National Youth Work Week on Tiree  2012

We celebrated National Youth Work Week on Tiree through a sequence of diverse workshops and events over the course of five days. The young people helped me decide which activities and workshops to organise through consultation sheets at School Café.

We had 12 different Workshops, A community bonfire, a Movie night and a final Twilight Themed night.  Altogether 48 children and Young people and 14 adults took part in the week. Bookings were taken in advance and numbers for the events were great.

 

Monday

The Week began with two cake decorating workshops. These workshops were led by local cake decorator, Mandy Kelso and were very well attended. The young people made cookie monster cupcakes and bonfire cakes.

After this workshop we headed down to Crossapol beach for the community bonfire and firework display. Burgers and soup were provided and there was a Prize draw. This event was supported well by the community and I think everyone really enjoyed themselves!

Tuesday

On Tuesday Patsy Dyer, the Story Teller from Ardfern arrived. Patsy ran two Story telling workshops, one for under 5’s and one for 5 – 12’s. Her stories were brilliant and quite scary! Patsy turned the lights out and stamped her feet to set the scene. The young people also learnt some new story telling techniques and even had a chance to tell a story to the group.

In the evening Jay Wardrop from fast-forward ran a training session for adult volunteers. This was very interesting and informative. Thank you to everyone who came along and gave up their evening to be involved.

Wednesday

On Wednesday all of our activities were run by local people. We started at 4:30 with our animation course. Ten young people attended and they wrote story boards and used Plasticine to make ‘Wallace and Grommit’ style animations. By the end of the two hour workshop everyone had made a full animation and we had them all on the computer. I hope we can do a similar workshop in the future as it worked well and everyone enjoyed it.

On Wednesday we also had the ladies from the Tiree Tapestry Group in the hall. They only had a couple of young people along to their workshop however, they had a wonderful time and  we all got a chance to see how brilliant the tapestry is looking as it was laid out for us.

In the evening Amanda Worsley, our local animation artist, ran an animation movie in the cinema in the Rural Centre. This continued the animation theme of the day and we had 15 people along to the film.

Thursday

On Thursday we welcomed Sarah Smith from Ydance in Glasgow off the plane. Sarah’s first workshop was dance for under 5’s. The children used giant ribbons and danced around the hall in all sorts of styles to the music. At 4:30 we began the next workshop which was Street dance for 5 – 12 year olds. This was very well attended and there were some crazy moves going on! By the end of the workshop the group had learnt a fantastic routine which they proudly showed off to their parents.

At 7:30 the final dance workshop began which was for teens and adults. Again we had good numbers as 15 people arrived ready to learn some new moves. This group learnt an even longer routine and had a chance to get creative in smaller groups. Well done to the Duke of Edinburgh group who joined in with this session.

Friday

On Friday we waved good bye to Sarah and welcomed Louise Martin. Louise led two fantastic jewellery workshops where young people and adults could learn all sorts of new techniques. In the first workshop Louise taught everyone how to make charm bracelets using wire and silver and beads and had 12 people at it. At the second workshop 14 people learnt how to make magical floating crystal necklaces and earrings and everyone got a goody bag with all their jewellery in it to take home afterwards.

We finished off the week with a special Twilight themed night at Ch@ Room. The young people came along dressed up as vampires and we drank gory, red juice and had a quiz and then turned the lights off and watched a Twilight movie.

I am very grateful to everyone who came along to support and help out at this week of events and hopefully we can do it again!

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