New youth volunteering programme 24:24
The 24:24 programme started off with a very successful induction week in July which included a trip to Afon Du near Conwy for a challenging gorge walk and a stop off at Conwy harbour for chips on the way home. There are currently 5 young people in the cohort, 4 males and 1 female, aged between 17 and 19. They come from a range of backgrounds and are all on the programme because they want to learn new skills, do something useful and ultimately find employment.
We have undertaken some work such as lock painting and vegetation management (chopping down overgrowwing branches etc) at Tower Wharf near Taylor’s boatyard in Chester. We have also undertaken some painting at the museum and helped with the huge operation of tackling the ever expanding weed in the canal and basin there. Recently we met Geoff Taylor, a relative of the Taylor family, and a key member of the Chester Canal Heritage Trust, who was very pleased with the work the cohort are undertaking and impressed that young people are engaging with the waterways. The group have also been on a day’s boating which ended in disaster when the boat broke down miles from home and they had an angling taster session to teach them more about using the waterways for leisure purposes.
The participants are about to start work on a social action project where they will be given the opportunity to change something in the waterways community that they care about and they will be given a budget to spend and support from Emma. We’ll update you on this soon.