The Welly Way: Walking the Talk - Youth leading the way in Our Town
The story so far! Our Town our Turn, Ten Towns funded project, April to June 2026
Flash Flicks Cinema and Youth Drop In
The Flash Flicks cinema and Youth Drop In sessions project was a huge success with 55 young people between the ages of 13 and 17 attending over the 3 Drop Ins and the 3 cinema nights. The group of youth accessing the monthly Drop in sessions is growing to involve a wider range of peer groups. This includes boys, girls and members of the LGBTQ community from Ysgol Glan Y Mor, Ysgol Strade and Ysgol Bro Myrddin.
We also created volunteer opportunities for both youth and adults. 1 adult volunteer youth leader, 5 adults volunteering to help out at Sessions and cinema nights and 6 youth volunteers offering extra time with cinema food prep, running the tuck shop and the setting up of sessions.
We are proud to say of the young people who attended that engagement was highly enthusiastic! Many of them helped with general planning of cinema nights, designing flyers and posters, food choices, film choices and sourcing suitable seating. They also fed back creatively and came up with lots of ideas for any future sessions, including fund raising by doing bag packing at the local coop, sponsored litter picks and car washes at the centre. They also wrote a letter to Cydweli town council asking for additional funding to support the project moving forwards over the Summer while we seek long term funding options. This is to be presented at July’s council meeting.
The first Cinema night was very well attended with 17 young people coming along, the second two were a little less busy as many had to stay home to revise as GCSE exams were in full swing during the last 2 months. All Drop Ins have been very popular and the group is especially keen to continue through July and August. They have made it clear to us how important this contact time is for them, especially in the Holidays.
We have set up a centre managed Instagram page that has 41 followers and growing, mostly young people. You can follow us here:
https://www.instagra...ewellyway/
Through the Tuesday evening Youth Drop Ins the group began identifying what they would like to see happen at the centre for them. They really enjoy the Tuesday sessions and the most important thing to them is to continue having a space to meet up ideally at least fortnightly.
The group would like to do different events rather than just cinema nights although they are happy they now have the equipment to run these when they feel like it. The equipment has proved versatile for other activities so was a wise investment.
The screen, projector and speakers have been used for Just Dance, playing music at Drop Ins and can be used for karaoke and gaming which is something they would also like to do.
The Community centre also bought them a Dart Board after identifying this as something they would enjoy, it has proved very popular. They would also like a crafting area, boardgames, sofas, and some gaming consoles.
They would also love to paint the room to make it more cosy and welcoming, they had some creative ideas and this could be an art project led by an artist if we can secure some suitable funding.
The Ten towns funding was invaluable and utilised in the best possible way as a catalyst to engage with local young people to bring them together, hear their needs and creative ideas and form a positive, creative and nurturing relationship between the centre and local youth. We are proud to have become a base for the youth of our town and surrounding area.
Continued Support
The Princess Gwenllian centre very much supports the continuation of this youth provision and hopes that we can find a way to continue long term to take this forward for our youth and our town so that we have a much needed long term sustainable youth provision for Cydweli and its surrounding communities. If we continue we will amend the age bracket to 13 to 17 year olds, no 18 year olds attended and it was generally agreed they have many other options already.
So far we have engaged with a qualified youth leader from Dr Mz who is helping us in taking this forward long term as a paid role. We are also actively working with local businesses, KTC and CCC to secure further funding to maintain a fortnightly Tuesday Youth Drop In.
We would like to give a special shout out and thank you to Beth at TP Feeds in Cydweli for sponsoring our first Drop In session on Tuesday 14th July.
Further Funding and Sponsorship
We are awaiting a reply from Kidwelly town council for help to continue the Summer sessions so that it gives us some time to secure further funding.
Gareth from our wonderful Shogun kickboxing classes at the centre is motivating his students to organise a sponsored bike ride and car wash to support the sessions and we continue to liaise with Carmarthenshire county council to seek long term funding as well as looking for other options.
We will also be asking other local businesses if they would be willing to sponsor the sessions.
Lastly but definitely not least!
We want to highlight how brilliant all those that attended have been with their helpfulness, respect for us and each other and really fantastic input. The funders were blown away by the dynamics within the group when they visited us to see how it was going. We are so glad to have given them the opportunity to be heard and we value all they had to contribute.
Donations and Volunteering
If anyone has anything they may wish to donate to the group in funds or resources please let us know.
If you are or know someone who may be interested in volunteering opportunities in Youth work on a Tuesday evening, or may wish to undertake Level 2 Youth work we may be able to offer you a place alongside our Youth worker as this would provide the hours needed in a youth placement to complete the training.
Please contact secretary@princessgwenlliancentre.org if this is of interest to you.