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HISTORY
In late 1998 a member of Merksworth peer education group attended a conference to discuss the issue of youth councils. Those present decided, as Paisley is the biggest town in Scotland, it was time it had its own youth council. So in January 1999 a youth event was held at Merksworth High School to lay the foundations for setting up a youth council in Paisley. |
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SUCCESS That event was a big success and there were about 50 interested people there. After the event the group broke off from the peer education group and became the Paisley Youth Council Steering Group. To start with, the group was meeting on a Tuesday night in the school community wing. After meeting there for about 6 months it was decided that the group should try and get a location in the town centre. The reason was, it was felt that the number had fallen away due to the location of the school in that it was difficult to get to from most of the town. |
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TERRITOTORIALISM There is also a problem with territorialism in the Paisley area. In the late spring of 1999 the group moved to 'The Firehouse' in Gordon Street in the town centre and from here our group began to grow. At the end of August, Community Education agreed to give us the funding for 2 sessional youth workers, so the group started advertising in the job centre and the local press. In early September we held interviews in The Firehouse, but unlike normal interviews, they were conducted by the young people in the group. From late September onwards we started our application for a Prince's Trust/Millennium Commission M-Power award. Later that year we hired another youth worker called Andy. In December we moved to the computer suite in the YMCA. In January, we sent away the final version of the application to the M-Power award scheme. |
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BUDDIES YOUTH VOICE In March 2000 the group changed their name to Buddies Youth Voice. The name change was partly to do with the application for funding by the M-Power awards scheme, which is a joint venture between the Prince's Trust and the Millennium Commission. The group was successful in our application and got awarded £9,000 from the award scheme. At this point one of our youth workers, Tracie, left on maternity leaves, so we hired another youth worker, Ruth Oldrey. At the beginning of summer the group decided to buy a laptop computer.
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RESIDENTIALS In July we went on a residential for team building. During the residential we also had some training provided by a community education worker called Heather. Overall, the weekend was a great success. In late summer we held an open day in the High Street. It was a great success and we got 5 new members. We spent most of August and September going through the information that was collected during the open day and arranging the prize giving.
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AGM In October we started planning for the AGM and election in November. We held the AGM and election in the YMCA where the new committee was elected. In December Buddies Youth Voice hosted the Scottish Youth Parliament in Merksworth High School. There were over 100 delegates there from all over Scotland including the local members of the parliament. In January 2001 the group had our second residential in Glenshee. At this residential the members of the group who had been the to the first one carried out training for the new members. During February we spent most of the time creating the newsletter.
- Andrew Scott |
