Opt In / Drop In

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Term One has been and gone in a flash, and in the blink of an eye we find ourselves at the start of Term Two, wondering where the months went. So, let’s take it back to the beginning of Term One, which is where this story begins… This is when we got an exciting new contract to provide youth services at the Newlands Community Centre!

We were set the task to provide a drop in centre three afternoons a week and at least one other afternoon where we were to offer a set activity to the awesome young people of Newlands community.

Towards the end of term one, we came up with a great concept of Opt in / Drop In. This meant that four days a week we would run the drop in centre, BUT also on those four days we would offer OPT In Activities. This meant that the young people chose whether they joined in on that particular activity by signing up on the activity sheet. We offered activities like Sports Day, Drama afternoon, Board games afternoon and even tried to set up a table tennis competition! It was slow to start, but we have had some great successes, like our Easter Egg Hunt on Wednesday March 31st! We even ran a couple of great school holiday programme days.

For the school holiday programmes we had an Amazing Race Day, where we had two teams guessing the rhyming riddles to get to different destinations around most of Wellington. The young people had a great time, with lots of different and creative photos to prove it. Our next holiday day programme was a sports day where we competed at Newlands Park and enjoyed a relaxing lunch at the Newlands Community Centre.

This term, we’re still offering the Opt in Activities with a few surprises thrown in. It’s a matter of growing what we have started and continuing to build on the activities we offer, showing the young people of Newlands our commitment to them.

We’ll keep you up to date with what is going on at the Newlands Community Centre – Youth Services.

Bridget, Michelle, Tui and Kirsty