Friday 14th October 2005
10 minutes to blog before the school run. There’s been quite a lot going on, and nothing, not sure where to start.
Work is good, lots of direct work with young people at the moment, helping them to take more part in the running of services. I was always a revolutionary, but now I can’t believe I’m getting paid to create rebellion. It’s always fun working with young people, and when you go into a meeting with them, you can never quite know what to expect. Last night it could have been 50 or it could have been five, so we had to have a very flexible plan. In the end it was about eight. Actually our plan was so flexible it could bend itself backwards and touch its own ankles, and it was certainly required to do some contortions on the night. We were also working with colleagues who we didn’t really know too well, so their actions were unpredictable too. In fact the only thing we already knew about was the youth centre.
It was quite a chaotic meeting, and some people might have had a problem with that. Our thing is informality; we aim to be as little like school as possible. Unfortunately, those young people who thrive in school are not so comfortable with that. Some wanted to come out of their first meeting with decision made about things that were going to change in their centre, but most of the meeting was taken up getting them to define themselves as a group, and how they were going to operate. This involved lots of input from all those present, some of it completely barmy, but we always listen and give appreciation.
Uh oh, 10 minutes nearly up.
At the end they had decided to have an elected forum of seven who would be responsible for consulting with the rest of the membership and they also made decisions about how and when an election would run. They also decided what they wanted to do for Halloween. I thought, how long did it take parliament to set up all their rules and regulations, and how ineffective is it? And I thought these young people, who were a fairly diverse group, at least in terms of social background, were pretty clever to have created a youth forum in two hours.
Time’s up
Work is good, lots of direct work with young people at the moment, helping them to take more part in the running of services. I was always a revolutionary, but now I can’t believe I’m getting paid to create rebellion. It’s always fun working with young people, and when you go into a meeting with them, you can never quite know what to expect. Last night it could have been 50 or it could have been five, so we had to have a very flexible plan. In the end it was about eight. Actually our plan was so flexible it could bend itself backwards and touch its own ankles, and it was certainly required to do some contortions on the night. We were also working with colleagues who we didn’t really know too well, so their actions were unpredictable too. In fact the only thing we already knew about was the youth centre.
It was quite a chaotic meeting, and some people might have had a problem with that. Our thing is informality; we aim to be as little like school as possible. Unfortunately, those young people who thrive in school are not so comfortable with that. Some wanted to come out of their first meeting with decision made about things that were going to change in their centre, but most of the meeting was taken up getting them to define themselves as a group, and how they were going to operate. This involved lots of input from all those present, some of it completely barmy, but we always listen and give appreciation.
Uh oh, 10 minutes nearly up.
At the end they had decided to have an elected forum of seven who would be responsible for consulting with the rest of the membership and they also made decisions about how and when an election would run. They also decided what they wanted to do for Halloween. I thought, how long did it take parliament to set up all their rules and regulations, and how ineffective is it? And I thought these young people, who were a fairly diverse group, at least in terms of social background, were pretty clever to have created a youth forum in two hours.
Time’s up
posted by Firegoat @ 3:55 pm
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