There’s always lots happening in the Family & Youth Works Teams and this is the place to keep up to date with all of our news.
Every month we will be updating this page with all the news from across our teams so make sure you check in regularly.
Fun At The Allotments
At Shine, the young people participate in various fun activities, from being outdoors at the allotments, to indoor sessions crafting, cooking, and learning about the British Heritage.
We run a variety of allotment sessions: youth, home education, and accessible. As well as allotment sessions for a local care home and the local YMCA nurseries.
During September the young people have been hands on, harvesting the last of our fruit and vegetables, and learning how we close our allotments down for winter. The young people have helped by emptying the beds, weeding and turning the soil over, then scattering with manure and covering with a dark sheeting. They’ve got to try different fruits and vegetables while harvesting, and then the remaining fruits and vegetables get brought back to our youth centre to be used during cooking sessions or distributed during community fridge sessions.
As well as this, the young people have been learning about climate change, different wildlife they may see at the allotments, composting, the importance of recycling, and also making different homes or feeders for the wildlife that visit.
We have had Harleston House visit regularly who help us to maintain our accessible allotment, the residents love visiting and getting their hands dirty. Many of them share their tips and tricks for growing and maintaining the crops and flowers. It’s a great opportunity for them to get outdoors and back to nature. Alongside Harleston House, we have run some intergenerational sessions with a local school, Woodsloke Primary. The children and residents have enjoyed a few weeks of working together and learning from one another.
Just click on the images below to see a larger, full version.
Water Lane Garden Project
There has been a mammoth project taking place at YMCA Childcare Water Lane. The management team have worked tirelessly to improve the outdoor space for the 2-4yr old room.
The management team sought quotes from local contractors to complete the work of removing old wooden play equipment, fencing, wet pore flooring and laying of turf to create a large play space.
Unfortunately, all of the quotes were too high for the budget available, so the managers took it upon themselves (with the help of their husbands and a few staff members) to complete the work.
They began by removing all of the fencing which had created 3 different areas in the garden. Once this was removed, the play equipment had to be cut/dug out of the ground. The wet pore flooring was then lifted and removed before a mini digger removed the rubble and allowed them to flatten the ground ready to lay the topsoil and turf.
Then the tedious task of watering the grass every day came – until it grew thick and green, ready for the start of term. In addition to this, a new climbing frame and easel were donated by Norwest Foods Ltd and a new mud kitchen area, small world space and a theatre stage has been created to allow the children to really explore their outdoor space as much as possible.
A massive thank you to everyone that was involved in the garden project.
Project Tuesday Youth Committee
Meet our Project Tuesday Youth Committee members Joe Purnell, Rory Wilson-Jones and Chloe Thompson. They come together regularly to share ideas and to be the voice for our Airplay members.
Recently Wittering Village held a Summer Fayre and asked Project Tuesday to be involved. Our young people spent the day selling raffle tickets and manning the tombola and the tuck shop. They did a Sterling job! Our Airplay members love to get involved with the local community and are looking forward to the next event.
Over the Summer they were lucky to be able to participate in the Annual Airplay Youth forum in London, where they workshopped on topics that are important to young people from RAF families and presented their findings to the Royal Airforce Benevolent Fund at their headquarters. We stayed in the Union Jack Club in Waterloo where young people budgeted, planned, shopped for, and cooked their own meals, and had fun exploring London in their free time.
Wittering Airplay Youth Awards
Recently Wittering Airplay held our own youth awards.
Family and friends came to watch as Station Commander Nikki Duncan kindly presented young people with young leader awards, FIFA Champion, The RAFBF Christmas Card competition, Outstanding contribution to Airplay and Special Recognition awards.
Summer Activities
Summer zoomed by with over 65 young people attending our activity programme. Trips out included the ever-popular Rutland Aquapark and Rumble Live where we met up with other Airplay stations. Closer to home young people enjoyed sessions for arts and craft, clay play, Zumba, water fights, bouncy castle parties, slime labs and more.
We wrapped up the summer with a mini residential at Nene Park, traveling by coach and steam train before settling into bell tents by the lake. The days were filled with fun activities like archery, paddleboarding, and raft building, while the evening was spent toasting marshmallows and enjoying s’mores around the campfire. There were definitely a couple of sneaky midnight feasts too! Along the way, fears were conquered, friendships were formed, and everyone had a fabulous time! 😊
YMCA Youth Cresset November Activities
In November at YMCA Youth Cresset (after popular demand) we had local artist, Amanda Rigby, come back to lead a session with our young people on graphic design. We used this session to create a 3D Youth Club sign out, experimenting with mixed media – cardboard boxes, sewed letters, drawings, and even Lego. At the start of the month we took our first trip to Flip Out Trampoline Park where our young people had the chance to let out some of their energy during the school holidays. To end the month we took our first group of young people to LaserForce – this was many of their first time playing lasertag, including our youth workers. We also have teamed up with the National Literacy Trust to run a series of cooking skills sessions, along with offering free ‘I Can Cook’ books so our young people can continue their learning at home. At our last cooking session we did cooking from around the world, with foods from India, Lithuania, and France.
