Welcome to our Penarth Youth Action Spring term article. This edition will cover what has been an action-packed term with lots going on including progress made on our topics of focus, our experiences at the Penarth Coronation Fireworks and general updates from our activities.
There is no better place to start than by welcoming our five new members to PYA, it is fantastic to hear new voices around the table sharing different perspectives. Recruitment will continue to be a priority and we will build on our visits this term that have included Penarth Sea Cadets, after school clubs and open-access Vale Youth Service clubs. We have, however, had to say our goodbyes to three members who will be beginning the next chapter of their lives at university including our Chair who has given many years of service to PYA, we wish them the best of luck for the future!
From January until May we have held six PYA meetings, attended five Penarth Town Council meetings and the Penarth Town Council AGM. Spring has seen an agreement between PYA and Penarth Town Council for our Chair and Vice Chair to attend Council meetings in full, and we have been supported by the Town Council to build up our knowledge and learn about the processes. We followed this up at our May meeting by holding our Chair and Vice Chair elections, well done to the PYA members who gave brilliant presentations, and we are looking forward to their term of office.
Our focus this term has been on exploring the impacts of climate change and local environmental issues. We are excited to rebuild our links with Gwyrddio Penarth Greening (GPG) who have attended our meetings and we have also committed to attending GPG meetings every other month, our hope is to collaborate at local events in the future. To improve our understanding of local recycling in Penarth, we invited Cllr. Mark Wilson to deliver a workshop on the changes being introduced by Vale of Glamorgan Council and this was a great opportunity for interesting conversations around the environment and sustainability.
Our community work has continued this term attending the Penarth Coronation Fireworks where our aim was to raise money for the Town Mayor’s chosen charity, Marie Curie, hear views from young people around the environment and promote PYA. We raised a total of £171.41 on the night which took our fundraising total this year for the charity to £236.09. We have really enjoyed collaborating with the staff and volunteers at Marie Curie and we thank them for supporting our efforts.
In May, we had our PYA teambuilding day where we picked up from our accessibility work last year to take part in an introduction to Makaton training at West House. Part of the day was in collaboration the Vale Rights Ambassadors which was great to meet other young people from across the Vale of Glamorgan and we took part in teambuilding activities in the sunshine before heading to Cardiff for Laser Tag. We’re looking forward to the summer term and plan to get involved in more community activities including the Penarth Summer Festival as well as representing the views of young people on topics important to them.
