Friday drop-ins
STAVELEY INSTITUTE (next to the Village Hall)
YPOS Sessions - 4.00 - 7 pm at the Institute (next to the Village Hall) in the Summer Term. The venue means that YPOS will still be open for all but that we will be expecting you to stay for as long as you wish and not drift in and out. You will need to sign in and out.
This is the time to grab a snack and hang out in a safe and fun space if you’re 10 years old or above. For the first hour or so we hope to create a space where we can chill out with an opportunity for quiet activities - such as craft activities.
If you come regularly please get your parents or carers to fill out our consent form. That way we can let you and them know what is going on, contact them in an emergency and return any thing you might leave behind!
There will be our usual mix of craft and social activities but we will have an additional focus.
Our draft programme so far is:
17 April - Baking Bonanza – this will be a mini-bakeoff
14 April – Felt Friday with Danni
30 April – Games night with Danni - including SWITCH tournaments.
8 May – escape room – Sarah and Niall (TBC)
15 May – Circus Skills – Euphoric Circus
22 May – Karaoke night and cereal night
29 May – Lego building
In the future we hope to open somewhere as a meeting place for older young people. Adults will be at hand but it will be your space to develop.
Keep YPOS going with a donation, BACS transfer to Staveley with Ings Together, sort code: 30-14-40, account number: 16530360, Reference YPOS
Easter Holiday Activities
YPOS
Will not be running holiday activities this Easter Holiday but you are encouraged to take part in the HAF activities on 3, 4, 5 March 2026 in the Village Hall. These will be run by Lizzy and Toni and Euphoric Circus.
Sign up on-line to secure a place.
The Summer Holidays and half-term holidays are over! So it is time to reflect upon our activities and start to plan for next time!
This summer we had:
a Roller Disco with Euphoric Circus and many of us skated to fun music in a lively disco atmosphere.
a taster session at the Staveley Bowling Club.
had a go at Circus skills and acrobatics with Euphoric Circus.
built cosy homes for the hedgehogs in our community. With the help of Martin from the Furniture Makers Collective we made some sturdy hedgehog boxes.
spent an afternoon fishing down by the river with Phil from Staveley Anglers and Dennis.
had a special session in the rain with the skills ramps and helped get bikes in order.
run the first Great Staveley Bake Off and demonstrated that we are great bakers.
turned old, discarded clothes into new fashion in our Slow Fashion Workshops for us to wear and dressed our companion Dolly!
Built and programmed our friendly Lego robot.
During the February half term
we held a craft day and a build a hedgehog home workshop.
It all started when year 6 at Staveley CE Primary school (now in year 8 in secondary school) told the Community Plan Group they wanted a chill out space in the village. This is one of our Action Priorities in the Community Plan.
But where’d we get the money? Staveley Parish Council and SENS (Sustainable Staveley) applied for some money from Westmorland and Furness Climate and Nature Partnership fund. We asked for money to establish a Youth Forum where young people could meet, enjoy themselves and express their views. We were successful.
Then we ran the Pizza Pop up and 38 young people came along and agreed that they needed a chill-out space to meet and connect. As well as giving us loads of other ideas.
Toni, Lizzy, Ruby and Sharon from U-4-X (Euphoric Circus) agreed to help us.
The Friday drop-in was born on 20 September at Staveley Pavillion so we could try and include as many of the young peoples ideas as we could. It includes creative, fun challenges and sporting activities as well as a focus on environmental projects. Danni, from the Cumbria Wildlife Trust is often at the drop-in and showcases some of her work.
Staveley with Ings Parish Council gave us money for two additional drop-ins so we kept going until Christmas.
We are now ready to go forward and have a grant that should pay for youth workers for three whole years from Better Tomorrow’s grant. We also have a year’s funding for hiring the room and paying for some of the refreshments.
We still need young leaders and adults have volunteered to support the drop-in.
THANKS!
We want to make the drop-in even better as we take it forward. We hope to have two groups in the future - one for year 6 to year 8 (11 - 14) and one for year 9 plus (14+)
SOME IDEAS
More plants, Lego, making stress toys, games, activities and sports on the field, speakers for the music, stuff in the woods, park and around the village, skate park, rounders on the field, food activities , comfy seats
and much, much more.
Help
The Better Tomorrows grant provides youth worker (s) to organise and plan and make sure things happen. They will also help run activities during the holidays and at weekends. It will be up to the young people themselves to make the decisions.
Westmorland and Furness Council have provided money for equipment refreshments and consumables.
We need volunteers to help on the day and with admin.
MOST OF ALL we need support from the SVA to ensure that we have a suitable room that we can afford and somewhere to store our stuff.
Staveley with Ings Together (SWIT) are the organising body but we have commissioned Euphoric Circus CIC to run the sessions, supported by volunteers. They are a charitable incorporated organisation that promotes the physical and social-emotional wellbeing of young people aged 5-25, through a range of programmes and projects linking them up with their communities.
Lizzy, Ruby, Toni, Sharon and a number of volunteers are running our YPOS Sessions.
Danni Metcalfe, Staveley Woodlands Officer for CWT, has ran a series of nature sessions to get us started after attending the initial youth drop in sessions earlier in the year. She is a regular contribution to YPOS.
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