Visiting Northfield Young People's Centre today (YPC) ... will be the first YPC I've visited since I took on the 'Children and Families' role - although I do remember visiting several YPC's back in 1999/2000 when I was 'Vice-Convener of Social Work' for my first year on the Council! Haven't visited Northfield before though, so very much looking forward to it ... had some difficulty in finding it actually, which ironically is probably a good thing in that the building does blend in with the surrounding estate and isn't in any obvious way a Young People's Centre.
The young people at the Centre made me very welcome, gave me a comprehensive tour of the facilities, thrashed me at pool unfortunately, and even allowed me to join them for their evening meal. There are only 7 places at Northfield, lots of staff on a constant rota, and quite obviously pretty high paper-costs for running such a facility. But ... just looking at those costs doesn't portray the intensive, and necessary, care the young people at Northfield are obviously receiving and which is clearly a positive investment in all our futures, not just theirs.
I was impressed with Northfield.
On to the internal Labour Party selection meeting this evening ... I really didn't enjoy the process, but managed to get through it successfully and am now the Labour Party candidate for the new "Fountainbridge and Craiglockhart" multi-member ward. 39 Branch Members present for the vote, biggest turnout so far for the 17 new wards, and only goes to underline the stiff competition there was ;-((
2 comments:
So Andrew,
don't keep us in suspense, have you been selected for next year!???
p.s. Love the blog, could give us some more detail on your meetings with officers though?
Anonymous
Sorry - the whole selection process has been so time consuming (and unenjoyable) that I failed to keep as regular an update as normal on the blog.
But, now rectified and have filled the last few days out a bit, and yes I've been successfully selected.
Glad you like the blog - to be honest, I'm just not sure how far to go in revealing discussions with officers! Trying to strike a balance obviously ... but perhaps you're right and a bit more candour is required?
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