Our Summer Programme for 2010 was a huge success with a huge variety of activities and on average 30-40 children turning up for each activity.

Assisting and arranging these events and activies was Drop In Centre staff including myself (Mike Hughes), Soraya Cordle (CYPIC Co-ordinator),Sue Brine & Rebecca Reynolds who was on placement with us at The Drop In Centre for 2 weeks. Also assisting was Matt & Tanya Dee (Residents) and  a number of members from the Splash Team.

During the Summer Programme I was fortunate enough to attend quite few in my duties as photographer, here are my accounts of some of the things I attended:

Lyric Writing session with Hungry Heads Entertainment - Soraya Cordle (CYPIC Co-ordinator) and Rebecca Reynolds (CYPIC Trainee) attended this activity and Rebecca had to write lyrics down for each of the children who then performed their lyrics into a song. Which Rebecca later had to type up on the computer.

Healthy Eating Food & Fruit and Sports - Soraya Cordle (CYPIC Co-ordinator), Rebecca Reynolds (CYPIC Trainee), Tanya & Matt Dee (Residents) helped out at this healthy eating food & fruit activity. Rebecca made up word searches for young children and older to fill in, made photographs of fruit which the children had to colour in and guess the name of it. Also Food N fruit were made up on skewers for everyone to try. Fruit included: Apple, Kiwi, Melon, Grapefruit, Grapes, Cherries, Bananas, Strawberries & Coconuts. The sports side involved obstacle course including playing football, Hulahoop, skip and jump through cones.

African Arts Day - On African Arts Day there was plenty to do including story telling and dancing, face painting and children learning to play bongo drums in sync to make a story up with the drums. Great turnout of over 20 children and what a great noise everyone made when the bongo drums was played all together! At the end everything was compiled together for a great finish to the day.

Get Cooking (Making your own Pizza) and Arts & Crafts - Pizza making, a great activity for children to learn to make their own pizzas, they did well from the photos, pizzas made ranged from cheese, to cheese n ham, to pepperoni and many others. I wasnt there but they did look very tasty!!!. Also an obstacle course was held for everyone to participate in aswell as painting items in the arts n crafts section.

Shadow Puppet Making - Shadow Puppet Making, another good turnout by local children from the estate and Residents to participate in shadow making. First a story was told, afterwards children could make their own puppets which were fish characters, painted and decorated them in their own unique way and then proceeded to do a show on a projector, the remaining audience and children made the music for the story by playing bongo drums and maraccas. Another top activity, well done all for having a go!

Hip Hop & Urban Dance Choreography dance lessons - Sadly due to the weather not playing ball, the turnout for this fun activity was poor, but there was bout 10 children who turned up to have a go at dance choreography lessons with the tutor. All kinds of music was played from JLS to Dizee Rascall. The tutor is an excellent dance tutor and some of the moves he can do are mind blowing.

Creation Zone Activities - This was a very fun filled afternoon, a good varied turnout of Residents including Matt & Tanya Dee, Peter Phillips (Resident), members from Creation Zone and children from the estate all joined in at doing various activies from dance excercises to catching a ball, Hullahooping, dancing, balancing excercises. Also a large ball in the form of the world was there so members could try standing on top of the world!!! Also available, members could get prosethic blood and bruises to look as if they had been badly injured. Painting arts & crafts was also available.

Climbing Wall along with Fire Service Appliances Attending - On the morning of August 23rd, the climbing wall began to set up in the pouring down rain, but children from Thompson street estate would not be dampened by spirits and proceeded to take it in turns racing to the top of this massive climbing wall. No Fear in anyone apart from myself!. Well done kids for having a go and enjoying yourself even when the rain fell again, they all continued. The fire service then turned up with 2 fire appliancs at different times throughout the day to show everyone how the kit works, hose, and for anyone who wished to sit in the fire engines and to see what it would be like as a firefighter. Grea fun was had by all and we even had some who quickly got dressed up as firefighters n had some photos taken.

Wii Tournament with Projecior/Football - Wii Tournament produced again a low turnout of children but overall we had 10-12 attend for this Wii Tournament, The game being played between everyone was bowling and was very fun to watch. The splash member for the day even had a go and instantly had a strike, rumour was she cheated or maybe she was just too good for the young children who carried on with the game, winning strikes & half strikes. Going on in the main hall was a lil game of football with myself (Mike Hughes) and Matt Dee with a couple of the boys who in the end beat myself and Matt Dee. Very good game and a great laugh.

Dodgeball Tournament & Benchball - A good turnout for this Dodgeball tournament with low number in each team starting off, each time gradually grew with more children arriving for a go. I was on the sidelines photographing while Matt Dee (Resident) was on one of the teams and your referee for this game was Tanya Dee (Resident). This was a very exciting game to watch and very enjoyable. Dodgeball was such a fast and paced game even I the camera man nearly got hit few times on the head!!!! Once everyone had a little break, we proceeded with a new game called Benchball, this was something I have never heard of so was something interesting to watch. However a young lad got injured so i had to take his place for him and what fun I had trying work out what to do in the game. I was soonly retired when Josh the boy who got injured return to take my place. Once again another fun filled activity and very enjoyable, great to see everyone having fun.

Hip Hop & Urban Dance Choreography dance lessons - On the afternoon of August 26th, a whopping 30-40 children attending this Choreography lesson with the same tutour from a few weeks back, even he was overwhelmed by the number of children attending. The Dance tutor began by doing warm ups, making everyone run round in a circle and doing jumps in the air to get everyone all worked up ready for the dance off. Sadly I had to leave then but I was told, amazing turnout, afternoon was brilliant with everyone enjoying themselves and getting stuck in. Well done all for turning up and well done to the tutor.
August 27th - Splash Event. Variety of animals were brought to the Castleland Community Centre to show to Residents and children. Animals ranged from meerkats to lizards, snakes, birds, frogs and many more.

I hope everyone enjoyed the wide range of activies and events for the 2010 summer programme and we look forward to seeing you all on the next summer programme.

Mike Hughes
IT Assistant Volunteer