Alnwick Community Centre
Alnwick Community Development Trust merged with the Community Centre in October 2006. The Community Centre has an excellent management committee who meets regularly and oversees the work of the centre. The day to day management of the Community Centre is undertaken by Emma Rudd who, together with her youth workers, provide numerous activities for children of all ages including Junior, Senior and Saturday youth clubs, an I.T. facility, an after school club and holiday activities.
In addition the Community Centre has a Bingo evening and a tea dance each week. Alnwick Community Centre is now an important part of the Trust's activities and has undergone some major transformations over the past few months. The building has been redecorated and refurbished throughout.
We are keen to get young people involved in healthy activities that they enjoy. For example, our Junior and Senior Youth Clubs took part in a litter pick to raise funds for the community centre. Through sheer hard work and team effort in just one day they managed to clear up a massive 8.5 tons of rubbish. The Young people set about cleaning ten streets and gardens. The team was helped by local firemen, community wardens and Alnwick District Council workmen.
The Community Centre has spent a great deal of time in the last year developing two projects in particular, the After School Club and the provision for 13 - 19 year olds. The After School Club project is aimed at children aged 4 to 13 years. Kelly Thompson, our Senior Play Worker, has invested a lot of time into developing a high quality service that allows the children a safe place to play, learn and develop their individual skills and abilities.
The team have focused their energies into delivering a varied programme featuring themed weeks, sport, art, play and learning. The After School Club had proved extremely popular on the estate, and the evidence has been in the numbers with up to 35 children attending each session.
A key area of development over the last 12 months has been our work with 13 to 19 year olds. Alnwick Community Centre has facilitated a senior youth club with support for a number of years from The Duchess's Community High School. A lot of work has been done to develop this service and build up our client base.
We have involved the young people in programme planning so that they could make decisions about what activities they take part in - including graffiti art, a groundwork project aimed at tidying the area around the building, cooking, arts and crafts and educational trips and outings aimed character and confidence building.
Between 15 to 20 young people now access this service on a weekly basis, we have attracted funding to sustain the work we do with this group in school holidays, and have also developed a spin off project with support from Connexions and the Gallery Youth Project which provides support to young people aged 16 to 19 years not in employment, education or training. The Community Centre is looking forward to building on the successes of the past year.