Newtonhill & District Village Association

Getting more volunteers relies on good communications, and as over 70percent of the houses in Newtonhill have a net connected PC you can't beat a community website with teamworking built in:

http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/newtonhill_va/

Once you have joined up, to send a message to the whole group just send one email to:
Post message: newtonhill_va@yahoogroups.co.uk

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Simple!

Torcuill
PS: There's also a Calendar which sends you an email to remind you of any event

I am quite please as this is actually turning into quite a tasty debate and I could debate for hours and hours on this subject, unfortunately I doubt we will be able to actually resolve any of the issues discussed and I doubt we will suddenly get a ground swell of volunteers but you can always live in hope.

I actually wanted to address a couple of issues from the responses that I have seen from both Melanie, Steve and Bridget and again thanks for taking the time to respond even if you dont totally agree with all of my comments, I am not actually sure if I agree with all of my comment either.

When I criticised the lack of things for the kids to do I will openly admint I did not realise just how much there were until I got a response from Bridget and I agreed with her that I was mistaken in my assumption and I apologise if that in any way insulted any of the volunteers who run these groups. I would expect not as to be a volunteer in many of these groups you do need to develop a very thick skin. But apologies anyway.
I would still however still stand by my point that it is lost generation who are now 15 - 18 who had the their activities and wishes taken away due to one reason or another in the village.

As I was the Chairman of Newtonhill Boys Club for a good numbers of years I can really only commnent on the football front because that is what I know. On top of that I was assistant manager of the primary school team for two years. I am not going to go into it too much as it is all water under the bridge but just to give a few pointers of the problems we faced so as to help anyone who in the future may wish to run a football team or teams in the village.

At its peak we had in excess of 80 Boys, Girls,Coaches and committee members involved with the club. All of whom were from Newtonhill at three different age groups. This I am sure must surely have been one of the biggest community groups in the village if not the biggest.
Facilities were a problem as you would imagine and Coastal Park was our pitch which I am sure you all know is a bit of a mudbath at the best of times but no matter. The old cricket hut was where we were allowed to change and this was a totally unacceptable not to mention embarrasing and dangerous place to take visiting teams to the village. Our pitch was restricted so as not to interfere with the cricket wicket and was then pulled in further when the new and highly expensive cricket wicket was put in place (which never really got used). We were not allowed to use the big pitch in the village for many years due to objections from the two adult teams in the village. One time when we used the pitch without permission it led to a rather unessessary confrontation with one or our managers despite the fact that it was a public park.
Financially it was very difficult to keep the club going and we organised several dances for the village including the Bloody Mary's, The Afronauts and Tootie Frootie to mention but a few and these were always eagerly attented by some 250 - 300 villagers. The local shop at the time used to help us out with providing raffle prizes etc which was greatly appreciated at the time and by hook or by crook we managed to keep the club going.
We were forced to look to Muchalls and Fourdon to use their pitches for our matches and surprising both villages welcomed us with open arms, the bar at Fourdon paid for the hire of our pitches and provided refreshements for the kids at half time and offered their premises for our annual trophy presentation evenings. Muchalls let us convert their pitch, store our goals and use the local pub and community centre for our trophy awards free of charge. All this much more than was offered by our own village who either point blank refused to help or made it as difficult as possible. Gradually volunteers gave up and teams dissapeared until all we had left was a team of 11 year olds. The straw which finally broke the camels back was when our last fundraiser again with the Afronauts was the victim of a village gossip campaign and whereas before we had always attracted some 200 people this was so poorly attended that the club did not have enough money to pay the band when they came to do the show.
So unfortunately there saw the demise of Newtonhill Boys Club and the Skateraw Lions.
When you consider that there is nothing in this magnitude in the village now for the kids indeed their is no organised youth football outwith the primary school teams it is very very sad. We contributed to everything in the village, we paid to use the community bus regularly, we dontated a large sum of money to the Betteridtge Centre development from one of our fundraisers at the old community hall but most of all we kept over 60 children provided with a healthy sporting activity. We also supported the local Skateraw Fair two years in a row, who could ever forget the sight of Roddy getting spun round and round on our Gyroscope (it was pure comedy genius).

As far as volunteering is concerned I am still involved as I am the Chairman of Portlehten Boys Club now which operates seven teams and has a membership in excess of 150 players, coaches and committee. As a club we are a big contributor to the Betteridge Centre which a good number of our teams use for training purposes as quite a number of the boys involved are from Newtonhill.

Anyway I think I have lost the plot again, the point I am making is I am glad that the village is on the up and up and provides a good deal of things for the kids now and I am glad there is a healthy crop of volunteers in place who are dedicated to what they do. As ever we do need more and we need more behind them to maintain the momentum.

Village politics is mainly in my opinion been caused by either lack of communication between groups or too much of the wrong sort of communication outwith the groups. There must be some way of avoiding this in the future.

The kids who are deemed the trouble makers are not troublemakers just because the congregate somewhere, there maybe just isnt anything provided for their age group or their particular activity.
I just hate it when they all get tarred with the same brush when anything kicks off, I also feel sorry for many of them as they are the kids who were "let down" back when I was involved.

Keep the debate going, sorry I ranted on so much but football is my passion and the village was at one time too when I was new here and I certainly feel let down by it. But I would still wholeheartedly encourage anyone to get involved with the initiatives in the village, my problems were a good few years ago now and the village has again changed and developed for the better. Keep up the goodwork everyone involved.

Having started this thread off I feel I should respond to a couple of comments posted...

Firstly Bridget, thanks for your comments, they are very supportive. You've put out a good message that there IS a lot going on in Newtonhill for our kids, maybe the message just doesn't always get 'out there'.

Pete, you've obviously been involved as a volunteer in the past and you've 'done your share'. Like Bridget, I'm sorry to hear you had problems with village politics in the past, I'm sure that can never be avoided (unfortunately). I'd be interested to find out if these issues disappear thru time naturally (ie as people come and go from the various committees / groups etc) or whether it's the same petty squabbles that keep recurring and we never learn? I'd be interested to hear your view on that one.

With regards Melanie's comments, I'm not sure what to say. I know you do get involved and do far more than most in the village. However your arguement about "families being busy" and not "getting involved....in a tiny group of volunteers" is self -defeating!

It will always be a tiny group of volunteers if everyone thought like this. It sounds more like inventing any amount of reasons NOT to, rather than only one reason to do it.

The reason I got involved was that I do have a family and do want to support and encourage facilities in the village for them (quite selfish really!!!). After living in Newtonhill for a number of years, it finally dawned on me that these facilities don't just happen by magic - they need volunteers to put in a lot of work.

I consider myself to be very busy in my working and family life - but still MAKE the time to get involved. I think it's a great investment as a parent. No doubt the time will come when I (and others) will want to back off and hopefully there will be other people willing to step in.

It would make such a huge difference if only a small amount of extra people would make themselves more available to 'put something back in' - instead of seeing the same (old!) faces again and again (welcome as they are :)

Rant over...

(sorry Melanie, I've just read over the last couple of paragraphs, and I honestly am not having a go at you - I know you do get involved - I just wanted to get a couple of points across :D

Steve.

ps - Have grrreat 2oo6 everyone !

Good Reply Bridget.

Its good to see that we are at least trying to tackle the problems.
As you correctly say there are those who will always fall througth the net primarily because that is their choice and i think I eluded to that in my original post.

I have to admit that I hadnt realised there was quite such a comprehensive list of things. Definately didnt know about the AFC football training (is this only for the younger age groups though?).
Wasnt aware of the youth clubs either it would be interesting to see what the uptake, numbers and age ranges that this attracts.

I take the point and its a good one that we certainly look to be making inroads into looking after our current crop of youth who would soon be teenagers but I do sympathise wholeheartedly with the ones who were missed back when I was involved in the youth setup. These are ones who are now 15 - 18 and are probably the ones who are now referred to as the troublemakers. Thankfully alot of them are now getting into the realms of driving etc and can seek their entertainment elsewhere and the rest will soon follow in the next few years. But I still stand firm that we as a village let a lot of these youngsters down and I agree with your comments that we should be sympathetic and constructive in our approach to dealing with this as opposed to the broad brush condemnation that seems to take place. The majority of these kids are good kids.

Heres hoping your work Bridget helps the young ones of today and that you are given the support and backing you require from everyone in the village.

Good luck

Firstly I would like to state that the so called youth problems that we say we are experiencing is very minor compared to many other areas in Aberdeen and surrounding areas. The fact that we are such a small village and the area of congregation is concentrated on the main focal areas in the village ie. the park or the shop makes the problem far more visible. Having lived in Tillydrone, the city centre and several other areas in Aberdeen beleive me we have it good in Newtonhill. I have seen people beaten in broad daylight by gangs of youths, intimidation, open drug use, police no go areas and I even witnessed a gun seige whilst in Tillydrone. So really Newtonhill may have some problems but lets put it into context here.
I agree that the "Weve nothing else to do" phrase is banded about much too easily nowadays and is mainly used by the very people who would still perpetrate trouble even if there was plenty to do but we really have to ask ourselves as a village what are we doing to help these kids and give them something to do.
Yes we now have the Betteridge Centre and it offers some variety of things for the kids to do. However has anyone actually asked the kids what they want. I remember not so long ago they asked for a Skate Park and some fundraising was done but then the project never materialised for some reason or other. I used to be chairman of Newtonhill Boys Club which had three football teams with some 50 kids playing football each week and also training each week. We got bands to the community centre to raise club funds and took part in the Skateraw Fair but gradual errosion from village politics eventually took its toll on the volunteers until the last team was forced to fold a few years ago. We got more support from a village like Fourdon than we got from our own village in Newtonhill. Now the boys and girls have to go outwith the village for their football and it is to our loss that they do. They used to have a coffee shop at the centre and that went also. Okay I know there was problems with some vandalism and unrully behaviour but I recon that was from a minority and this put paid to the volunteers who ran the shop. I know a large volume of boys who went outwith the village to do Boxing in Market Street and martial arts in the town centre and I am sure their are much more activities where the youth are heading out of town for. These are all the same kids who are hanging about the park nowadays and is it any wonder they feel let down by the village and would now rather do their own thing. I know thats no excuse for rowdy behaviour but maybe this is some form of rebellion against the village who have done nothing for them. I dont know exactally but again I would recon the rowdy element are a minority and are probably from outwith the village, the rest only congretate there because thats the only place they feel they can do it.
You will never totally erradicate the NED culture because for some that is all they want to do, it is their choice but for the majority of kids in Newtonhill and even for the majority who visit the village all they want is somewhere to meet with their friends and do the things that the youth of today do.
I am sorry I dont have the answer, I htink there are many answers and many things the village can offer but lack of volunteers and village politics usually see off most initiatives as they did mine so perhaps we need to look at root causes before we go casting stones.
Thats my second rant today, I think I need to lie down in a dark room or maybe I'll go for a pint with the kids at the park.

Good grief! :shock:

Yes, at that age I was drinking, but it was a glass of white wine along with dinner with my parents on a saturday night. I was not a stranger to alcohol, so it held little allure for me. Plus I knew what I'd have got if I had turned up drunk. I valued the freedom my parents gave me too much and knew I'd lose it. I also respect my parents and did what I was told most of the time!

Maybe it's just me, but when I had nothing to do I got a part time job, went to visit friends, had them round to the house, went to dance classes and all sort of other things. The idea of getting smashed and being found lying on the pavement in the freezing cold would never have entered my head. What sad lives some kids have these days if that's the best entertainment they can think up.

Having said that, we have very little problem with kids in Newtonhill compared to a lot of places and I was very pleased to hear how many are involved in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme.

It's a shame the minority are always the ones in the news.

I get fed up of the old "there's nothing to do" excuse for hanging round the streets and being a nuisance. I grew up in Peterhead and there really was very little to do, but there's no way on this earth my parents would have let me hang around the streets. Instead I was encouraged to have hobbies, so took classes in all sorts of dance since I was 3 and was involved in loads of other things. I was lucky - my parents were interested in what I was doing of an evening and cared about whether I was safe or not.

It wasn't like this in my day.......

OMG I'm turning into such an old wifie! :lol:

PS Are the results publicly available or have they just been distributed to various groups first?