Transit All the Way
A Kilkenny grant maker tells us about their trip North
At the start of the year we came up with a great idea to visit other Youthbanks and to see what they were getting up to and to get a bigger picture of what Youthbank is all about. We also wanted to see how they were dealing with fundraising and grant rounds. So..we contacted Banbridge and Craigavon as very few of us had ever been to Northern Ireland, so we thought a visit to Belfast would be amazing to include also.
When talking with Banbridge YouthBank the fundraising idea of collecting a mile of coppers was born!! All the YouthBank groups were going to be busy collecting all the coppers they could and then we would try to stretch them out and see who could reach a mile long : )
On the morning of the trip we all realised that we had to change our money to sterling. So we all rushed to the post office to get it changed. When we returned to the bus, Mel, our driver was waiting and so the journey began... A long four hours later (as the bus is old and we had a mid way stop!) we arrived in Banbridge. We had a great time meeting the other groups and everyone was really nice and friendly. Eimear and Terry had lots of games organised and we got to know various facts about the other people there through ‘human bingo’. We all had lunch together before we went to our hotel to drop off our things. The hotel we stayed in was really nice. We had huge rooms and we got a cooked breakfast in the morning.
After we had freshened up we took a trip into Belfast together where first we visited the Natural history museum in Botanic Gardens which was spread out over 5 levels and was really interesting and educational. We then took a less educational trip into Victoria Shopping Centre where we hung out for a few hours. Later that evening we went to an ‘All you can eat’ Chinese buffet, where we ate ridiculous amounts of food!!
The next day we all met up bright and early in Banbridge where we gave presentation to each other on our YouthBanks; the work we had done, were currently doing and what we hope to do for the future. It was interesting listening to the other groups telling us about their YouthBanks and we got a much better understanding.
In the afternoon it was raining so we decided to fill the floor inside the youth centre with the coppers instead. We didn’t think we would win as the sterling coppers were huge but we had gathered so much we managed to fill a large section of the floor with them and when we got back we had actually collected €258.49 in coppers!! We all had lunch together and a few last games of air hockey before setting off for Kilkenny. We were sad to leave but happy to know that Banbridge are really interested in coming down to Kilkenny for a visit! It was a long journey home but we had great fun in the bus ‘transit all the way’!
Check out all the pics from our trip on: Kilkenny YouthBank facebook page or pop onto www.ossoryyouth.com and see them there.
Written by a grant maker from Kilkenny YouthBank
