Tuesday, 29 August 2023

International Youth Day

Alison MARCHANT (Bellarine) (13:26): Recently, to celebrate International Youth Day, I reached out to the Bellarine community and invited young people to write to me about their ideas and goals for the future. Overwhelmingly, I received emails regarding the Barwon Heads Scout hall, and I would like to share some of those today. Zoe, being new to Barwon Heads, explained:

… it was through Scouts that I made … wonderful friendships and that Barwon Heads began to feel like home. Barwon Heads Scouts is a wonderful community, with amazing activities and great leaders.

Sadly, the Scout Hall at Barwon Heads is not of the same standard.

The Barwon Heads hall isn’t big enough for the entire scouting group and most activities are held outside, and if events cannot be held outside, they have to travel to Queenscliff to a bigger hall.

The current hall is … old and has reached the end of its very long life. It leaks, has holes, is smelly and is rotting in places.

Tessa, Maddie and Jess also wrote to me and said that their membership had increased by 25 per cent since last year, which is incredible:

However, it further demonstrated the need for a larger space.

We particularly love the games and activities, but we can’t do it in the current club hall because it’s too small.

It is:

… starting to fall apart, the stumps are rotting and there are small holes in the walls which causes leaks when it rains. The toilets are HAUNTED and scary!!! There is no privacy, and we don’t use them for that reason. We don’t have a kitchen …

Community groups like the Barwon Heads Scouts are vital to our community and to ensuring our kids have the opportunity to learn new skills and socialise and enjoy the great outdoors. I would like to say a big thankyou to everyone who wrote to me regarding the Barwon Heads Scout group, especially Tessa, Maddie, Jess and Zoe.