Successful Youth Zone

What a year it has been, I don't think there has been any other like it. In January this year I set up the Thornaby Youth Zone in an attempt to get young people active, whilst at the same time educate them in what is now known as "Soft Skills"

In my eyes it has worked extremely well and I couldn't be happier with the progress of the Youth Zone. I set out with a vision to get young people active over the Easter School break to give them an opportunity to partake in Sport within Thornaby, with the idea of it becoming an annual event. But during that week I was approached by one of the participants asking me what I had planned throughout the Summer Holidays and that he wanted to do more sport to stop him hanging around with the wrong friends and getting into trouble. To be honest there was nothing planned at all at this stage.

So of course I went and planned another event going from 10 days up to 25 days and it was fantastic, the 48 youngsters enjoyed themselves and actually enjoyed learning new skills and about the way the river currents work. The young lad who approached me during the Easter School break was delighted that he could take part and enclosed that since the first event he was no longer with the friends he was with and that he made friends with two other participants who was on the Easter event and those friends made it onto the same week throughout the summer. Success!

But at this stage I was burnt out and other residents kept saying how amazing it was that something was happening in the town after years of been neglected, so I came up with a plan to go all out and make it to round three. So with having 249 young people already signed up to the Youth Zone, I thought why not go and make it 300 for our first year, makes a statement, so I set about creating and finding funding for the last event of the year and luckily I managed to persuade a panel that what I had going was brilliant and that I could get 80 young people on the river in October in the cold and that it would be of benefit.

Last week 72 young people managed to take to the water and learn about the barrage and the river, whilst having fun and developing their communication, leadership and team building skills. Not bad for a first year.

I will be taking a few weeks off from the Youth Zone before looking into funding, planning and organising for next years Youth Zone activities and events.

Comments

Darlington Library

So Darlington Council have to make huge savings and doing so it seems their first target is the Crown Street Library. The plan is to sell the building and relocate services to the Dolphin Centre on a much reduced scale. This is to come at the cost of 25 jobs within Library Services and I am appalled that when the going gets tough, the council's get cutting. Instead of reducing the costs to the upper hierarchy of said council, it is the front line staff that are being sent packing. In my opinion services such as libraries should be the last thing to be hit when making cuts. Libraries have an environment that encourages thinking, reading and writing and allows imagination to run wild. Darlington Council will make their decision this Wednesday in a Special Cabinet meeting and I hope for the sake of learning and culture, they see fit to save this building and better still save the creative environment that comes with libraries.

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Putting The Record Straight

Just to make something clear, I am not against investment in our area, far from it. I have signed many support comments for developments such as Aldi, Parade of Shops on the Industrial Estate and even supported the Hotel proposal and the Student apartments on Mandale Triangle. Saying that I have also objected to a few, such as the Mcdonalds on the centre and recently the two takeaways that where planned for Lanehouse Road, along with the proposal for 150 homes at the Barrage. In fact I am still the only objector on the Stockton Council Planning portal. I believe investment is great, when it is in the right area and with the right amount of demand, access and need. Over the years we have had a bombardment of planning applications go through Stockton Borough Council for south of the Tees developments that has seen the population swell and the infrastructure buckle under the weight of bad management and developers who constantly cut corners to make a quick pound or two. In the pas...

Luke John Frost

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