Archived decisions

Hampshire County Youth Council quarterly report

June - September

So.... The question on most people's lips, what have the Hampshire County Youth Council been up to. To answer this we must start at the beginning, which incidentally is a very good place to start.

· In meetings, we have put together a newsletter which will be distributed to all HCYC members and non members.

· We helped create an abstract that was submitted to the New Zealand Commissioner in order for Hampshire young people to attend a conference in New Zealand in February 2006. We are pleased to report it has been successful! We are now looking into funding and thinking about a selection process.

· Issues that local youth councils have raised have been debated and prioritised for action.

· A group of 8 members from the youth council visited the Home Office to support the ASBO concern campaign.

· We are currently in the process of having new clothing made (fleeces) and ordering new publicity materials to raise awareness of HCYC.

· A PR workshop is also being set up to train members on how to use a camcorder and work with media resources.

· The Chair has set up a meeting with Berkshire youth councils to start organising the second residential (previous residential held in Hampshire in March 2004)

· Five youth council members attended the British Youth Council residential in Chester, where they questioned the panel of the UK's children's commissioners (yes all 4 were there!) The secretary Clara Hawkshaw sat on the panel of young activists in question time and represented the Green Party

· Three members have successfully undertaken the CAT Mark training

· Two members attended the Children and Young People's reference group

The main highlight of the last months though has been the HCYC event day. This was themed around promoting healthy lifestyles and fair-trade, which are two topics the youth council feel strongly about. Over 40 young people from local youth councils around the south of the county attended the sports day and had great fun getting to know each other whilst throwing wellies and having three-legged races, amongst other exciting activities!

The day was a great success with £70+ being raised for Fair-trade. The organiser of the event, Della Hamerton; vice-chair, learnt many fundamental skills such as negotiation, planning and taking into consideration health and safety issues.

After the day had finished 13 members went to Grease at the Mayflower Theatre and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, despite being so tired from the events of the day!

Finally the Youth Council has re-structured it's meetings to ensure the time is used most effectively. The first part of the meeting is dedicated to working parties; on the main issues that the HCYC are working on. The second half, mainly focuses on information sharing.

9 districts now have their representatives in place and they are working hard gaining the views and opinions of their peers to bring forward to the youth council.