1. Junior Youth Work Sessions

Our work with Juniors this month has mainly been through the West Flank Fun Day which took place at Shenley Brook End School. This day attracted over 200 people and provided a mix of information for adult residents and fun arts, craft, and play activities for younger members. I was taking a lead role in providing the fun activities for this event as Tracy Leicester was called away for a family emergency.

With a bouncy castle from the Play Association, baby and toddler activities provided by Sure Start and face painting by Kids Play the multi agency aspect of the event was very positive. We also had a large selection of volunteers who were supporting the arts and craft tables and supervising the children on the day. The event provided lots of fun for everyone reports from all attending were very positive.

We have recently started to see some of the members from our junior youth clubs, which we ran last year, turning up at other sessions we are running. A number of them are now attending our football session on a Wednesday at Shenley Brook End School. We also saw some others from the group playing in the Street-football tournament at Tattenhoe. This helps to show the positive part our work with juniors plays, in building our youth provision in the Parish.

Alex and I are currently planning for our Junior Rangers session we hope to offer to Primary Schools around the Parish. We hope to start by looking at the aspects of their community they can affect and then working to making some positive changes to their nearby streets. These sessions will be aimed at year six students (aged 10-11) and can either take part of the regular school day or as an after school club.

2. Sports Youth Work Sessions

The parish basketball sessions have just started and we have already seen some of the group from last year return, as well as a few new members. We have a new coach for these sessions and we are hoping that they will follow in the great success of the previous two season’s teams. The first tournament for this group will be at Bletchley Leisure centre during December.

We saw the MK Street Football Tournament come to our Parish for the first time this month when the tournament took place at Tattenhoe Pavilion. The event was a great success with over 200 young men involved in football on the day and many of them from our Parish. I have been involved with this project for over two years now and along with Make A Difference, Milton Keynes Council, and a range of volunteers on the day, we provided a fun activity for groups to participate in during half term. The day was split in two, with the young groups (under 10s,12s, & 14s) playing in the morning and the older ones (under 16s & 19s) in the afternoon. Planning is already starting for the next tournament in February half term and it has been decided that Tattenhoe will once again be the venue, which is very positive for our young people.

 Our two football sessions are still running very well with groups of young people still attending rain or shine and engaging in very positive play and team work as well as personal development.

3. Detached Youth Work

Much of our detached work at the moment has been used to go out and advertise our current sessions. We have been walking around at the ending time of Shenley Brook End School which also gives us a chance to meet a large number of the young people we have met over the past few years and find out what they have been up to. This has also given us a chance to talk to some of them about their behaviour after school and look at issues of road crossing and litter.

We are also still meeting many of the groups who are on the streets of the Parish and finding out how they are getting on at college or work. Many of this group are really starting to grow up and it wont be long until they stop being on the streets of an evening and find better things to do with their nights.

We are now registered with Milton Keynes Councils youth registration service and are able to hire Council buildings for youth activities. We have been in contact with leisure services about using the pavilion at Furzton and hope that this group will be up and running before Christmas. Until this session starts we continue to do detached work in the area, building up interest from the local young people.

4. Community Work

As part of the community fun day I was involved in collecting prizes from local stores to go towards a free prize draw for the day’s event. We did very well gaining good donations from Boots, Tesco, McDonalds, Cllr Chris Williams, the Focus Team, Shenley Leisure Centre and QS extra. The prize draw on the day helped us to draw people in and also allowed us to gain a better understanding of where people have come from to attend the event. Many of the winners on the day were indeed residents from our Parish.

I also took part, with Mark, in the Emerson Valley Community Clean up going out and cleaning a stretch of Emerson Valley with a selection of local professionals and residents. Unfortunately we did not get as many residents as hoped but it still helped to clean a large section of the estate. This also allowed me to see the estate on a Saturday morning so we can get a better understanding of what is happening on a Friday evening and put together a better idea of the anti social behaviour.

5. Other Business

Our relationship with the police has been growing recently as they have now moved into the office with us. This is allowing us a better understanding of the work they do and how we can work together. I also recently bumped into PCSO Dabnor when on detached youth work and assisted him by returning a young person home who had got lost on a different estate to which he lived.

Hopefully with these new sessions all up and running soon we will be able to start the search for some new members of staff for the youth team. It is hoped that we will be able to add a further two part time workers to the team working one evening a week each before April next year.