The Purple Bus has been visiting Amberley this term. There is a small but very lively group of young people there who have enjoyed visiting the Bus and taking part in a variety of activities. Being a small, isolated, rural community Amberley is not able to provide much for their teenagers and transport to larger towns is difficult. So to give them a unique opportunity to get out of their village and meet other teenagers and try new things, we took the group away camping to Lodge Hill on a weekend event organised by Sussex Clubs for Young People.

The weekend involved canoeing. high zip, climb tower, camp craft, mountain biking, midnight-manhunt, as well as all the usual fun of a few days under canvas. The group met new friends and were able to try new things, building self confidence and gaining life-skills. Well worth the effort!

The Purple Bus team welcome a new member Kirsty, who is working on a Wednesday night and already getting used to trundling around in the Bus looking for young people who need somewhere to go and something to do! We have had a great start to the term already with lots of new teenagers accessing the project in our new summer term locations.

For the Summer term 2009 we are visiting…

• Northchapel Monday 7-9pm, at the Village Hall
• Loxwood Tuesday 7-9pm, at North Hall
• Storrington Wednesday 7-9pm, at the Chanctonbury Leisure Centre
• Billingshurst Thursdays 3-5pm near the station
• Amberely Thursday 7-9pm at the Primary School
• We also run sessions with tutor groups Chichester College, Brinsbury Campus so if you’re at the college there then keep your ear to the group for more details!

We are currently making plans for the Autumn term so if your rural community needs the Purple then contact me with the details on the ‘contact’ page.

The Purple Bus stepped in at Pulborough when we heard that their youth club was out of action due to water damage from a burst pipe. The staff and young people made us feel really welcome and over the term we looked at a range off issues that were affecting the young people there.

Last night was our final session in Pulborough so we celebrated with party poppers, food and fun! We also had a think about what had gone well over the term and what had stuck in peoples’ minds. As well as the Baby Borrowers, Sex ed, drug & alcohol activities, one of the club members commented that he had ‘never had so much fund Learning!’ Gemma and I took this as the highest possible compliment because we are constantly striving to get the right balance of recreation and education. So here’s to next term and hopefully more of the same!

This term on the Purple Bus amongst other things young people have been taking part in activities based around the BBC televions series ‘The Baby Borrowers’. The BBC education department kindly supplied staff with a pack of resources including DVDs and photocopyable resources. Each session in the pack looks at a differenent aspect of relationships and parenthood. The TV series look at how different teenage couples coped with living together and looking after someone elses child 24/7!

The sessions have brought up lots off issues and provoked much healthy debate so we hope to repeat the activies in more communities next term.

To find out more about The Purple Bus click on the ‘pages’ links on the left hand side.

We’re back on the road after the snow and ice of last week and we have some catching up to do! From 1st-15th of Feb young people all over the county are voting in the Youth Cabinet and UK Youth Parliament elections. Our mobile broadband ‘dongle’ arrived today and our plan is for the young people in Northchapel to be able to vote online tonight!

To find out more click on the images above.

Tonight’s Purple Bus session due to take place in Pulborough is cancelled due to the severe weather forecast for tonight. Much as we like Pulborough we’d rather not be stranded there for the night! See you all next week.

Another new term and another exciting start for the Purple Bus this term. We return to Northchapel on Monday nights as they are still without any permanent youth provision, Pulborough on Tuesday evenings whilst they have a burst water pipe fixed in their youth club. We are still in the process of setting up a club in Cowfold so that’s where we are on a Wednesday evening and similarly on a Thursday evening we will continue to visit Rogate until a new club leader is settled in post.

We are looking forward to meeting and new young people this term and have a packed programme full of activities and opportunities. One feature of this terms programmes will be the The UK Youth Parliament elections. Click here for more on how West Sussex young people can get involved.

Much of our work on the Purple Bus is focussed on enableing young people to make healthy choices in life. Topics from healthy eating to sex & relationships and alcohol and drugs misuse are all covered during our terms work. We know that Christmas can end in misery for some as Statistics show that the Christmas season sees an increase in drink-driving, unplanned pregancy and alcolhol related health problems. So the key to a happy and safe Christmas is to drink in moderation and know your limit. Click on the image to access the NHS units calculator and find out how much you consume! Remember it takes one hour for evey one unit to leave your body.

As you can see Purple Bus project manager Jonny Welch has had a new addition to his family. Mum and baby Noah are both well. Purple Bus projects will continue as follows; Monday nights in Fittleworth will continue with Dean and Dan at the helm, similarly Tuesdays in Amberley will carry on with Andy and Gemma. Wednesday night will switch to the Snack Wagon in Cowfold and Thursday nights in Rogate are suspended until December 4th.

and now

After the success of our Bebo pages as a way of staying in touch with young people and sharing photos from Purple Bus activities we have decided to use another social networking site ‘Facebook’ to do more of the same. Some love Bebo, some love Facebook so we thought we would use both! If you are a fellow ’social networker’ then click here to find us on Facebook. If you have any comments or questions about our website our social networking sites or about internet safety then please get in touch via this website.