ROLE DESCRIPTIONS AND PROPOSALS
Chris begun the meeting discussing what each role does in Oldham Youth Council, in light of our upcoming elections for vice chair (22/02/2023), DMYP/MYP & GMYCA (08/03/2023) and Officers
(22/03/2023).
Youth councillors have been sent a detailed document about what each role is about, attached to an
email with the subject “Elections” sent on Tuesday the 7th of February. The key roles which currently exist with a brief decription include:
- Youth Mayor (No direct elections, promoted from chair).
- Chair – the person who will lead the Youth Council, make smaller decisions when needed and represent OYC at some meetings. (No direct elections, promoted from vice chair).
- Vice Chair – to support the chair, and to help represent OYC at strategic meetings.
- Member of Youth Parliament (2 positions) – two people who represents Oldham at a national level.
- Deputy Member of Youth Parliament (2 positions) – two people who help MYPs in nationwide campaigns, and step in when needed.
- Greater Manchester Youth Combined Authority Representatives (2 positions) – two people who represents Oldham at a Greater Manchester level.
- Communications Officer – the person who deals with both internal communications and external communications (e.g. social media, and the website).
- Campaigns Officer – the person who leads on local-scale campaigns.
- Priorities Officer – the person who leads all other priorities of the youth council which do not have campaigns.
- Inclusivity Officer – the person who makes sure OYC is inclusive for all, and that other content produced is accessible to everyone else.
- Wellbeing Officer – the person who makes sure that youth councillors are overall happy.
One key point, is that DMYP is a distinct role to MYP, since it is highly likely that a DMYP will no
longer be able to step up to MYP, hence they have been given more responsibility.
Another key point is that the “Events & Wellbeing Officer” has now been renamed to just “Wellbeing
Officer” because staff are the people who mainly arrange events, and not this officer.
Chris asked if youth councillors present in the meeting were happy with the description of the roles, to
which most youth councillors agreed.
In the meeting, it has been decided that in the vice chair elections, questions must be pre-written and
sent to Dayna. The questions will not be shared to candidates until the meeting. However, there will
be an allowance for some questions to be said on the day, as they may be related to the speeches, and for the MYP/GMYCA elections, each person will have 2 minutes instead of the 1.5 minutes but have
separate questions for MYP and GMYCA. The speech is extended to allow people running for both
representative roles to add their case for both. The officer role elections will have 1.5 minute speeches per person.
For after the elections, a point has been made that officers, representatives and chair roles discuss what they have done in some meetings to let the whole youth council know what is going on, and it is likely this will happen.
Alongside this, a new role for media is being trialled for the next twelve months, with Hamza and
Zaynab working on this. This role involves making content for social media. They may work with
other officers to help make their content, but they will create content not related to campaigns.
They will work with communications officer highly. If successful after the twelve months, it will become its own officer role.
PLANNING THE WORK OF THE YOUTH COUNCIL
Chris wanted Youth Councillor’s ideas on what to do, and talked with other participation workers in
other boroughs in the North West. Chris stated that we should do more, especially getting back on
track after COVID-19. This includes priorities e.g. anti-vaping priorities, how to do campaigns and
when – Youth Councillors asked for an aim for September for one of the campaigns and December
for the other. The campaigns will be based off the top two local issues on Make Your Mark, where
results will come in March 2023. Other things included hosting events, for example an event in
September / October 2023, and potential fundraising events.
KAHOOT
As this was Charlotte’s last full Youth Council meeting as the chair (as next meeting she is chairing
half of it, then becoming the Youth Mayor elect).
EVENTS & TRIPS
- Sunday the 19th of February 2023: YouthForia (Blackburn, on LGBTQ)
- Wednesday the 22nd of February 2023 6pm – 8:30pm: Vice Chair Elections (in the meeting)
- Wednesday the 8th of March 2023 6pm – 8:30pm: GMYCA, MYP & DMYP Representatives Elections (in the meeting)
- Friday the 10th of March 2023 – Oldham Mayor’s Ball (10 spaces open to the entire Oldham Youth Family) – it will happen during the evening between 6:30pm to 11pm.
- Wednesday the 22nd of March 2023 6pm – 8:30pm: Officer Elections (in the meeting)
AOB
Chris mentioned that the Oldham Youth Service would be moving, with the decision to be made
whether we move to Met place (in which case we would move in April 2023) or to Rock Street.
Prem (communications officer) brought up that the monthly recaps will be cut down to perhaps four per year. The schedule when these are released will be discussed, and updates will be posted at the bottom of this.
Many people also said their appreciations to Charlotte, for being chair.
ADDENDUM
The OYC slideshows will be scheduled for:
- Winter: January & February (released in March)
- Spring: March, April & May (released in June)
- Summer: June, July, August & September (released in October)
- Autumn: October, November & December with Year Recap (released in January the following year)
The winter edition is only 2 months as it would contain elections and a lot more, and the summer edition is 4 months due to examinations and youth councillors being out of town. The next release should be due in March 2023. Note that in 2023, our internal elections are happening in March so will be shown again in the Spring 2023 edition.
