Hi all,
My daughter and her friend came home the other day from the Stanwell Park and they complained that they couldn't use some of the play area due to fag ends, spit and loads of rubbish, not only that there is also graffiti etc....I know this always happens and it was there when I was a child but the play areas are for the smaller children. The big kids that use them are bored and have nowhere else to go except hang outside the chip shop.
What can we do to stop them wrecking the play area, it's fairly new and what can we do to keep them off the streets causing a nuisance.
As soon as these kids arrive the smaller kids leave as they feel intimidated.
Just to clarify, it's a small number of teenagers that do this the majority of them know how to behave.
Any thoughts???

What about the Youth Club, (is that still going), Scouts or Guides or Girls Briagde? I wonder if the youngsters who belong to it would be interested in helping the younger kids out by taking on the responsibilty for looking after the play area? It wouldn't be slave labour but a really good community project for the teenagers ( and what great publicity for their group/s) and then they might exert some peer pressure on the smokers, spitters & graffitti 'artists.' Perhaps the Parish council could give them a picnic to say 'thank you' when the job's done? Also there ARE organisations and entertainment for youngsters in this village, just look at our amazing village website or activities in Banbury for details but you will never stop the minority of boring teenagers from being bored. It's just a shame that their 'boredom' often results in anti-social behaviour 'cos they can't be 'bovvered, whatever!'

- Its not just the youngsters who "can't be bovvered", despite advertising in THe Banbury Guardian, Cheney Chatter and the village website for help to run our youth club I had absolutely no response whatsoever. The only help I have is from friends who I press-ganged into it. This has not been sufficient for us to continue over the summer. The shame is the youngsters have nowhere else to go- they would go to the recreation ground at Astrop road and play football but during the summer it is often needed for cricket. I am not defending their behaviour for one minute, but if , in a village of over 5000 people only 6 are interested in helping our youngsters we shouldn't really be surprised at the response we get.
If any one missed my earlier cries for help and would be prepared to give up one evening a month to run a village youth club ( didn't you go to one when you were younger?) please , PLEASE contact me on 712051
Ps I have some government funds that could be used for a community project such as has been menetioned- but the problem remains- we have to have adults to supervise it, and unfortunately my days only have 24 hours in them- and I have to spend at least 4 hours asleep ( or rather being kept awake by the wretched alarms that go off 5/6 times a night)

Kay, I put my name down to help with the youth club before it got started and I have NEVER been contacted to come and help on any night.....Maybe there is more than 6 that have also offered to help and never been contacted either?

Paula- thanks for pointing that out for me- you were one of the people I listed under "friends". I have checked my list and you should have had a crb form and availability shedule through your door in May, I do apologise - if yours didn't arrive I hand delivered to over 20 contacts but only 6 replied , I assumed that the rest were no longer ble to help. Please give me a ring if you are still willing to help. and I will drop a start pack round within the hour.

Not sure if the youth club is the answer as it would only run for 1 evening, plus you can't smoke there!!!!

The problem (in my opinion) is that there are quite a few of these lads and lasses and they are quite intimidating especially to their peers. What about a place for them to go at all hours, where they can sit, be sheltered from the rain and do a bit of graffiti if that's what they want to do.... Surely the playing field can accommodate a small area in a corner, teenagers like to be away from adults and adults like them to be happy!
What can we do for them?
Kay, your idea of a teenagers shed sounds like a good one.

It wasn't my idea originally it was the parish clerks ( which is probably why tit is a good one ). THis " teen Problem" is a common one as the number of places for kids to just hang out ( as we did many decades ago!) has decreaed- so many open areas are taken for housing sites etc. This has led to the development of several companies who make so called "Teen shelters", a simple bus shelter type affair very simple, very robust, but importantly "THEIRS". I'm not sure why the idea didn't reach fruition- I suspect there was a problem with siting it, but i will look into it again as we can ceratinly get funds for it, and a graffitti board.
There was also the possibility of a teen cafe to be open every night for a couple of hours,again we can get the money, just not the premises and adult help- any one want to take this on.? I know Chris must be lookig for another project now that the pre-schol is nearly there........( Joke)!

Reading through the above posts i do think that the teenagers do need something to do, somewhere to go but i think that their attitudes are, (not all, just the minority) to go somewhere to cause havoc/destruction rather than somewhere to 'hang out', probably because they know they can get away with it due to lack of policing.
I recently saw 4 teenagers (clearly underage) head up to the park with their strongbow cider in their white carrier bag (maybe londis???) Perhaps to deter this sort of behaviour we should be calling the local police to have a drive around.
The idea of a youth cafe etc would be a good idea if people had the time to run it and i hope that it wouldn't be abused by the minority who would think it funny to ruin it for other people.

I think a teen cafe is a fab idea!!!

I will help out if needed too.

Great- if thats an offer of help Paula promise to make sure you're not left behind this time! Big problem is premises. Any ideas anyone?

Teen cafe sounds ace! Great idea.

Of course that was an offer of help..
Red Lion would be out of the question?? Football shop??

Village Hall????

Cycle shop is now empty??

I doubt you would be allowed to put it next to existing Cafe even if it's just fro kids, the cycle shop unit is very small would not offer much space, there is a larger unit behind Brads, but not a suitable location, the village hall is the obvious choice, enough space and set up for it, but is it available enough of the time?

I think the problem with using the village hall is that its not "their" space. I'm not convinced that the bike shop would be too small.

If you had a couple of vending machines (one drinks and one snacks) a few tables and some games and white boards on the walls for graffitti/drawing.

Have it open for a few hours, a couple of nigths a week to start and see what happens and maybe increase the opening times to weekend/holidays.

The problem would be the cost of setting it up e.g. hire of vending machines and rental of the shop.

Hi, I'm new to this website and I couldn't help thinking about what you have talked about above.

The Youth Club seems like a good idea - the kids do get bored easily and most of them say there is nothing to 'do' in the village. In order to overcome the problem of not having enough people to help and contribute (as Kay said above) an idea would be to include some of the older teenagers. If you were to offer the Sixth Form Students at Chenederit the opportunity to volunteer in the project then I believe you would get some volunteers. The students who are looking to go to University will be looking for things to put on their application forms and volunteer work looks good to any prospective University.

Overall they’ll be helping you by volunteering their time and you’ll be helping them by giving them an opportunity to work and use their skills – which ultimately they can use to better their chances at getting into university.

The school already offers sixth formers the chance to help the younger children in the school (by helping in classrooms – especially with children who find it hard to learn for one reason or another).

I don’t know if this idea is feasible – I would imagine the project would have to be going before the sixth form could be asked to participate as you wouldn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but there is still some summer left. :-)

I hope this help….

To those who have suggested opening a teen cafe, the problem is premises and money. Yes somewhere like the old bike shop would be great, but you must remember that those are commercial premises and we would have to pay a commercial rent. Opening for one or two sesions a week would make the whole thing very expensive. Please keep the ideas coming. I don't want to sound like a wet blanket, but part of my job is spending our money wisely and prudently. Also there is always the old problem of health and safetly but we will find a solution somehow.

Dear Bumblebee,
Your ideas involving the students from Chenderit School are very interesting and I would love to discuss them with you in more detail. The Parish Council are open to all suggestions and would like to invite you to one of our meetings, held the first Monday of every month. See website for details. If you would rather not go quite so public, please contact me directly by email on clerk@middletoncheney.org.uk., by phone on 713 500 or come down to the Parish Council office any morning but Thursday. All suggestions are taken seriously and looked into. We are a very proactive council and really do want to do the best for all our residents whatever age group.
Caroline Stacey Parish Clerk

Hi- thanks Bumblebee for coming on board. The "6th form" at Chenderit are already involved with the project as a whole, but we have to have people over the age of 18 to actually run the group. The upper 6th are spearheading a"Battle of the Bands " rpoject for our youngsters , details to be finalised.
It may be useful if I summarise what is actually happenning. I have set up a project ( Middleton Cheney Youth Project) to address the leisure and informal learning needs of the youth in our village., this project now has Councillor Val Furniss as its Chairman and Councillor Caron Bowden as acting treasurer. We have received funding from NCC (youth small grants fund), CLr Ken Melling- via Parish Council ,South Northants (Youth ops fund) and the "School of Life" Initiative. Part of this money is to set up a regular meeting place for our teens, and has seen a nearly 3 year struggle to find suitable premises.
Premises have been secured for a youth club, we have struggled to find enough people to help as we could only operate on a Saturday, This has now changed, it may be possible for us to run the Club on a friday and i would ask all interested parties to phone on 712051 if you would be able to help one fri night in 6 ( or more), previuos volunteers will be contacted with another availability sheet, if you don't hear from me by 3rd Sept please phone as it means I have stuffed up - again. we are continuing to look at setting up a cafe - (any one want a mobile in their back garden?)but for the time being we will press forward with what we CAN do.

What about a skatepark?? I`m sure that has been suggested already...
Kay I could help out sometimes if you need me to?

Any chance of changing the name of this thread to something a little more positive now?, Middleton may not be ready for "Hugging a Hoodie", but something that concentates on amore positive aspect of our youngsters - to encourage people to get involved-any ideas

Have read with interest all of your comments regarding the youth and how we can best meet their requirements.

We have a meeting scheduled for Thursday, 2nd September at 7.30 p.m. in the Parish Meeting Rooms, Middleton Cheney, regarding this topic. Please feel free to attend if you believe you can make a valid contribution to this ongoing project. If you are unable to attend, contact the Clerk direct - her details are above.

Thank you all for the interest you have shown so far and the time you have taken to post your views.

Look forward to meeting you at the meeting.

We are looking to move to Banbury because of its links to London/Bham and Middleton Cheney appeared (on the surface at Ieast) to be a nice village. Having read these emails although you some wonderful events you also appear to have very negative 'youth-related' issues which is of real concern. We like peace and quiet so in considering MC are we looking in the wrong place ?