OYC Meeting Minutes – 01/04/20

This is the new Term of Office for Oldham Youth Council, where we bring our newly elected Youth Councillors onto our team, and introduce them to the amazing opportunities and work they will be able to get involved in.

However, due to unforeseen circumstances at this time, all face to face sessions have been suspended until further notice, bringing Oldham Youth Council digital! Meetings being done now are being facilitated online by our amazing Youth Workers, who have worked endlessly to ensure our members don’t lose hope within these unprecedented times, and we thank them all for their hard work.

WELCOME

With this being the first full digital meeting with the extent of participants, it was made aware to Youth Councillors that using Zoom would be a test run, and some hitches within the process are expected.

To start off the meeting, Youth Councillors were asked to introduce themselves, old and new, to each other, so we get to know the unfamiliar faces within the call.

ICEBREAKERS

To break the ice, Chris asked Youth Councillors to finish off some sentences he provided within the call chat, giving Youth Councillors more of a chance to understand each other.

Next brought on the hopes and fears for new Youth Councillors, where Chris and old Youth Councillors could help dispel them.

INTRODUCTIONS

Within the Youth Council, some Youth Councillors are elected to have certain responsibilities, which help with the running of OYC. The current Youth Councillors holding those roles were asked to introduce said roles to the new Youth Councillors.

The Youth Councillors holding the roles can be seen on the front page of oldhamyc.com , within our ‘Meet the Team’ section.

WHAT DOES OYC DO?

This was a chance for newly elected Youth Councillors to put forward their ideas on what Oldham Youth Council actually does, with a few examples being:

  • Listen and represent Oldham’s Young People.
  • Making Young People feel equal.
  • Instils good morals.

From this, it led to a conversation on the past work uptakes by Youth Councillors and the Youth Council past and present.

FUTURE FOCUS OF OLDHAM YOUTH COUNCIL

With a new election comes with a new set of priorities, and the new Youth Councillors were asked what they wanted to focus on for the next two years, with a few of the suggestions being:

  • Improvement of Street Lighting to make areas safer.
  • How to deal with future pandemics.
  • Litter and Plastic Pollution problem within the Town Centre.
  • Restrictions on parking around Oldham to allow cleaning.
  • Busses and Transport
  • Charity Events
  • Mental Health

Youth Councillors were set the task of asking ten young people within Oldham, who are not apart of Oldham Youth Council, on what they believe Oldham Youth Council should focus on.

AOB

Prem brought up the making of the Coronavirus awareness video for OYC, and had asked for volunteers to read out lines for the video.