Meeting the cabinet

This evening, we had our first joint meeting as the new Youth Cabinet. Three Cabinet Members and 5 Youth Cabinet Members attended the meeting. We had a bunch of progress to report back on, including our momentous trip to Mouscron in Belgium. We also had an interesting discussion around transition from primary into secondary school. The Cabinet thanked us greatly for the impressive work that had been achieved in the six months since our last joint meeting.

The meeting was followed by our general Youth Cabinet meeting. The hot topics were the 'Make Your Mark' campaign that is coming to a close; and Local Democracy Week that will see the election of the Vale's third Youth Mayor. This will also provide a great opportunity to promote our work. Dan, our current Youth Mayor, will also be attending the annual sitting of the UK Youth Parliament in London this November. We wish him well!

The Youth Show on Bro Radio.

Listen to our latest interview with Jacob on Bro Radio's Youth Show.  Thanks Jacob for the great opportunity to promote the Youth Cabinet!

Civic Celebrations!

We would like to thank the Mayor of the Vale of Glamorgan, Councillor Stuart Egan for inviting the Youth Cabinet to attend his Civic Celebration on Saturday 10th September 2016 at Barry Memorial Hall.  It was a fantastic event where the new Mayor pledged his commitment to supporting residents of the Vale of Glamorgan.

There were special performances from young musicians from the Vale including High Street Primary School Choir, Sophie Egerstorm, Monika Stadler, Verity Belle Atkinson and the Youth Theatre Company Stage Door One.  Speeches were given by HM Deputy Lieutenant Mr Colin Jones QPM, CFtJ, DL and the Mayor himself.

It was a great celebration and we learnt more about the Mayor, his life and what he plans to do in his role.  The Mayor will be supporting two charities during his term of office: The Penarth and District Lesotho Trust and The Llandough Orchard Charity Project and we hope to support them in any way we can.

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.  

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.

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!

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.