Ever-growing youth club to get £5k boost (From Oxford Mail)

Ever-growing youth club to get £5k boost

2:00pm Thursday 4th October 2012 in News By Debbie Waite, Features writer

A YOUTH club which started out with just a handful of members and now offers sports, crafts and fun to 86 youngsters a week, is the latest cause to benefit from a cash boost in the Queen’s Jubilee year.

Kirtlington Youth Club (KYC) has been awarded £5,000 by the Oxfordshire Community Foundation (OCF), the organisation behind the county’s Jubilee Fund, supported by the Oxford Mail.

The money has secured the club’s packed programme of activities for another year.

Rob Cooke, who lives in Kirtlington and helped set up the KYC said: “We realised there was a real need for a youth club here after our Parish Plan in 2009 identified there was very little for older children to do.

“KYC started in May 2010 with our new youth leader Dave Rudge working four to five hours a week, and between five and 10 youngsters turned up.

“After one year we had 30 members and now Dave works seven hours a week and we have 86 youngsters attending three different age group clubs each Wednesday evening.”

As well as a tuck shop, table tennis and a Wii, KYC offers a wide range of activities, ranging from sports sessions to arts and crafts and trips out for ice skating and bowling. KYC depends heavily on the help of volunteers from the village and a steady stream of fundraising events to keep it afloat.

Mr Cooke added: “We need around £6,000 a year to do what we do and without it, things just could not happen.

“Things are going really well and we are hoping our success will inspire other villages to set up their own youth clubs.”

Youth Leader Dave Rudge, 29, said: “This will ensure that we can carry on working with young people from the local villages until the end of 2013. It’s fantastic news.”

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