How to elect the Youth Council

We had a very productive meeting on Saturday at which we discussed the Wildlife Trust's 'Living Landscapes' initiative, procedures for recruiting and electing Youth Council members and what the Youth Council's name should be. Steering Group members had some great ideas for the name, but we didn't manage to reach a conclusion before it was time to go home. We were brainstorming and the three important features seemed to be youth, wildlife and Sussex, but we had differing opinions on whether the name should be initials of something with a general meaning, like NEWTY - Nurturing Enjoyment of Wildlife Through Youth, initials of something less meaningful but more direct, like SWTYC - Sussex Wildlife Trust Youth Council, or simply a couple of words, like Wild Unite or Nurture Nature. We looked at examples of other names - the RSPB Youth Forum is called the Phoenix Forum which is quite good, whilst Horsham Youth Council is HYPER - Horsham Young People's Elected Representatives, but decided to discuss further in here.

We finalised our proposal for the set up and election of the Youth Council and this will be discussed by the Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) Board of Trustees on the 17th Dec. Hopefully they will like our ideas, but if there are any problems, these will be discussed at our next meeting on the 10th January.

I look forward to hearing more ideas for your Youth Council name.

Sarah