Growing Together: Our Vision for a Thriving Community Hub

Many of you know Tetbury Area Youth & Community Trust (TAYCT) for our work with young people—whether it’s through our youth clubs, mentoring, or holiday activities. But our mission has always been bigger than that. At our heart, we’re about bringing people together, creating spaces where everyone—young and old—feels welcome, supported, and connected.

That’s why we’re dreaming bigger.

Getting involved with the Friendship Café has shown us just how much our community values a safe, friendly space to meet and chat. It’s not just about a cup of tea; it’s about combating loneliness, supporting wellbeing, and strengthening our community bonds. But what if we could do more?

We believe Tetbury needs a dedicated community hub—a warm, welcoming space where people of all ages can come together. A place for parents and carers to share a coffee while little ones play, for local groups to meet, for workshops, support networks, and, most importantly, for friendship.

This is an ambitious dream, and we know we can’t do it alone. We want to hear from you—what does Tetbury need? What would make a difference in your life? And if you’re passionate about making this happen, we’d love your support.

Let’s build something special together. Get in touch at community@tayct.org.uk, visit our Facebook page “TAYCT Community” or website tayct.org.uk to be part of the conversation.

What's cooking?

Over the darker winter months Tetbury Youth Club has taken the opportunity to complete lots of cooking activities with our groups. Cooking allows young people to develop physical skills, nutritional education, interests in new foods and ingredients and a sense of accomplishment and pride when something is created together and shared by all. What we make is led by the requests and interests of our groups and whereas some like to immerse themselves fully in a recipe, others prefer just to prepare more simple things like wraps and toasties. 

Cooking is a wonderful way to spend time with your teen, it gives you an opportunity to spend quality time together and a chance to check in with them and see what is going on in their worlds. Often just by standing side by side, and being busy with a shared task such as chopping or peeling, conversation flows a little easier and they may be encouraged to talk about some of the things that are going on for them.

Cooking together does not have to be complicated or expensive, pizza toast is a firm favourite of the groups at our youth club where they take either just a slice of bread or a section of a baguette, top it with passata, cheese and the fresh toppings of their choice and grill it!. The most important thing is that it should be fun, relaxing and an opportunity for quality time together.

If you want to encourage your teen to cook with you, start simply. Get them to do simple tasks like peeling vegetables or stirring the pan, to spark their interest without overwhelming them.

Pick foods they like. They’re more likely to be interested in helping if they have the incentive of eating their favourite meal. 

Cooking and the ability to make positive choices when it comes to food is an essential life skill. Whilst it can be tempting in a busy household to do everything for our teens, take the time to think about how great it would be if they could safely plan, shop for, prepare and serve a meal and the boost in their self- confidence that this would give them. 

A listening ear when they need it

Most people are aware that TAYCT is the charity that runs Tetbury Youth Club; a thriving project currently offering 3 busy sessions a week to young people in Tetbury as well as projects, holiday activities and community events all focused around young people and families in the town. 

TAYCT also offers Mentoring. Mentoring provides a trusted and trained adult for young people to spend time with them, listen to them and help them to work through any challenges that they might be facing. In the 2023/24 academic year TAYCT fully funded a youth worker to work in SWR School one day a week offering both 1:1 mentoring for young people and also a lunchtime group for any young people who were struggling to make friends, settle at school or who wanted a safe and quieter space to spend their break time in. Throughout her year there, Becky worked with around 30 young people on a 1:1 basis plus another 15 through the lunchtime clubs. Feedback from the school, parents and most importantly the young people themselves, has been incredibly positive as to the impact that these sessions have had.

““I don’t know what we would have done without the sessions, they really helped her to feel happier at school and also at home where I noticed a huge difference. I worry about her as she is so quiet and doesn’t always talk much so knowing she has someone she likes to talk to makes me feel better about her mental health.””

— Parent of a young person working with our Mentor

TAYCT are pleased to announce that we have successfully applied for grants from the Gloucestershire Community Foundation, the Charles Russell Speechlys Foundation Community Fund, and the High Sheriff of Gloucestershire to allow Becky to continue her Mentoring work in SWR for the 2024/25 academic year. Fully funded by TAYCT, she will continue both the 1:1 work and the lunchtime sessions, supporting the school and working with young people to address their social anxieties, school avoidance, mental health and provide a trusted adult with a listening ear, when they need it.

Youth Club gets out and about!

A group of young people from the Youth Club attended a successful joint project at Westonbirt Arboretum this Spring. It was a 7 week programme culminating in a celebration event. The Wild Westonbirt project aimed to provide young people with a place after school to relax, connect with nature, learn new skills and build confidence. The group were fantastic, once they were comfortable in the setting they flourished and took part in activities such as fire lighting, Kelly Kettles, cooking on the fire, whittling, leaf printing, tree identifying and plenty of s’mores were eaten. The feedback from both the young people and their families was really positive.

Youth sessions continue to be extremely popular, with the welcome return of our firepit, toasting marshmallows, making hot chocolates, endless games of football and cricket on the Rec, sunny evenings spent chatting with friends, chalk drawings and impromptu gymnastics, this summer term has been a busy one at Tetbury Youth Club. Can we politely remind parents that we are only working with and supervising young people who are in our area, at our sessions taking part in our activities, we cannot supervise any other young people who are on the Rec so please make sure you are aware where your child is. 

As we reach the end of the school year we are looking ahead to a busy and fun-filled summer holiday programme. There will be youth drop in sessions, a bus to Cirencester and plenty of family play days at the park put on by TAYCT, World Jungle and Play Gloucestershire. Through the HAF programme for families eligible for Free School Meals we will also be offering access passes to Westonbirt Arboretum including a lunch bag for children, drama workshops and cookery workshops. 

We will further be supporting both Pride and Tetfest this year and youth workers will be at both events so make sure you come and say hi. 

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for up to date information about all the activities taking place. 

Tetbury_youth_club

The TAYCT Team 

Hot dogs, leaf printing & toasted marshmallows!

This half term we are excited to be working with Westonbirt Arboretum to run our Wild Westonbirt Evenings. This project aims to provide a group of young people with a safe space to relax and unwind after a busy day at school, to build self esteem, confidence, learn new skills and to connect with nature. We will be taking a group, by mini bus, accompanied by our youth workers to meet with the team at the Arboretum and to spend time in their fantastic community shelter each Tuesday evening. This project will conclude with a celebration event where the young people are invited to bring friends and family to the shelter during the May Half Term holidays to show them around and demonstrate some of the skills they have learnt. We can’t wait to hear how the group has got on. 

Alongside this we will be running our usual, increasingly busy, drop in youth sessions and are really hoping that by the time this is being read, it will be dry enough for us to get outside on the Rec. 

After a fun-packed Easter holidays including youth drop in sessions, a supported bus trip to Cirencester, Cookery Workshops, an outdoor family play session on The Rec and access passes to Westonbirt Arboretum, we are now looking ahead to May half term and the Summer Holidays.

Please follow us on social media for up-to-date information about our sessions and holiday activities. 

We are always looking for volunteers to help support our sessions, no experience necessary just a friendly face with a willingness to help set up and pack away and support activities when needed is all we are looking for. If you think you may be able to help please contact lisa.hoult@tayct.org.uk. It makes a huge difference to us to have that extra pair of hands and will allow us to continue to engage with and support the huge number of young people who are currently accessing our sessions. Please get in touch, we need you! 

The TAYCT Team