It’s amazing to look back on my last blog (a while ago – sorry about that) and see how much my role as Youth Engagement Officer has developed since then. Ten weeks in, I now have a pretty clear picture of what I’ll be doing for the rest of the year, and have been rapidly moving away from a “shadowing” role to take on more and more responsibility with leading groups.
This past month, I’ve been continuing to help out with the running of our Employability Award in the Outdoors with Youth Vision and our own Coastal Communities programme (see their blog here), as well as running a taster session of my own at our Jupiter centre in Grangemouth. Back in the office, I’ve been familiarizing myself with funding streams and looking into ideas for my personal project later this year. I’ve also finished a report on Youth Engagement within the organization, complete with plenty of new ideas for the future. Watch this space, I guess!
I still get to go on training courses, too. I came across a free two-day drystane dyking workshop run by North Edinburgh Arts, for example – a really inspiring organization based in Muirhouse, whose new community garden is now slightly closer to completion after our tentative efforts at wall-building (see their blog here). I went on that course with a view to gaining the sort of practical skills required to run groups such as Coastal Communities, but it turns out learning to build a drystone wall is more than two days’ work (for me at least)! It was a start, though, and a fantastic couple of days in sunshine (that’s right) and great company.
Roll on the spring!