OYC Meeting Minutes – 14/06/2023

OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY (CLLR EDDIE MOORES)
Eddie Moores came to the meeting to talk about the change in the scrutiny panel. Now there are four panels, with one panel focusing on children and young people, which is lead by Eddie Moores, and another one for adults and health (which does include children’s health). The overview and scrutiny panel is to discuss the issues in the services Oldham Council provides, including efficiencies, and involves members of all political parties. The current agenda for children and young people include: healthy lifestyle, youth services, looked after children, child protection, school protection, school progression and more.
The panel will run for around 15 hours each year, and Eddie Moores said that they want two people from Oldham Youth Council to sit on the board. Only councillors get voting rights in these panels, but the other members can ask questions.
The overview and scrutiny panel also includes cabinet members (such as the cabinet member for education) and managers in the Oldham Council offices, for departments relating to children and young people.
Eddie Moores asked if it is possible for two members of Oldham Youth Council to participate in these panels. Chris suggested that we do get four members to be representatives, with two people on the Children and Young People board, and another two people on the Adult board as it includes children’s health. Chris also highlighted that it would be good for us to get involved in this, as this allows us as Oldham Youth Council to push for the items young people voted for in the Make Your Mark (2022) and Making Your Mark Oldham (2023).
Based on the unpublished Making Your Mark Oldham results, issues such as safety and mental health came up highly. Eddie Moores (who represents Chadderton North) discussed how Chadderton Hall Park is not safe for people, especially young women, due to anti-social behaviour.
Tom mentioned that the Our Streets program (lead by Cllr Sam Al-Hamdani) is currently in the pipeline. This program’s objective is to increase safety.

MOTION TO FULL COUNCIL (CHRIS)
Chris talked about how the Youth Councillors discussed in the previous meetings and priorities meeting that vapes, especially disposable vapes, are causing issues, which includes the high nicotine, some people adding on their own liquids on top of it and causing hospitalisations. Alongside holding awareness about vapes and surveying people to see what the issues are, youth councillors agreed that we should make a motion to Oldham Council, in order to ask them to ask the government to ban disposable vapes in particular. From the priorities meeting, youth councillors wanted to include the following in the motion:

1. What the government are currently doing
2. Results of Making Your Mark Oldham
3. Other statistics regarding vaping uptake, smoking uptake related to vaping and hospitalisation
4. The negative consequences of disposable vapes
5. What other organisations are doing e.g. a charity lobbying the UK Government
6. How disposable vapes are being used e.g. topping up the vapes with oils

Youth councillors split into groups to research what the government are doing, negative consequences of vapes (including personal anecdotes) and searching what other organisations are currently doing.

EVENTS AND TRIPS (CHRIS)

• Mon 19 June 2023 evening (from 7pm) at Mayors Office, a meeting to discuss the mayor’s charity events and to make suggestions on how to engage more young people.
• Sat 24 June 2023, YouthForia in Preston, people who put their names down will be contacted.
• Wed 05 July 2023 evening, Youth Mayor Making (amended from 28 June due to Eid). This is a mandatory meeting for all Youth councillors, with youth councillors being requested to arrive no later than 5:45pm.
• Mon 31 July 2023, Beeheard. Alesha went to Beeheard recently (group of young people from Greater Manc who meet on last Monday of the month about mental health). It is about directing what happens in Greater Manchester. Need an extra attendee for the meeting.
• Mon 21 August 2023 till Wed 23 August 2023, the annual Super Resi at Anderton Centre. Anyone who would like to go will be asked next meeting.

AOB (CHRIS)

In addition to the meeting on Mon 19 June 2023, Chris discussed that the Oldham Mayor have an idea to not give big chunks of money to charity, but small chunks of money (up to £500) for people to do their own events. Alongside this, he mentioned that on the 9^th and 10^th of September, there is a 36 mile walk (42 miles for extended route) – known as the “Oldham Way” challenge, and is walking around the boundary of Oldham, with overnight stay in Castleshaw.

Alongside this, regarding Beeheard, it was made known by young people attending that there are 3 different trusts running CAHMS in Greater Mancs, and this is the forum to say how it is wrong. Especially since the trusts operate in some of the boroughs, so waiting lists are long in some boroughs and not in others. (~3 weeks in some, ~3 months in others).

Chris mentioned that Oldham Youth service runs the Champions group on Tuesday evenings, where young people can come along, do some work for Oldham Youth Council, and gets help on getting elected. There are currently around 5 members. Hamza previously came up with the ideas for videos for Oldham Youth Council for YouTube and other media platforms. One idea included making advertisements making a parody of other advertisements and promoting Oldham. The Champions came up with ideas and are helping to create some. However, they require help from Oldham Youth Council about one of the advertisements, which is a parody of one of the Royal Navy advertisements, and a youth councillor is needed to write a poem of about 15 lines long, with a tempo to it and some rhyming, aimed towards people who like creative writing. Another one is where the Champions wanted youth councillors to ask basic questions about them and journey with Oldham Youth Council.