Thousands of pounds are spent each year in Woodley to support youth to better themselves and potentially become the next generation of leaders.
Each year, a budget is set by Woodley Town Council to provide youth services for children in the town.
For this year, 2025/26, the council has a £15,000 budget.
This money will be spent on The Berkshire Youth Network’s Youth Sessions, Wokingham Borough Council’s Holiday Activity Programme, and Story Group’s Diversion & Disruption Project.
Woodley council’s Youth Support Services Task & Finish Working Group has also asked for an extra £5,030 to be spent from the general reserve to pay for a Leadership Training Course for 14-18 year provided by The Berkshire Youth Network.
The possible addition of this service was discussed at an extraordinary meeting of the council’s leisure services committee.
Councillor Kay Gilder (Conservative, South Lake South) said: “To be honest, it was really wonderful to have four different organisations that actually wanted to help.
“We all felt that the leadership training course would be a wonderful addition is
something that we really thought would be very good because it’s training up the next lot.”
She went on to explain the leadership programme would not focus on those who could ‘well afford to pay’ for activities, but would be more for disadvantaged youth to better themselves.
Cllr Gilder explained: “I remember I when I was a a governor at a school and I we had a young lad there who was had been chosen for the England team for basketball and I said to the head teacher ‘why haven’t you put him up on the stage and say what a marvellous person he is?’ and he said ‘oh he’s a troublemaker.’
“Now he’s the sort of person who is a natural leader obviously going the wrong way but could well be boosted up.”
Clr Darren Smith (Conservative, Coronation East) said: “We’ve seen people that are natural leaders but unfortunately just need the right training, the right encouragement, the right thing actually to motivate them to excel in something maybe that they don’t even understand or recognise at the moment.”
Cllr Gilder added: “They probably don’t think for themselves of it but they are the leaders and they’re the ones who take a lot of others down the wrong track with them.
“And we felt that would be a good allotment of money if we could get the extra £5,000 to do it.”
Councillors chose to spend £15,000 on the three youth services projects, and made a recommendation to the strategy and resources committee to spend £5,030 on the leadership programme by The Berkshire Youth Network.
They also agreed to turn the task and finish group into a Youth Service sub committee to monitor progress.
These decisions were made at the extraordinary meeting on Tuesday, July 15.
