all of our readers left the audience in spellbound silence. 

The wonderful AS Byatt read the opening to Great Expectations, reminiscing about the effect it had on her as a child and delivering Magwitch’s threats with relish. It might be January, but our own Phil Davis’ portrayal of the loving Cratchitt family in A Christmas Carol  still kindled a warm and fuzzy feeling, whilst  Angela Macmillan movingly recreated Peggotty’s loyalty and devotion to the young David Copperfield, leaving one audience member ‘weeping like a burst water pipe’.

Ida Barr does her thing

TRO's Director Jane Davis and Tweedy the Clown

 Judging by the enthusiastic response from the audience and the reaction on Twitter, the event was an enormous success:

“I didn’t know I could be entertained like that”

“Clowns, cowbells, magicians and AS Byatt should be mixed more often!”

“Pure joy”

Dickens himself was a consummate entertainer and would surely have approved of the eclectic line-up, a perfect mix of comedy and pathos, just like the novels we were there to celebrate.

A big thank you to everyone who was involved and made it such a special event. If you came along, we’d love to hear your thoughts so please leave a comment below.

Don’t worry if you didn’t make it this time around – we will be back in Liverpool as usual in December and fingers crossed our London escapades will be the first of many!

Over the next couple of months, open Read To Lead courses will be coming to Northern Ireland, Barnsley and London – any individual is eligible to sign up and take part. So if you want to share the joys of shared reading in your community or perhaps if your New Year’s resolution is to do something different to make a difference then being part of Read To Lead and becoming a trained shared reading facilitator is  for you.

And if you want to celebrate Dickens’ bicentenary in unique but what would surely be Dickens-approved style, there could be no better way to do so than to embark on a  Read To Lead course. We could all take a tip from the young David Copperfield:

This was my only and my constant comfort. When I think of it, the picture always arises in my mind of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sitting on my bed, reading as if for life.

On a Read To Lead course you’ll find that reading is indeed for life and full of life.

Read To Lead Northern Ireland
Holywood Library, BT18 9AE
3rd, 10th, 17th February; 10am-4pm
(This course takes place over Dickens’ bicentenary, so there may just be some Dickens on offer to read…!)

Read To Lead Barnsley
Barnsley Digital Media Centre, S70 2JW
8th, 15th, 22nd February; 10am-4pm

Read To Lead London
Central Venue TBC
12th, 19th, 26th March; 10am-4pm 

For more information on any of these courses, please contact Jessica Reeves on 0151 207 7221/jessicareeves@thereader.org.uk or Casi Dylan on 0141 357 1738/casidylan@thereader.org.uk . You can also download a booking form in Word or PDF formats.

As part of their reading sessions, children in three Liverpool schools we’ve been working in have been discovering the connection between literature and life. In our recent evaluation, 76% of children said that they can relate their life to things they’ve read in books more readily as a result of taking part in sessions.

I’ve been running a group for two years at the Plymouth MIND drop-in centre. One of the core group of committed regulars, M, had a social phobia and would never have dreamt of reading in front of others. She is now one of our best readers:

 ”I have come to learn the power of words in our lives…the group has become the highlight of my week and I clear the calendar to ensure I can make the sessions.”

I love both the variety and stimulation the weekly groups provide.

Plymouth City Council are funding Get Into Reading for community-building and recovery at Plymstock Library. It is an open group which also invites GP referrals.

In the isolated village of Newton Ferrers, I’ve begun a community group in an Edwardian ‘Fisherman’s Reading Room’. It was an all-male snooker club until TRO entered the premises! This is the first step in a big South West project to restore old reading rooms in hard to reach places to their original purpose. The aim is to get reading happening again, training up local people to take over and help spread the Reading Revolution across the village.

Have you thought of becoming a shared reading facilitator?
The next South West 3-day Read to Lead open training course is at Dartington, Monday 23rd January – Wednesday 25th January 2012, 9.30am -5.30am. For more information, ring Sarah Hopkins (SW) on 01364 653994 or Casi Dylan on 0151 207 7207/e-mail casidylan@thereader.org.uk .

Our recent evaluation of reading sessions in Liverpool schools has revealed that 80% of children questioned agreed that reading helped them to relax. This is great news – and shows another aspect of reading that is so beneficial to children’s lives.