A Youth Club that meets in a Railway Carriage achieves a Community Lottery Award
The Ironville & Codnor Park Community Association, who manage the club, recently submitted an application for funding to the National Lottery Community Fund. Funding is urgently needed to keep this now thriving Club going into the future.
The Youth Club faced several problems which threatened to bring over 20 years of community youth service in Ironville to an end.
The governing committee was ageing, with initially very few people coming forward to take their place and there has been a substantial rise in running costs. Previous fundraising activity had also fallen away. Funding is now urgently needed to: deliver our existing youth services; increase marketing; enable the new committee to develop; investigate the possibility of external youth organisations to run the club; develop a program of fundraising activities; allow us to take advantage of exciting new opportunities.
The now newly formed committee plan to introduce fundraising to sustain the club and recognise the earning potential of the carriage as a venue during time when the youth club is not running. As well as benefitting young people with careers advice; CV writing; increased self-confidence; activities increasing health and wellbeing; specific advice for young women; residents of the village benefit from reduced anti-social behaviour and vandalism.
A little more background: This is a thriving village youth club, unique in that it functions (for some 25 years) in an appropriately adapted/ heated railway carriage. There is a kitchen/ refreshment area, storage cupboards, toilet facilities, specially chosen furniture, pool table, television screen and we are licensed for music. Adjacent to the carriage is a floodlit hardcore play area marked out specifically for netball/ 5-a-side football.
The Youth Club is also currently part of a new creative art project, which will transform the way it looks, making it more vibrant, welcoming, and representative of the members’ interests, giving everyone a chance to express their creativity as part of the process. Artist Alastair Flindall from Neck of the Wood Studio is leading the project. Working with the young people, and their leaders over the autumn to co-design a new mural for the outside of the carriage. The project has just started in the last two weeks.