Silence

COME ON YOU YOUNGSTERS! You are much more computer savvy than us - so why aren't you taking this great opportunity to tell the village what you want and how much you are going to support this genuine attempt to set up something in the village that's just for YOU!!! I'm sure the Parish Council will be absolutely delighted if you join in this discussion - don't let this thread disappear without even a wimper... (Silence isn't always golden)

MORE SILENCE...
(or has no-one else spotted the webby's suggestion that the Stanwell Park link should be continued under Village Youth ideas? - it gets a bit confusing when you have to search around the website for the same discussion in different areas. Is there any way you could join the two together please?)

Dear Silver
I only came across this web site by accident - as the parent of a teenager I would welcome any activities aimed at their age group in the village, however, if you want their input you need to raise the profile of the web site or link it to Facebook!

Disappointed to learn that you only discovered the village website by accident although I think a lot of the village residents are already logging on regularly. (Perhaps the webby will confirm how many). The website address is a great way of keeping up with the village news and is publicised regularly via the Cheney Chatter newsletter which is delivered to every house in Middleton every 3 months. You have a good point though - that perhaps the way to get teenagers involved is to link it to Facebook. Fingers crossed, as I am sure that our messages will be read and the ideas taken on board. Perhaps the Facebook link would generate a 'MC-cyber-youth-club,' now that IS a novel idea!!! (And it would solve the problem of renting a suitable meeting place...)

Can you hear the gales of laughter? that's my teenagers response to their mother trying to " go all techi" by setting up a facebook thingy- could somebody out there please rescue me from this ignomony and offer to take that side over. I still get quite exited when my submissions to this site appear, without me having to drop it round to Webby on paper ( any one else stuggle to get a good supply of goose feathers these days?)

A-a-ah! Thanks for your info, webby. So it sounds like we have 'not very active' teenagers in Middleton who are also very SILENT... Not sure where you go from here to generate more interest and participation but I consider that the parish council have done their best. Hence the old saying, 'You can take a (teenage) horse to water but you can't make him drink!!!'

Absolutely, silver surfer. the problem is that teens prefer cola( or is it fanta) to water. Trouble is we,ve been offering Tzer and they probably wanted Pepsi!
All those who have offered to help, keep a watch on your letterbox, we need to have a meeting before we go any further- any one else interested in helping in any capacity please phone on 712051 before next fri (1st oct) and I'll tell you the venue ( wine provided- in my experience you CAN lead a Midchenian to alcohol and they'll have no problem getting that down!)

....so did the Village Youth Ideas Forum die a death at the beginning of October???? Or did no-one turn up to your meeting, or volunteer to help out? Perhaps the preparation for Christmas celebrations scuppered any plans to start a youth club. If it did get off the ground then please let us all know about it. It would be great to see such a great project get underway at the start of a new year!!! But you need to publicise yourselves so we can all congratulate you...

As a teenager myself, I think that it would be a great idea to have a seating area away from most houses with shelter,somewhere to put our fag buts and lighting. Just thought I'd let you know my thoughts on the situation.

Hi- despite having a village population of over 5000 nobody was prepared to come forward to form a committee,although we had some volunteers to help at aweekly youth club, what we needed most was a committee
sorry teens of MC, I devoted the last 2 years of my life to get this going for you. Maybe when you are older you will remember the frustration of having nowhere to go and do something yourselves for your youngsters

we would like somewhere to sit and be sheltered from the rain with a light (or two) and a bin.

Whilst deleting some unhelpful and unrelated comments I have deleted the post about the questionnaire that you did - could you repost please Kay, thanks

ok webby
In reply to Bemused's comment, the problem is neither lack of money or ideas, but a significant barrier is lack of volunteers (especially to form a committee) over the last 16 months I managed to secure £11.2k for youth projects in this village, in response to the questionaires the teens filled in. Despite 3 entries in the Banbury Guardian, 2 in Cheney Chatter, a section in the parish plan questionaire( hand delivered to every house in the village) two poster / hand out campaigns, a mention on the primary school newsletter, not to mention numerous appeals on this website, (and some good old fashioned arm twisting) I was ultimately unsuccessful in securing enough help to put a committee together ( thank you , though to those very few who did turn up at the youth club to help). I concluded that in this village of 5000 residents all our adults are just too busy to take anything else on.
Should this current discussion thread prompt anyone to do something more proactive than lament the lack of anyone else to " do something" then please get in touch as I have 3 filing cabinet drawers full of funding info, training, legal requirements, Local authority guidelines etc that will save you months of work and you are welcome to have. This is a genuine offer and sincerely meant as I have a strong desire to see something change for the better, I have got to know quite a lot of these youngsters, and actually- they are not a bad bunch, in fact they can be great fun, they just want to be allowed to be somewhere. They do not have the same freedoms, or level of open spaces we had as children, as we all know in this village, the minute a developer sees an open space he puts a house on it. We cannot expect our kids to remain trapped inside their houses, and they are fed up with being moved on, when most of the time only one or two ( and as has been pointed out, not necessarily those from our village) cause the odd problem. The kids themselves know the current situation is not fair- and that is why sometimes we have unfortunate incidents when their frustration boils over.

So theres loads of adults complaining about how we sit at the bus stop etc, but only a few of them can be bothered to do something about it? I say thanks to the ones who want to do things for us, but the people who are complaining and not willing to help us, stop complaining about us if youre to lazy to do anything about us.

It appears approval is given for what is desribed as 'youthful frudtrations'. What about the unfortunate residents who have suffered from their innapropraite activities and are now fearful of certain areas within the village. Is that OK. I don't think so!

Just complaining on here isn't going to do nothing is it?

(...) why are you trying to cause arguments cant you talk normally like a normal person rather than get moody and discuss the matter like adults as you want us to behave like them ????

i love it how the people complaining are the ones that dont want to do anything for us and label us the stereo typical "youths" when they dont even no us we go to the bus stop outside londis because theres light not to cause trouble to number 21 we put our hoods up because we have cold ears not to intimidate people we do the odd knock and run because we are bored we have nothing to do and anywhere we go there is someone complainin callin the police yet they do nothing to help us get off the streets and do something worthwhile

To BD, Im trying to speak to everyone like adults but when a so called adult says "I don't know about dogs fouling the area, the youths that habitat the park seem to be worse!" about us on a different discussion it gets frustrating when you just mock us and dont take us seriously.

Absolutely- we as adults have a duty to lead by example- and we cannot expect youngsters to behave in a certain way if the "grown ups" are childish and abusive. Well done lads for trying to sort the problem between yourselves.

Hi everyone, I have just had to close a youth club in Daventry because of lack of volunteer support. I ended up trying to be youth leader, treasurer, secretary and chairperson in an attempt to keep things alive. Way too much stress and heartbreaking when we had to close about a wek ago. Yes, young people are great; they are fun, open minded, helpful, positive and very human, i.e. they get bored, frustrated, annoyed and scared about the future just like the rest of us adults.

I am now free to help Middleton Cheney set up a youth club proper on a Friday night and am willing to stand on the committee.

I hope to start my PGCE (secondary science) later this year and working with young people is important to me.

Please contact me asap.

M