General Meeting Minutes
25th Feb 2008

Suzanne reported back from the General Working Group sharing the values of the group and the research that had already been carried out.

Ivy reported that CAB were interested in receiving feedback from the consultation. David Munro confirmed that the local council would also like feedback and suggested KS contacted the town clerk Roland Potter

It was felt that a list of all the agencies who had been contacted should be produced.
David Munro pointed out that youth from the area also attend 40 Degreez.

Kenton outlined the prime area being considered and on map are labelled areas 9B, 6D, 6C – giving a total of 1000 households. There was discussion on how this compared with other areas. Jane commented and this was agreed by Sue Marsh that it was not just the actual levels of deprivation but this living cheek by jowl that families felt affected the level of public services eg transport they were able to access.

Kenton reported from the youth working party

Fiona then shared her journey of how she got into youth work and her initial training (running a youth group of 40 – 80 youngsters at times) and her work at a local prison and as a mentor for trainee youth workers. She is currently working on a self employed basis for this area. She is launching 2 initiatives this term namely; 

a)  Firstly commencing on Tuesday 4th March is the youth achievement award (similar to D of E) for which a silver award is equivalent to a GCSE. Government funding is being applied for.

 

b)  Secondly to run a drop in for 11 – 16 years old on Monday evenings commencing on 21st April

Both of these will be held at the Wrecclesham Community Centre and the local council is helping with funding.

Sue Marsh gave a short history of home-school links workers of which there are 11 in Surrey. The need at Pilgrims way school was apparently identified by the level of dental cavities within the schoolchildren. She works with both the parents and the children. She is an advocate for parents and does attend meetings with social services etc. She finds that some parents do not enjoy their children.
The main issues are transport and getting access to hospitals.

Pilgrims Way school run a playclub (set up with Julie Campbell, deputy head at Pilgrims) for year 3 children (age 7 years) which is aimed at teaching playing skills eg turn taking etc.
She is looking at contact with fathers. She is hoping to start a playclub on a Saturday to which parents attend with their children and do things together. She would run this for 6 weeks initially.
Kenton is consulting with a local chef who may be willing to help with setting up a cooker club at the school.

She reported that Jane Wilkinson (head of Pilgrims) is keen to offer any support to the consultation and feels they have a good set of facilities that could be well used by the local community.
Their breakfast club receives support from St Thomas congregation.

Suzanne then distributed the draft questionnaire and discussions were held in small groups to provide a critique of this. Attendees were advised to contact Suzanne of changes they felt would be useful.

Kenton requested that anyone interested in helping with the distribution of the questionnaire to let him know by email.