A lot has happened since the 10th of April and my last round-up of events. It’s not all been Thursday’s Local Elections - there have been quite a  number of meetings, and a fair bit of ‘casework’.

CA / JAR

 The Inspectors have been and gone, and there’s even been time for another meeting of the Member Advisory Group. (Are the Officers advising the Members? Or vice-versa? Or both? In practise I have experiened mainly the first.)

I am still trying to get to grips intellectually with the CA / CPA system of inspection well enough to write about it. The finished version will get published here Real Soon Now, but in the meantime the draft has been acting as a stumbling block each time I open up this web site’s admin area. However I will continue to work on a members-eye-view, because if you’re interested enough to have got past the acronyms and read this far, you probably want the gory details. In so far as I am allowed to give them.

Woking Youth Council

Woking Youth Council had its AGM on the 22nd April. It usually meets in the Council Chamber, but this time the sixteen or so youngsters taking part had to make do with a Committee Room.

You have to be 11-18 to take part; I was there as an observer on behalf of Surrey County Council’s Local Committee. While there is help from Woking Borough Council and Surrey’s Youth Development Service people, the young people themselves Chair meetings, take minutes, and have a Treasurer to keep track of the money.

There is real money for them to keep track of, and in quite reasonable quantities, coming from Woking Borough Council and from the Youth Opportunities Fund. The sorts of things they can use it for are to support activities for young people in the Borough - in the past, the Youth Council has run ‘Uproar’, a music event with young local bands.

There is also training available to them, for example in how to Chair meetings, and a residential team-building weekend was being finalised.

If you or someone you know is interested in taking part, there is some more information and an on-line application form on the Woking Borough Council website, at  http://www.woking.gov.uk/community/children/young/democracy/wokingyouthcouncil

The Woking Youth Council is now coming up to its fifth anniversary, and it is really good to see how there are now a body of experience within the group that allows its young members to take part constructively and also confidently; guided by adults but not, I think, dominated by them. 

The Children and Familes committee and the Schools and Learning Committee have had further meetings. One of the most interesting items was about ROCPA. Please excuse me if I drop in here the short section I’ve written about it for the GPCA news. (And also please excuse the lack of uniformity of font this causes. One day maybe I’ll work out how to make this software sing and dance. Perhaps.)

ROCPA: Raising of the Compulsory Participation Age 

ROSLA, in 1972, was the Raising of the School Leaving Age, so that it became sixteen. Now the Government is saying that from 2015 all 16 to 18 year olds will be required to participate in some form of education or training. In April’s Schools and Learning Committee we heard how Surrey County Council has started planning for this, since the responsibility for commissioning and funding 16 – 18 education is moving back to the Local Authority.It shouldn’t be a matter of keeping unwilling youngsters longer at school, but of widening the opportunities available, both in terms of college-based vocational training and helping employers provide worthwhile learning opportunities to young people while they work. Easy enough to say, but this will be an enormous challenge to carry out effectively. One committee member asked about ‘refusers’. How can you force youngsters of this age into school or training? Would dropping out in itself turn them into young offenders? The Officer presenting the report recognised that this would be a disaster, and ROCPA had to be developed in a way that would appeal to young people, ‘so that there are routes that mean young people are not forced out of the system.’

            As the Chairman said, ‘this is going to be enormous – it’s starting to bubble up.’ And we’ve none too much time to get it right, once you realise that the first children to be affected by it are already in Year Five.

The Friends of Knaphill Library met on April the 24th. We’ve got two of the group’s original target activities underway. These are a well attended Book Group, and Friday morning mother-and- toddler ‘Story Times’ and ‘Rhyme Times’ during term time. These are now so successful that if many more people come, there will have to be a (free) ticket system. I’ve been involved with both activities, as one of the reading group, and as a  ’stand-by’ person leading Rhyme or Story time when the (really super) regulars aren’t available. Friday 25 was my first Rhyme Time, which I thoroughly enjoyed preparing and presenting. It quite takes me back to my long-ago career with the BBC, and the glory days of once producing the legendary Listen with Mother!

Next on the agenda for the Friends is Local History, though we’re not sure what would be popular in terms of starting a group up. The hope is that this will brings in new, enthusiastic people to go on developing  the use of the library as a community resource.