Mayor’s Sunday Celebrates Our Young Talents

Mayor’s Sunday celebrated our young talents and whilst I had worries no-one would turn up, the turn out was AMAZING!

The Service at Pendeen Church

The children of Pendeen School were the stars – singing and reading the prayers. The little goats from the school were also cool and the Head made me laugh by telling all of us to have more children (for them to teach)…I hate to say it but more than a few of us were beyond our child bearing years!

The refreshments after were wonderfully provided by Della Boyns. Again, when I saw how packed the church was, I worried there would not be enough food BUT, I took some left overs to the Street Project that feeds local homeless people and their service users were tucking in before I left! The stars of the Parish rooms (where the refreshments were) were Ocean Town our young band from Nancherrow Youth Club and Rosie Bishop, Deputy Chair of Cornwall Youth Council. Do keep an eye on the Town Council website as we want to encourage our young people (I think that is 11 to 24 years) to consider becoming a Member of Cornwall Youth Council and maybe even get our own St Just Youth Council started!

MY WORDS OF WISDOM AND THANKS

Firstly, welcome and thank you to all those attending and to Karsten and Members of Pendeen Church for allowing this Civic event to take over their church.

Hopefully the youthful nature of some of those attending has not escaped your eyes and that is because I did not want this to be a forerunner to other events like Feast and Remembrance Sunday; I want to celebrate, encourage and promote our community’s future – our young people, and that includes those leading organisations and groups that support them growing up and into adulthood. Thank you to all those working with and volunteering with our young people – today is for you and those in your care … so enjoy!

A special thank you to Ocean Town, our own youth band which I hope will go on to greater things and bigger audiences. I did ‘O’ level music with Paul Weller and, at school, I’ll be honest, many of us mocked him and his mates and their ideas of being in a band. I look back and regret that and I’m very glad it did not deter him from allowing his talents to blossom; when I hear him speak these days, I’m immensely proud I shared a classroom with him.

Just a couple to Town Council matters to bring to your attention.

We are looking for someone to join us as a Town Councillor. You must be at least 18 and live or work within the Parish of St Just (so that includes Pendeen), but most important is that you want to listen to people who live and work here and represent them when we are making council decisions. It is fair to say under 35’s and women are under represented amongst our Councillor team so, applicants fitting those characteristics are particularly welcome. Details of how to throw your hat in the ring are on the Town Council website or talk to a Town Councillor or staff member here today. Applications must be in by 2 October.

Town Council also want to bring to your attention that we still have over £21,000 in our Grants budget to give local community groups. We want to spend this before the end of March so, if a group you are involved in has an idea and the lack of funds is stopping it happening, look at the grants page on the Town Council website and consider applying.

We have just introduced a new question on our grant form, to help our community reduce waste and carbon emissions. How will the project improve energy efficiency/recycling or reduce carbon emissions to support the council to tackle the climate emergency agenda?

So, if your group has an idea that meets that, do get in touch asap.

This might be Mayor’s Sunday but you have probably heard enough from this old Mayor so I now want to call upon a potential future Politician, Rosie Bishop, who is Deputy Chair of Cornwall’s Youth Council and I hope some of our young people will listen hard to her and consider getting involved, like her!