Wednesday 31 August 2016

Back to work!

This afternoon, the Youth Cabinet held it's first meeting of the term.  The first item on the agenda involved evaluating the twinning youth camp we attended in Mouscron, Belgium at the beginning of August.  We have made a presentation about our trip which we will be presenting to the Vale of Glamorgan Twinning Association to tell them about our experience and to thank them for all their support.

Also on the agenda was the National Assembly for Wales' enquiry into Youth Work which is currently being run by the Children, Young People and Education committee.  We gave our views on youth services in Wales and you too can take part in the survey here.  We also had our say on what we thought of the new Welsh Government Travel Behaviour Code which has been an ongoing piece of work for us since 2014.

It's not long until the next Youth Mayor election which will take place during Local Democracy Week (week commencing 10th October).  This is a busy time for the Youth Cabinet and some of our members are already preparing their manifestos hoping to get your vote to be the next Youth Mayor for 2016-17.  

Saturday 6 August 2016

Celebrations!

Today was our last full day in Mouscron. We began the day with the official opening ceremony of La Grange by the Mayor.  We celebrated the work we had done throughout the week and the relationships we have built with the young people from our twin towns.  The opening ceremony began with the Mayor giving a speech congratulating us on our work and expressing his admiration for how we, from different cultures, and countries have come together and worked effectively as a group to complete our youth project.



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At lunch we had a barbecue to celebrate our work. A lot of the young people helped to prepare the food for the barbecue. There was a variety of fresh foods and drinks, which gave us an opportunity to socialise with the new friends that we have made, in addition to decision makers in Mouscron.

We then walked from La Grange, to a bowling alley 10 minutes away where we played an enjoyable game of 10 pin bowling.  After this we celebrated our night with an extremely enjoyable party, as a farewell to our new found friends. We're sad to be leaving and will miss all of our new friends from Rheinfelden, Mouscron & Fécamp. It's been an amazing week!

http://www.notele.be/list70-les-reportages-de-notele-sur-I-entite-de-mouscron-media44240-les-ados-des-villes-jumelles-sont-dans-la-place.html.

Friday 5 August 2016

Diwrnod Pedwar

Yesterday was our fourth day in Mouscron. We started the day off by finishing our work at La Grange, we were finishing making our sun beds, our insect hotels and our chicken huts.  Then we had to clean and tidy up any mess that we had made so we could finally say we had finished our work.

In the afternoon one group did Zumba and the others went climbing and swimming.  In the evening it was our turn to host a Welsh night.  We presented facts about the Vale of Glamorgan and Wales by doing a quiz and a tour of Wales treasure hunt.  We finished off the night by making welsh cakes with everyone.  It was a huge success with a lot of positive and helpful reviews!

Wednesday 3 August 2016

Tag drei!

So we are now on the 3rd day of the Mouscron Youth Camp, which feels really weird as the time has gone by so quickly with days full of fun and adventure. Today we did more hard work in the garden, sanding down and even painting the benches we had been building over the past couple of days. We also started building chicken pens which look really cool.

Then in the afternoon we visited an Artisan Chocolate shop (which everyone had been looking forward to since we saw the itinerary). It was an amazing experience to see Belgium chocolate being made 1st hand, and of course we couldn't leave without tasting it! Then we progressed to our next activity of the day hockey and archery, which got very competitive, yet was loads of fun. Then to round of the day the Germans from Rheinfelden put on a great show, with lots of music plus some great dancing and choreography! We all can't wait for tomorrow, especially as it is our night to facilitate tomorrow.

Tuesday 2 August 2016

Day 2

Day 2 in Mouscron & the weather's not so great today. However, luckily we're used to it in Wales, unlike the Germans who said they were freezing cold after having 35 degree weather.  Lucky them!  We started the day at La Grange where we were making the bases for the sun beds that will be used in the Twinning garden so that tomorrow and Thursday we can assemble and paint them.  It was a real team effort and due to this we already have 4 sun beds assembled and we are on course for our 10 sun bed target.

After our picnic at La Grange we went to a shopping centre and Mouscron city centre which had more tourist shops and a beautiful chocolate shop filled with Belgian chocolate,  I can already see you're jealous!  Afterwards we went to the cinema and watched "Demain" - a French documentary about climate change and the environmental challenges we face in the world today.  We than had a discussion on the environmentally friendly schemes we do in the Vale, Mouscron, Fécamp and Rheinfelden.  This evening Fécamp hosted their culture night where we learnt to tie sailing knots and tasted french food.  It's been a fantastic experience so far.  

Monday 1 August 2016

Bienvenue a Mouscron!

Today was our first day of the youth camp in Mouscron, Belgium, one of the Vale's twin towns, along with young people from Mouscron, Rheinfelden and Fécamp. We all met with the mayor of Mouscron and cabinet member Kathy who welcomed us to Belgium. We visited the old Mouscron town hall and we were given a tour of the new  civic offices.


We then went to work at La Grange, the garden dedicated to the Twinning Project. We have really enjoyed the different aspects of woodwork that we have learnt in order to build benches for the garden. The young people from Mouscron also hosted an evening of fun games and as a result we were able to get to know the other young people at the camp. Bon nuit from us all!