
Membership-wise, the last year has been
hard, last summer our core group of 14-
16 year olds stopped attending the club
overnight and we experienced a period
where there were no young
people attending the club at
all. During August and September the
staff worked hard at attracting new
members to the club in various ways,
we went out and did outreach work in
Green Gates Park and the Bleach Green
Estate areas, we did detached work in
other areas such as Blaydon Bank, Loup
Farm Estate, Blaydon Burn and Winlaton.
We printed flyers explaining what the
youth club was about, what the young
people could expect and inviting them
to come along and try one or two of the
sessions but to no avail.
We then decided to try working with a
group, younger than our target group
as there were no seniors available.
Starting an intermediate
session on a Monday Night, and
attracted two or three 11-12 year olds
who had shown an interest in the club
we encouraged them to bring along their
friends and as numbers increased we
moved them to Senior Club on Tuesday’s
and Thursday’s. Slowly this approach
seemed to work as numbers increased and
crucially so did the age of the young
people attending, so that we now have a
membership of over 60 young people who
all attend the club at various times.
Hopefully this number will continue to
grow and Blaydon Youth Club will
continue to provide a sporting
and educational venue for the
youth of Blaydon and surrounding areas.
Paul Nichol( Part Time Youth Support
Worker )
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