Saturday 22 November 2008

Young People’s Council meeting - 19 April 2005

North Wiltshire’s Young People’s Council co-ordinated in partnership with Wiltshire County Council

Young People’s Council evening out

The Young People’s Council (YPC) spent the evening together at Swindon Mega Bowl in March.  It was a fun night out and enabled the group some social time to get to know one another.

Who are the representatives?

The newly formed YPC has held its second meeting in April 2005.  We had a mix of representatives attend from:
  • Wiltshire College
  • Wootton Bassett Youth Centre
  • John Bentley School
  • Corsham School
  • Abbeyfield School
  • Wootton Bassett School
  • Bradon Forest School
  • Malmesbury School
  • Sheldon School
  • Hardenhuish School
This represented a diverse age range of 13- 18 years old.


The meeting

The meeting was used primarily to discuss the residential event taking place in May.  The aim of the residential is to impart some of the key skills necessary to represent others and begin to look at how the YPC might work with the community on some project led activity in the future.  It will also be essential for the development of the terms of reference for the group.

The group began to look at some of the key things needed from all representatives to make the residential event work.  These included:
  • Respect others: belongings/standards/opinions
  • Listen
  • Comment constructively
The group then talked about some of the practicalities involved in such a trip and agreed to a few essentials including:
  • Whole group down together for breakfast at agreed time
  • Be in right place at right time as agreed in schedule

Previous action

At the previous meeting representatives were asked to investigate how they will feed into and from the YPC meetings to the young people they represent.  This was discussed in some detail and some of the suggestions for doing so were:
  • School Newsletters
  • Student Councils
  • Intranet
  • School Webpages
  • Web Page for Youth Council – Forums/Picture/Profiles
  • Suggestions Box
  • Register Packs
  • Assemblies
  • Tutor Time
  • Possibly DB8 magazine
  • Community Newsletters
  • NWDC Newsletter
  • Moving Mountains magazine (national)
  • Connexions
  • Notice Boards/Posters
  • MSN/Email
  • Chippenham College – ‘What’s on’ College magazine
  • School Councils – Tutor Councils
  • Other Committees
  • Youth Development Centres
  • School Bulletins
  • Internet Front Page Bulletins
  • School and College Email

Long term lobbying themes for the YPC

The group have been asked to start thinking about what key issues exist for them and other young people living in their area.  They have been asked to build upon those areas investigated at the Youth Conference, namely, arts facilities and opportunities, transport and leisure facilities and opportunities.  We began to investigate some of the ways we will try and get key messages across to various groups.  The group was asked to work on either a poster campaign, writing a letter to the local MP, a press release or a consultation exercise about promoting the use of a local arts venue by young people.  This exercise enabled the YPC to start thinking about what areas they might like to concentrate on in their time on the group and how they would go about implementing change.  This will be explored in more detail at the residential.

What next?

The residential is taking place from 27th-29th May 2005
The next YPC meeting is 18th July 2005

For any information about the YPC please contact Katz Luce, Youth Involvement Development Officer
Tel:  01249 706 496