I should be out helping Greens to be elected - canvassing and leafleting but there was a Policy Panel last night and as the only Green not standing in this election it fell to me to go - and very glad I was too. There was a presentation about Stroud's bid to claim money from a national fund to support 'Play' initiatives - all good stuff, well presented - shame only 5 out of 51 councillors were able to make it.Photo: Museum where last night's meeting was held - great Wisteria
Stroud District Council has done much work looking at this and where priorities should be. They picked three projects which still have to be approved by Cabinet before being put forward for approval - if accepted they will start early next year.
The three projects are:
- 2 Play Rangers funded to provide activities
- 3 MUGAs (Terrible name for Multi-Use Games Area) and a boulder wall (we can't know where until after elections)
- Significant improvements to Stratford Parks Skate Park
The Stroud Peer Education Project were there to help cross-examine councillors on the projects and gain our opinions.
The Peer Education Project is a group of some twelve 14 to 22 year olds who each year work with young people - and adults. It was initiated by young people to act as a self-support group in which they could discuss the issues affecting them including substance abuse but has grown to be much more. The main activities of the project include running interactive workshops and consultations for young people on issues such as drugs, sexual issues, bullying, diets and self image - they were a wonderfully enthusiastic group who had given up their time to support this project for young people in their District.
One of the warm-up activities of the evening did have a few of us struggling - I can't describe here but it included all of us swinging arms and calling out 'Monkey' and going "PHwaaaaa" as we did the 'Karate Kid' move. Download more info re Stroud Peer Education Project.Anyhow one issue I raised is that of Natural Play areas - click on the label link below to see my previous comments on this (especially 2nd October blog entry). Coincidently I came across David McCord's "Every Time I Climb a Tree" poem last week - not enough tree climbing goes on nowdays! Here's the final stanza of the poem:
And then I skin
The other leg
But every time I climb a tree
I see a lot of things to see
Swallow rooftops and TV
And all the fields and farms there be
Every time I climb a tree
Though climbing may be good for ants
It isn't especially good for pants
But still it's pretty good for me
Every time I climb a tree
Anyway after meeting and talking of 'play' I managed to get to Vine Tree for a drink - and met there Sheila Bliss, Randwick Wap's new Mayor for this year - now that is serious 'play' and more.
5 comments:
Hi Philip
I enjoy keeping up with your blog via the Atom feed. You are a busy man - good to see a Green councillor doing so much in their community and blogging it all too!
I was interested in the Policy Panel meeting you mention, particularly in the presentation that was given on play. I presume this was in relation to accessing the Play England funding that is available?
I have been involved in children's play provision in Cheltenham in the past, but since moving to Stroud I have not been up to speed with playwork provision in the Five Valleys. I am a lecturer in Playwork at the University with a particular interest in play ranger projects.
I know they have started play ranger projects in Cheltenham, BANES and North Bristol. It would be cool if a play ranger project would be started in Stroud.
Please could you let me have some more information on the presentation that was given to the policy panel, and any contact details you might have for the play ranger project proposers?
Thanks a lot.
It's great that SDC has at least one councillor who supports children's right to real play - I was impressed that you have quoted Helle Nebelong in a previous post; perhaps you have read Tim Gill's articles in the Guardian and the Ecologist? Are you aware of any other councillors with a particular interest in play?
Thanks,
I hope to hear from you.
Francis Barton
fbarton@glos.ac.uk
Just sent a response along these lines:
Very interested to get your comment on blog - thanks also for kind words re blog - the play funding if successful will come January and most has to be spent by next summer - Play Rangers would need to be appointed next year - my understanding is that a new Gloucestershire Company is already in negotiations with Stroud District Council over the contract and also hope to bring in funding from other sources after the 2 years of Government funding dries up - you would need to talk to Regeneration at Stroud District Council for further info on the bid etc. The presentation materials are not available yet but the Regeneration team would I am sure happily pass them onto you in a digital format.
Not sure how I first came across Helle Nebelong - probably when I started to research Green Spaces for a local Parish Plan - and was seeking something more than the sterile predictable playgrounds - thats' not to say all playgrounds are like that and some have their place - certainly I have since seen Tim Gill's excellent articles - the challenge has been to get the ideas across to others - not sure how many other councillors have heard of Wild Play areas or the like - certainly I've been pushing them at Parish and District level but there is resistance to providing something different.
Play is sadly forgotten - and it is a sad reflection on society in some ways that we have to remind people - our schools and even parenting seems to be all around educational value or its being entertained by TV or computer games - we seem to have forgotten the wonders and importance of play - and as I've written on the blog before the connection with nature is being severed even out here in supposedly a more rural area!! At a farm in this ward some 30 plus children were asked if they had eaten a blackberry straight from the bush - only 2 or was it 3 had!!
We need to develop a good project locally which helps children reconnect with nature and play - I hope through the Play Rangers that might be possible - or I would happily support a local group pushing for one.
Certainly Play Rangers and Wild play areas all fit with Green policies on many levels - anyway would be happy to talk more - do you have students that need placements?
One other aspect I've come across re play is access to the playgrounds, woods or whatever - parents to fearful to let children walk - a Shared Spaces approach to traffic would help reduce traffic fears and stranger danger by increasing pedestrians and cyclists - see more here:
http://www.resurgence.org/selection/booth0306.htm
We are hoping for a trial project in Stonehouse and/or Stroud. We really must start to take more care of our public spaces - anyhow I've gone on long enough now - all the best.
Philip - that is so true - children are not allowed enough tree-climbing, or wild play nowadays.
Scientists (!) now know for sure that environmental awareness in adulthood is directly related to how much unsupervised - this is a key word - play in wild nature that we get as children.
Today's Nintendo-bound couch potato is tomorrrow's eco-vandal.
This is one where the USA seems way ahead of us, with Richard Louv's No Child Left Inside campaign and much more...
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/240/
http://www.enn.com/med.html?id=1439
Thanks for the two good links above in the last comment - and yes quoted that research back in a June blog - here it is again as I consider it v important:
'WILD' NATURE PLAY BEFORE AGE 11 FOSTERS ADULT ENVIRONMENTALISM
If you want your children to grow up to actively care about the environment, give them plenty of time to play in the *wild* before they're 11 years old, suggests a new Cornell University study.
*Although domesticated nature activities -- caring for plants and gardens -- also have a positive relationship to adult environment attitudes, their effects aren't as strong as participating in such wild nature activities as camping, playing in the woods, hiking, walking, fishing and hunting,* said environmental psychologist Nancy Wells, assistant professor of design and environmental analysis in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell.
*When children become truly engaged with the natural world at a young age, the experience is likely to stay with them in a powerful way -- shaping their subsequent environmental path,* she added. Interestingly, participating in scouts or other forms of environmental education programs had no effect on adult attitudes toward the environment.
*Participating in nature-related activities that are mandatory evidently do not have the same effects as free play in nature, which don't have demands or distractions posed by others and may be particularly critical in influencing long-term environmentalism,* Wells said.
Unlike previous studies that have looked at the effect of childhood experiences of adult environmentalists, this study looked at a broad representative sample of urban adults. By examining individuals* pathways to environmentalism, the study also took a *life course* perspective, that is, a view that looks at individual lives as sets of interwoven pathways or trajectories that together tell a story.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060313183552.htm
Hi Philip,
Delighted to discover that you're "alive" to this really important issue. We need to make more space and time for children to play freely and naturally.
Talking of playing in trees, today I came across this example of little hitlerism;
12 year old children "arrested, DNA tested, interrogated and locked up... for playing in a tree."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=397240&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source
I am in despair about the way modern Britain is treating children. It's so bad that it often amounts to child abuse, with children being kept indoors and driven around in cars, constantly "marketed to", over-sexualised, pressured about exams and jobs, fed bad food - and that's just the ones with reasonably caring parents. For those with broken, drug and alcohol addicted and/or criminal parents, life is literally hellish, as Camilla Batmaghelidj points out so accurately.
Britain is creating a lost generation, but I think that grandparents and great-grandparents have potentially a huge positive role, because they are old enough to remember what real childhoods are about.
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