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Wales youth panel chat and that…

Today I attended the Wales Youth Panel consultation day which was great  fun and very informative.  The day began with a scavenger hunt around Cardiff City Centre.  I teamed up with Eleri Thomas from the Wales Programme Team and three young people from our youth panel.  We named our team ‘5-Alive’ and a smart decision early on saw our team split into two to cover maximum ground in the allocated time.

We headed out in search of wild animals, a policeman with a moustache, blue flowers, and Lord Tredegar on his horse Sir Briggs.  We headed straight for the Central Police station where a bemused but helpful receptionist told us she would ask in the Parade Room if there was a moustached policeman available for a photo.  Sadly the South Wales police force were either clean-shaven or sporting a beard today and so we left the police station empty-handed.

Undeterred we ventured towards the park where we found Lord Tennyson’s statue and where we hoped there might be some blue flowers.  Sadly there were no blue flowers to be seen as Cardiff Council seem to have invested exclusively in purple and yellow crocuses this year.  But joy of joys, as we rushed back towrads the office we noticed a moustached Bobby on the beat.  After reassuring a slightly scared and embarassed looking police officer that we were not completely nuts, we got our photo and chanced across a menu board with a blue rose painted on it.  A quick comms update with our other team-mates told us that they had been largely successful too.

Back at the office we had to photo a team handstand, which ended up with me doing a handstand while the rest of my team held a sign with our team name on it.  I felt an immense sense of achievement at still being able to do a handstand (although the elation could have been caused by the sudden rush of blood to my head).

Once all the teams were back we headed to the Urdd Centre in Cardiff Bay where we had lunch and began an afternoon of consultation with the Wales youth panel.  It was a fabulously informative day as the young people flagged up issues that concerned them, ideas that they wanted taking forward, and things they thought we could improve on.  It has given me a lot of food for thought and I am excited to begin working with some members of the Wales youth panel on improving our communication and marketing of fundraising opportunities to young people throughout Wales.

The icing on the cake was that ‘5-Alive’ won the scavenger hunt.  What did we win……Guatemalan Worry Dolls, and the glory!

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