Agenda and minutes

Welcome by Chairman X and Vice Chair X

Suki welcomed Youth Councillors, guests, and officers to the meeting, she also introduced Paarth as the Vice Chair for this evening’s meeting which will be taking place via Teams.

Seargent Neil Ross talked about his role as an Essex Police officer. His post and two fellow P.C.s are funded by Epping Forest District Council, to support local issues in the district, but they can be called to cover Essex wide issues if needed by Essex police. He spoke about the great career opportunities Essex Police service offer and the variety of the work is outstanding. He encouraged the Youth Councillors to report any incidents of concerns they may have to the local police, or report anonymously using Crimestoppers.

Krish reported that the Repair my pocket survey has been completed, after making several changes to the questions to help with the analysis of the data. The survey has 13 questions and has been sent to all schools.

Survey link:  https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/9DM6JNH

Repair My Pocket is the latest youth project, the aim is to conduct a survey that will capture the impact the Cost-of-Living Crisis is having on young people. We also want to educate pupils and raise their awareness of scams, thus avoiding losing money to the scammers.

The scam awareness training has been designed by the Youth Councillors using the Thames valley police book, The Little Book of Big Scams. They have designed a PowerPoint presentation for schools, to deliver in the classroom to promote discussion about scams and how to avoid them. The Youth Councillors received £1000 from the Jack Petchey Foundation towards this project, to purchase 800 books for the nine secondary schools. This project is aimed at the GCSE students and sixth formers.

Matthew explained that Harry a member of I.A.G. has designed a survey about young people’s safety. The pilot will be conducted with Davenant pupils then sent to all secondary schools in the district during the spring term. There are 23 questions in the survey.

Update from schools - All Youth Councillors

Braeside

Chigwell

Davenant

Debden Park

Epping St Johns

Ilford County

King Harold

New City College

Roding Valley

The Ongar Academy

West Hatch

Braeside – No updates.

Chigwell – NewHead teacher is Mr Damian King.

Davenant – Cutting down resources, some revision materials are not available due to lack of funding. Too many supply teachers. One form group have had seven form teachers since September. 

Debden – Heating now turned on at school.

Epping St Johns – Trip to oxford university has been arranged.

King Harold – Have started a communities leaders club for charity events, first event is for children’s mental health week in February.Year 9’s has a university trip to oxford.

New City College – New sports hall is almost complete.

Roding Valley – Ski trip organised, Disney and Manchester Trips coming up.

West Hatch – No updates.

Wolsey Hall – No updates.

The Youth Council cup was presented to Krish Gohil. Krish has the highest attendance for 2022, attending 24 out of 25 meetings. Attendance is key to knowing what is going on and having the most up to date information. Krish has also been working on the Repair my Pocket survey with Paarth, the survey will be going live in all secondary schools in January. Krish will now join Falak at the Civic dinner awards in March.

1.    Youth Councillors thanked Di for organising their Christmas social and said how they all enjoyed themselves. TenPin Harlow was a great venue.

2.    Di informed the Youth Councillors that they have received a further £1000 from the Jack Petchey foundation. They received the funding as a thank you for meeting the report deadlines and for running excellent events and educational visits, such as visiting the Southend Youth Council and learning about their work. Di has booked the Lambourne End centre for the next team building day.

3.    The next Full Council meeting will be a Virtual meeting on TEAMS on Tuesday 7 February. There will be two guest speakers, the first guest speaker will be Genna Roberts from MIND West Essex. The second guest speaker will be Roy Aansted from the Essex Fire and Rescue services.