OYC Meeting Minutes – 10/08/2022
WELCOME
The ChairThe Youth Councillor who runs the meeting, heads up the organisation and has the casting vote. Or something to sit on but probably the first one on our site :-) More welcomed us.
REVIEW OF MEMBERSHIP
Discussions were around those youth Councillors that had resigned, the people who has not taken up the position and the people who have not been responding to staff emails, and asked us to contact them if
we can.
Discussions were also around the Oldham Council district changes (reduced to 5 from 6) and that the Youth Council might want to look at aligning with this but that would that we may need to change the number of people elected per district to 8 from 7. This change would involve a change in the constitutionA constitution is a set of rules that guides how an organisation works. The constitution says how the organisation is set up and how it works. It also states the rights of it's members. More; youth councillors voted in favour of of having a future meeting to discuss a change in constitutionA constitution is a set of rules that guides how an organisation works. The constitution says how the organisation is set up and how it works. It also states the rights of it's members. More.
Discussion then turned to if youth councillors feel as though we are representative enough of Oldham. We came up with a list of groups underrepresented, based mainly off the protected characteristics (race, religion, pregnancy, gender, sexuality).
SWOT
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats
Chris placed cards with photos of random things, such as a brick wall and a swimmer, and
told us to take any two based off our interpretations of the meaning of the photo, and say
how it represented our personal lives. It can be based off positives and negatives. We then
discussed the photos we chose and why. We then did the same thing, but as a weakness of
Oldham Youth Council in general rather than ourselves.
After a break, we discussed opportunities, followed by threats which are posed to Oldham
Youth Council.
This SWOT will be used in a meeting with the OYC
Oldham Youth Council More leads, officers and representatives soon.
TRAINING NEEDS
Looking at the SWOT analysis youth councillors discussed what training we want. Suggestions were:
- Media training
- Effective presentations – presenting and making
- Creativity training
- Public speaking training/lift speeches
- Council processes
- Speech writing
- Safeguarding training
- Oldham and it’s demographics
EVENTS AND TRIPS
September 11th – Youthforia
An organisation in which youth councillors from the North West meet up and work on campaigns and training. More (Blackpool)
September 17th – BYC
British Youth Council – A Youth Lead organisation representing 11-18 year olds across Great Britain. More Annual Council Meeting (online).
AOB
Chris had had email regarding the overview and scrutiny meeting asking what more scrutiny the youth council required. Youth Councillors wanted to see more case studies around the actual apprenticeships and whether they had been successful – leading on to paid work. Chris will relay this back.
Discussions took place around the next motion to Full CouncilOYC have constitutional rights to ask Council to make changes in Oldham. They do this formally by attending a full council meeting and putting a motion to full council. More. It was decided to delay this time but have 2 motions ready for the next 2 meetings.
Tom asked about the GMP Independent Advisory Group rep. where young people can scrutinise actions of GMP to help advice for future incidents. There will be an election in the first meeting in September, using the new single transferrable vote system. There is only one position for this open.
Ying suggested to the communications officer to send out minutes via emails, alongside a form where Youth Councillors can add their contribution. This will be done from now on, with a link to these minutes and a link to the anonymous form sent to Youth Councillors via email.
