Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council

Welcome to the Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council 2010

The Lord Mayor is currently inviting High Schools in the Brisbane area to nominate a young person for the 2010 Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council, or LMYAC for short.

What is LMYAC?

The 2010 Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council will provide an opportunity for young people in Brisbane to become involved in civic issues as well as fostering an interest in grass roots community issues. Young people will identify issues and engage with each other through the Action Initiators and regular LMYAC public meetings at City Hall. Young people will also be encouraged to provide feedback and give their opinion about Council policies, local laws, services and programs that effect young people across the city.

2010 Meeting Format

4 LMYAC meetings are held throughout the year (1 held every term). Meetings will be chaired by the Lord Mayor and discussions facilitated by the Youth Team. Young people will be given the opportunity to provide input and share their ideas on 3 – 4 Council initiatives during the workshop component of each meeting.

How will young people provide input and raise issues?

LMYAC delegates will act as representatives from their schools and communities, and be a voice for raising issues or sharing ideas that affect young people in Brisbane.

Young people will have access to the following mechanisms to provide input and raise issues or ideas: -

1) LMYAC meetings: Young people will directly be able to raise and explore issues or ideas with the Lord Mayor.

2) Action Initiators: A tool for young people to raise community or group issues. Delegates will engage and work with their friends, family, teachers and school peers to raise specific issues that Council should be responding to.

3) Better Brisbane Challenge: An avenue for LMYAC delegates to raise ideas as a collective. Young people will be encouraged to work with other LMYAC representatives to develop ideas into proposals to present to the Lord Mayor at LMYAC meetings.

Our Lord Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council Experience

Hi! My name is Mac Lyon and along with Julia McMahon I initiated the Free 4 All Skate Park workshops.  The initiative behind this idea came from my youngers siblings who are keen scooter riders.

They would love to use the skate bowls but feel that the older kids who hang around these areas are intimidating and therefore they are not comfortable going there.

As a result the Free 4 All Workshops came into being.  Julia and I promoted the event on the 31st October by visiting the local primary schools with flyers, articles in the school newsletters and speaking on assemblies.

I also organised the local Quest newspaper to run an article about the proposed workshops. I was a little disappointed when they did not include it in the paper leading up to the event, but they have since run the story and from this I have had even more kids interested in attending the next one.

I think that Mark was excellent, really good with the kids and seemed to keep them very focused.  I think that although the older kids were advised as to what was planned  they still hung around and a couple of bigger kids continued to use the bowl amongst the younger ones.  I thought a banner of some sort perhaps Visible Ink or such would have been a good idea and perhaps the presence of the local police may have supported our aim.

As for improving it perhaps some prized for participation and having a go or even getting a local business to support it with refreshments/snacks could be good.

Overall I was really pleased with the outcome and am looking forward to the next one.  It was great to see the younger kids enjoying the Skate Bowl and feeling like they too belong there.

Mac

The Gap State High School