Age UK Training branded inadequate by Ofsted!

Last week, an ‘Age UK Training’ employee or former employee, spoke to one of our protesters about her work for Age UK, in Ashton-under-Lyne, while we were doing our weekly protest outside Ashton Jobcentre. It seems that she was particularly aggrieved by an email that staff had received from one of our team in respect of an Ofsted report branding Age UK 'inadequate'.

The Ofsted report that was published last month, criticised Age UK for being inadequate for effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning, assessment, outcome for learners, adult learning programmes, apprenticeships and traineeships. The report said:

"Trustees do not hold senior managers sufficiently to account for the deterioration of learners outcomes and the inadequate quality of provision" and "trainers failed to motivate and challenge learners."

The report was also damning about apprenticeship training: "Too many apprentices make slow progress and failed to achieve their qualifications. Learners' performance has significantly declined since the last inspection." It also points out that more than a quarter of all learners failed to attend classes and that "Staff do not develop learners' English and Mathematical skills effectively across all programs of study."

We understand that since publication of the report, all thirteen Age UK centres across the country are now scheduled to close with the loss of around 250 jobs. At the Ashton centre, located in the Stamford Place Building, around 20 people will lose their jobs.

Why successive governments have continued to spend billions of pounds of tax payers money on these fly-by-night, so-called private training providers, who seem to achieve very little in terms of getting people back to sustainable work, is nothing short of a national scandal. It is time that these outfits were put out of business and the work transferred to properly funded adult education colleges who employ suitably qualified and competent staff to provide value for taxpayers money, and suitable and adequate training to help people to get back into work.

Welfare Action Gathering - 30 May.

We are publishing below a recent briefing from Boycott Workfare:

Saturday 30th May, 10.30am-5.30pm (arrive from 10.15am for a cup of tea), London Welsh Centre (10 minutes’ walk from King’s Cross station)

"We’ve just added a couple more workshops – and now there’s a timetable as well!

We're really looking forward to seeing you at the Welfare Action Gathering this Saturday.  Here's a little more information about what's happening when on the day.  

And if you're free on Saturday but not sure whether you're coming or not, have a look at the programme, and maybe our website too, for longer descriptions of the workshops. 

p.s. If you're coming, it would be great if you could make sure you're at the Welsh Centre before 10.30!

Here's the programme:

10.00	Tea / coffee / welcome
10.30	Opening session
	What will cuts and reforms to welfare and housing mean? How can we fight against them? We’ll hear from everyone about what the biggest challenges facing us at the moment are.  We’ll find out what all the different groups and individuals want to get out of the day. To get a snapshot of who’s come along, each group will have 2 minutes to say who they are and what they do.  Hopefully this way, everyone will be able to make links with the people they especially want to speak to throughout the day. We’ll hear about successes that we might like to explore in more depth later. Everyone will be able to share the priorities and interests that bring them to the gathering, and say what they’d like to work together on and what issues they’d like to discuss.   We’ll start using the materials around the room to record what people would like to discuss in the open space, to signpost others to useful resources, and to advertise upcoming dates for actions/events/workshops.  We want this to be a day for making concrete links between groups and between people. We want there to be more effective collaboration by the end of it – not just another committee or a manifesto. And we hope these discussions can get going from the start.
11.40	Tea / coffee / snacks
12.00	Workshop session 1
	Organising against workfare in your town or city	Challenging sanctions and mandation	Staying strong: Supporting each other through the emotional impact of punitive welfare reforms	Knowing your right to Access to Work support, before going on Work Placements (DPAC)
1.20	Lunch (provided, vegetarian and vegan friendly)
2.20	Workshop session 2
	Universal Credit: time for welfare and housing campaigners to come together	Taking on workfare	Tactics to resist and navigate the Work Programme	Keeping Volunteering Voluntary: workfare stops when there’s nowhere to send people (KVV)	Title TBC (WinVisible)
3.40	Tea / coffee / snacks
4.00	Open space session to make stuff happen!				Workshop
	This session is for organising and information sharing.  People can plan how the ideas for action from the workshops will happen; or spend time exploring important questions we’ve all brought to the day. People can move between discussions, and between discussion and the workshop.  We’d like each discussion group to be able to feed back with information about: who to contact; what is going to happen; how can people get involved.				Dealing with energy companies and energy debt (FPA)
5.00	After today?
	We’ll hear about the plans from the open space, who is taking them forward and how we can stay in touch beyond the day. We’ll maybe arrange dates or targets for UK-wide action and ways we can build capacity and share resources to support each other.
5.30	Finish and pub!

Join the Facebook event and invite others to come too!

Organised by Boycott Workfare with Haringey Solidarity Group, with workshops and contributions from other groups. 

Please let us know if you’d like to come, if you haven't already: info@boycottworkfare.org

We can help with travel costs. If you are in a local group where people support each other and take action on welfare or housing (or plan to start one), we should be able to help with your travel costs. Please help by booking travel early and accessing other sources of funding if you can. Get in touchas soon as you can to sort travel costs out.

If you’d like access info please get in touch and let us know if there are ways we can help make the event accessible. We’ll make sure the venue is wheelchair accessible on the day, but unfortunately one workshop room is not.  If you’re a wheelchair user and would like to contact us in advance to let us know what workshops you’d like to attend, we’ll make sure they’re scheduled on the ground floor.  But either way, room allocations are flexible and will be decided on the day."

Support day of action for unemployed workers activist Tony Cox!

We are publishing below a recent briefing from Boycott Workfare:

"Take part in a day of action at job centres Britain-wide, 25 February 2015.

Scottish Unemployed Workers Network activist Tony Cox was arrested on 29th January after Arbroath Jobcentre management called police to stop him representing a vulnerable jobseeker. We urge you to join a Day of Action on 25th February at Jobcentres round Britain to show your solidarity.

We must fight back against this clear attempt to intimidate claimants and deny us the right to be accompanied and represented. Tony will be in court in Forfar on 25th February facing charges of “threatening behaviour, refusing to give his name and address and resisting arrest”. That same day we call on people to descend on jobcentres round Britain to show their solidarity with Tony and distribute information to claimants urging them to exercise their right to be accompanied and represented at all benefits interviews.

As we face unprecedented sanctions and benefits cuts, it’s more important than ever that we support each other and stand up to the DWP bullies. The Scottish Unemployed Workers Network, Dundee Against Welfare Sanctions and other groups have established a strong presence at the Jobcentres in Dundee and in nearby towns and cities like Arbroath, Perth and Blairgowrie, supporting claimants in opposing sanctions and harassment.

On 29 January Tony was accompanying a vulnerable woman claimant, who suffers from severe dyslexia and literacy problems. The claimant, D, had been signed up to the Universal Job Match (UJM), the computerised job search system, and was being forced to complete five job searches per day, the pressure of which had led to her having several panic attacks. Tony proposed that D’s UJM account be closed, and that her number of job searches be significantly reduced. The adviser refused to consider this, and so Tony and D met with the Jobcentre manager.

The manager likewise refused to even look at the issue, falsely claiming that all jobseekers had to be registered with UJM. She even suggested to D that she should arrange another meeting without Tony or any other witness or rep present. Despite the pressure D was being put under by the manager, she replied that she would not attend another meeting without Tony. At this point the manager demanded that Tony leave the building or the police would be called. Tony refused to leave, but the meeting ended when it was agreed that a further meeting be arranged to discuss the issue further. Tony was arrested after he left the Jobcentre.

The right of claimants to be accompanied to interviews, and for the accompanier to have the right to speak, has been established by groups like Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty, who have forced the DWP locally and Britain-wide to apologise for calling the police on ECAP reps, and to affirmclaimants’ right to representation. The DWP clearly state “Claimants accessing Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits and services can have someone to accompany them to act on their behalf…”

The attack on benefits and claimants is part of the austerity assault on the entire working class. We call on all unemployed and claimants groups, anti cuts and anti austerity groups, human rights groups, workplace activists, and all working class people, waged and unwaged, to show solidarity with Tony and the right of the unemployed and all claimants to organise collectively to fight back.

Visit your local Jobcentre on 25th February with banners and placards and distribute leaflets to claimants on Tony’s case and the right to be accompanied to all benefits interviews. Download a leaflet you can use here.

• Send a message of support to admin@scottishunemployedworkers.net
• Complain to Noel Shanahan, Director General Operations DWP, Caxton House, Tothill Street London SW1H 9NA
• Sign the petition
• There will be a picket of the Forfar court before the hearing at 10am on 25 February, by activists from Dundee, Tayside and area – for details contact admin@scottishunemployedworkers.net
• There will be two solidarity actions in London:
  * 09.45-10.45am, outside Kilburn Jobcentre with Kilburn Unemployed Workers
  * 3pm, DWP, Caxton House, Tothill Street London SW1H 9NA (Nearest tube St James’ Park or Westminster) with Boycott Workfare
• See a full list of actions in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Dundee and more here."

Call out by Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty - ecap@lists.riseup.net

Supported by Scottish Unemployed Workers Network
Dundee Against Welfare Sanctions
Boycott Workfare
Disabled People Against Cuts

Please add the support of your group/organisation: email admin@scottishunemployedworkers.net & ecap@lists.riseup.net

And don’t forget Disabled People Against Cut’s Day of Action the following week on 2 March!

Take action: Invite organisations to Keep Volunteering Voluntary!‏

We are publishing below a recent briefing from Boycott Workfare:

"All week we’ve been inviting people to take part in online action to challenge workfare. If you haven’t had a chance to do so yet, please take a minute to:

• Ask Barnardos and British Heart Foundation why they appear on a list of Community Work Placements
• Contact Groundwork – the charity with 4500 workfare placements last year and a sub-contract to run workfare
• Stop workfare in hospice charity shops
• Challenge the TUC‘s support for workfare

Today we’re supporting the Keep Volunteering Voluntary campaign’s call for people to contact the charities and voluntary organisations you support to invite them to pledge to shun workfare too. Read on for more info and a template letter, and follow Keep Volunteering Voluntary on twitter and facebook.

There are a lot of organisations who have said they won’t take workfare, but still a lot who do. We want all voluntary work to be freely chosen, not a means for private companies to make profits or Jobcentres to force people off benefits. Keep Volunteering Voluntary (KVV) have set up a pledge and already 430 organisations have signed!

You can help to encourage organisations to sign up to Keep Volunteering Voluntary in several ways. Firstly check whether they are already on the list of sign-ups.

• If you use or support a charity, try to find out whether they use workfare, and in any case ask them to sign up to KVV.
• If there is a local charity shop, go in and talk to the people there: find out whether there is anyone there on workfare, and ask the organisation to sign up to KVV.
• If you work or volunteer at a voluntary organisation, try to get them to sign up.
• If a place you work or volunteer at has any links with a voluntary organisation, try to contact them too.

Download this template letter you can take to a charity shop, or adapt as an email to send to a voluntary organization.

Some responses you may get and how to reply:

“We’ve already signed up.” – great, well done!
“We don’t have anyone on workfare.” – so you won’t mind signing up to KVV then.
“We’re helping the unemployed gain experience.” – that’s not of much value if they don’t want to be there.
“What’s wrong with (unpaid) volunteers.” – there’s no objection to genuine volunteers, but to compulsory schemes and coercion.
“The people on placement want to be here.” – that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be threatened with sanctions.

If you can get any kind of statement from an organisation, that’s always useful – a way in to further dialogue, or good publicity for the campaign. Let Boycott Workfare know and we’ll pass it on to KVV as well.

Some charities – such as Age UK – have a national office but each local area branch is ‘independent’ and may sign up separately. So if you see a local branch signed up but not your area, that’s an added incentive for your local to sign up too.

Without charity’s support, workfare schemes will collapse. That’s why every extra new organisation to sign up is so important – helping build consensus in the voluntary sector that workfare is completely at odds with its aims and values.

A massive thanks to everyone who has taken part online and organised demonstrations throughout the week of action! There are more protests in Amsterdam and Peckham today, and in Bristol, Haringey and Sheffield tomorrow! "

TUC's support for workfare challenged!

On 1 August 2014, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) made a joint statement with Confederation of British Industries (CBI) to back Traineeships for 16-23 year olds and “show support” for the businesses that benefit from the unpaid labour on this scheme.

Traineeships involve training and “work placements” for up to six months – all unpaid. The TUC’s Assistant General Secretary Paul Nowak hails Traineeships as “an important first step towards the world of work”. But in giving a green light to a new layer of unpaid work in the economy, the TUC is in fact helping to shrink opportunities for young people, undermine the going rate, and replace paid work with workfare.

Traineeships mean that young people are now expected to work unpaid for six months before even qualifying for an interview for an apprenticeship. The lucky few who make it through the interview can look forward to a minimum wage of £2.73 an hour, as an apprentice. If a young person does not take part in the training, they face punitive sanctions. The work placement segment itself may not be backed with the direct threat of sanctions, but, between the economic coercion of a jobs market with so few footholds and the draconian job centre regime, few people will feel able to turn them down.

Instead of demanding decent wages, the TUC is supporting McDonalds, Toyota, Virgin Media, BT, Vodafone, Phones4U, Siemens, Capita, local councils and many more being supplied with unpaid staff for up to 6 months on benefits alone, without any obligations to hire them!

The TUC plans to march behind the slogan “Britain needs a payrise” on 18 October. It seems to have chosen to ignore the millions of us who do not have paid work and instead face workfare and sanctions.

Today as Kilburn Unemployed Workers protest this shoddy deal outside the TUC HQ in London, please contact the TUC via the details below, or through your union networks.  

When challenging their support for Traineeships, you might also like to point out that:

• The TUC’s support for Labour’s Job Guarantee means undermining the going rate and minimum wage too.
• The TUC’s support for benefit sanctions is totally unacceptable. It has recommended that ‘claimants who turn down a job guarantee job without good cause should face benefit sanctions’. Let the TUC know that punishing people by taking away their means to survival can never be okay.

Contact the Assistant General Secretary who issued the statement with CBI by email:pnowak@tuc.org.uk or send him a tweet: @nowak_paul

Tweet at Frances O’Grady, the General Secretary of the TUC @FrancesOGrady

Tweet at “Britain needs a Payrise” @Payrise4Britain or post on its Facebook

Post on the TUC’s Facebook page

Or get in touch with the TUC’s press officers who released the statement:

Rob Holdsworth    T: 020 7467 1372    M: 07717 531150     E: rholdsworth@tuc.org.uk
Tim Nichols   T: 020 7467 1337   M: 07876 452902   E: tnichols@tuc.org.uk

If you’re a member of a trade union, please download and adapt this motion to challenge the TUC’s support for sanctions and workfare.

OCTOBER WEEK OF ACTIONS - BOYCOTT WORKFARE!

We are publishing a recent briefing from Boycott Workfare:

"The government fears workfare could “collapse”. We want to make it do just that. On 4-12 October, take part in the week of action against workfare. The list of events is growing…. read on to find one near you, and if you can’t find one, why not plan your own? We can help – get in touch! There’ll be mass online actions on Mon-Fri of the week of action too. Get involved and help show workfare profiteers and exploiters “If you exploit us we will shut you down!”

4 Oct, SLSF calls anti-workfare picket in Lewisham
Saturday 4 October, Lewisham Clocktower at 1pm.

Join the South London Solfed roaming anti-workfare picket in Lewisham this Saturday, 4th October, in solidarity with Boycott Workfare’s week of action.

We will be targeting a number of organisations on Lewisham High Street who continue to exploit unemployed people as free labour.

More info here.

4 Oct, Stroud Against the Cuts leafleting about workfare
Saturday 4th October, 10am outside the 99p Store

Advice for claimants and information about the affect on us all.

6 Oct, Brighton Benefits Campaign picket of Avanta
Monday 6 October at 11am, Meet at Brighton Station forecourt

Join us in picketing Avanta, private provider and bully of unemployed and disabled people, sending them out as unpaid labour or forcing them into unsuitable badly paid work, and referring them for sanctions.
See the Facebook event. 

6 Oct, TUC Backs Workfare: protest at Co

Mon 6 Oct 1 – 2 pm, TUC Congress House, 23-28 Great Russell St, London WC1B 3LS, (nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road), Then 3 – 4 pm at CBI, 78 Cannon St, London EC4N 6HN (tube: Bank)

On 1 Aug 2014, the Trade Union Council (TUC) made a joint statement with Confederation of British Industries (CBI) to back Traineeships for 16 – 23 year olds.

Knowing first hand how unemployed people get harassed into workfare, get declined lunch & travel expenses to such workfares, get sanctioned or threatened with sanctions either during workfares or if they oppose them, we knew (despite TUC denying this) that TUC was now backing Workfare.

Join our protest to end this shoddy deal with Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) – members of Unite Community Union. Listen to your members TUC!

Download the flyer here.

8 Oct, Barnet, Rename the Job Centre the Sanctions Centre!
Wednesday 8 October, 9am-3pm, Jobcentre Plus, Finchley Lane, London NW3 8DP

Come and join us in a protest against sanctions on claimants and targets for staff! and take part in a mock ceremony and sign replacement when we re-name the job centre WITH ITS TRUE PURPOSE – THE SANCTION CENTRE

Join the Facebook event.

9 Oct, Edinburgh Shut down LearnDirect! Let’s make workfare unworkable!
Thursday 9 October, at 12 noon, Learndirect, Conference House, 152 Morrison Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EB

Learndirect are the workfare providers for the compulsory “work-for-your-benefits” schemes Mandatory Work Activity and the new Community Work Placements scheme, which forces jobseekers to work for nothing for six months. Learndirect profit from the forced labour schemes and shamelessly refer jobseekers for sanctions, making people penniless to try and intimidate jobseekers to submit to forced labour.

But resistance to workfare is winning. To date 422 organisations have rejected the compulsory schemes and signed the “Keep Volunteering Voluntary” agreement – including the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Christian Aid, Shelter and the Edinburgh Volunteer Centre. This month Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty approached Cancer Research UK to urge them to withdraw from workfare – they have now told Learndirect in Edinburgh that they will not take any more of their workfare “placements”.

Share the flyer. Join the Facebook event.

10 Oct, Amsterdam: action against workfare during meeting of minister with aldermen

On October 10, the action committee Dwangarbeid Nee (No to Workfare) will demonstrate during a regional meeting of Social Affairs aldermen from the west of the Netherlands. State secretary Jetta Klijnsma invited the aldermen to talk about the labour market. The committee Dwangarbeid Nee seizes the opportunity to demand the immediate abolishment of workfare, or “forced labour” as the unemployed call it.

Read more about the action and the impressive campaign in the Netherlands!

10 Oct, Peckham Job Centre protest

Outside Peckham Job Centre, Friday 10 October, 12 noon-3pm

Please join us to protest against sanctions and workfare. Bring noise, banners, speeches, friends… and ideas! We plan to liven up the street again in a noisy and direct protest to tell Peckham JCP, Southwark council and the DWP that we will not stay quiet whilst Peckham Job Centre continues to sanction job seekers at over double the London average. Come and say NO to cuts and attacks on the poor, and build the fight back!

More info.

11 Oct, Bristol – Bristol Day Of Action Against Workfare!
Saturday 11 October at 12:30pm, meeting point tba

Following on from successful actions against workfare in Bristol over the past few years (no more forced unpaid labour at: St Wherburghs City Farm, Homebase, Argos, Holland & Barratt…) We will be taking to the streets again, along with others across the country.

Join the Facebook event.

11 Oct, Haringey: 6 month workfare: No way! Picket North London Hospice and Traid
Saturday 11 October, 12 noon, 19 High Road, N22 6BH – Three minutes’ walk from Turnpike Lane tube station

Update: This action has had success even before it has happened! Traid has said it has cancelled the placements in its Haringey store after pressure from Haringey Solidarity Group. The picket will go ahead – calling on North London Hospice to follow suit!

Hundreds of people in Haringey are being forced to work for 6 months with no pay under threat of sanctions. Profiteering Urban Futures have a contract for Community Work Placements and are busy finding placements in charities and “community benefit” projects across North London. But these schemes cannot work without charities making the placements possible – charities like North London Hospice and Traid.

Since they aim to improve lives and help people, charities should not be putting people at risk of destitution. As Haringey Solidarity Group put it “North London Hospice provides a service which places value on the quality of life of local people. Its complicity in this workfare scheme seems totally at odds with its main aims.”

Take part in this picket of North London Hospice and Traid: call on them to remember their values and withdraw from punitive workfare, which forces people to work without pay for twice the length of the maximum community service sentence. Bring placards, noisemakers and come ready to let people know what these charities are up to. Make them realise that there is no place for workfare in our communities.

Can’t make it? Haringey Solidarity Group are asking the public to contact North London Hospice here and you can tweet @TRAID. North London Hospice and Traid have other shops across London.  If you would like to organise a picket of your local shop, Haringey Solidarity Group may be able to help you with resources.  Please get in touch: info@haringey.org.uk

Let us know if help with travel fares would help you get there. Action called by Haringey Solidarity Group and Boycott Workfare.

Do you have an event to add to this list? Email info@boycottworkfare.org to let us know!"

Protesters target Ashton Jobcentre for sanctioning pregnant girl!

A two-day protest against benefit sanctions took place outside Ashton-under-Lyne, Jobcentre, on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. The demonstration was called after Eleanor Coulthard, a 19-year-old girl from Ashton-under-Lyne was sanctioned after telling her placement provider B&Q, that she was 23-weeks pregnant.

By all accounts, the DIY firm had offered her a placement working unpaid and had said that her pregnancy was not a problem as they would give her light duty work to undertake. She then discovered  that they had changed tack and contacted the Jobcentre in Ashton-under-Lyne to say they didn't require her services because she was pregnant. The Jobcentre then told her she was being sanctioned because she should not have declared her pregnancy.

Having first claimed claim Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) three months ago, this was her third sanction by the Jobcentre. On the first two occasions, she was told that she was not doing enough to find work although she was looking and applying for work.

Although the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP), deny that they target people for sanctions, there have been reports that vulnerable people have been targeted and that DWP staff, are being forced to hit sanction targets or face disciplinary action. One Jobcentre Plus office is reported to have offered Easter egg prizes to staff who sanctioned the most customers.

Eleanor's mother, Charlotte Hughes, who attended the demonstration with her daughter, told Northern Voices:

" This was an unfair and unjust sanction of a pregnant young woman which left her with no money to eat or live. My daughter was sent to B&Q in Ashton-under-Lyne, for an interview for unpaid work while she was already sanctioned. She had to walk from Dukinfield to the Snipe Retail Park on the outskirts of Ashton-under-Lyne, because she couldn't afford the bus fare to get to the interview. When my daughter told Jobcentre staff that she had been left with no money to feed herself and her child, they told her - "you're pregnant, not ill, and you shouldn't have told B&Q that you were pregnant." As for B&Q, I think they should hang their head in shame."

The Demonstration which was organised by 'Tameside Against the Bedroom Tax and Cuts', 'Tameside Unemployed Workers' Alliance', 'Tameside Trades Union Council' and the 'Green Party' attracted local media interest. The protesters say that they intend to continue with further protests against unfair sanctions and intend to target businesses in Tameside that are participating in the government's unpaid forced labour schemes for the unemployed.For further details of future demonstrations contact: Steve.Starlord@Sky.com

YMCA accused of exploiting unemployed youngsters!

We are publishing below the latest briefing from 'Boycott Workfare'.

"Today boycott workfare paid a visit to the London headquarters of workfare exploiter YMCA. They’ve defended their use of unpaid, forced work in previous statements and we’ve called them out on it. Mandatory Work Activity forces people to work without wages under threat of sanction, and doesn’t help them find a job anyway. Whereas the Salvation Army have stated they will not get involved in the new 6 month long Community Work Placements starting later this month, the YMCA have yet to make a public statement on the issue.

The YMCA wants to have its cake and eat it. Their president, Bishop John Sentamu, has spoken against workfare. Yet, the organisation still takes part in some of the harshest schemes.  They’re also involved in delivering traineeships – workfare by another name.

We say volunteering should remain just that, and that people shouldn’t be “made to volunteer” under threat of sanction.

The fight against workfare is more important than ever, with 74,000 people being sanctioned every month. Sanctions are one of the main reasons people are turning to food banks to feed themselves, and you can now be sanctioned for up to three years. This is forcing people to make the choice between heating their homes or eating.

Join us in a day of action against the YMCA’s use of workfare. Tell them what you think about them using forced unpaid work in their charity shops. Don’t let them ignore the devastating effect that sanctions are having on people up and down the country.

Facebook: YMCA England

Twitter: @YMCA_England 

Phone them on 020 7186 9500 or their shops hotline on 0845 601 0728.

Find contact details of your nearest YMCA shop here

But please note: Whilst it’s well worth trying to speak to a manager or senior individual if possible please bear in mind most people taking calls/emails will be low paid retail/admin staff and could even be on workfare themselves. Be aware that is an offence to make telephone calls or send communications which are threatening, indecent or offensive."