Local youth club Rye Youth Zone CIC (RYZ), has been running at Tilling Green Community Centre since February and has been a great success with now over 100 young people registered and about 70 using the club’s two sessions each week (as reported in Rye News article We’re all still buzzing).
It has always been the plan of founder Cllr Sophie Thorpe to run RYZ from the old Rye and District Boys’ Club in Mermaid Street. A lot of work has been going on to renovate the building which has been through many incarnations – a school in the 19th century, the location of the Rye town model before it moved to the Strand, a community hub and boys’ club and lastly a studio space for an artist. It is a large building with two high-ceilinged spacious rooms, a mezzanine room, toilets and a kitchen.
One of the rooms contains a full-size snooker table, newly covered by Peter from Hubble Sports, dwarfed by the size of the room, and a pool table, and will be used as a games room. The walls need painting, and the suspended ceiling repaired. The other large room also needs to be painted and is spacious enough to be used for indoor sports. Some of the toilet doors and walls have been painted with fun and bright images and patterns by Sophie’s daughter, Kayla.
Above this is a smaller room which will be a chill zone with bean bags. The kitchen is in good condition and as well as being used for supplying drinks and snacks, there are plans to use it for cooking lessons. It is hoped that another small room will be used as a music room, in due course.
The building has been completely re-wired by JenCo Electrical and fire alarms and signage installed. JenCo’s suppliers were asked to donate parts and incredibly around £10,000 worth of equipment from light switches, to wiring, to signage, were given, which helped hugely to reduce the cost of the improvements.
Other local companies have donated their time and materials: WS Wright have helped renovate the toilets and showers; Armour Flooring have donated laminate flooring; LDM Trade Paints, Rye, supported by a Crown Paint representative, have donated the masonry paint required for the walls; and Drainman Rye have also assisted.
To help with the repairs of the building, Fresh Visions, part of Southern Housing, is training 12 people, not in education, training or employment (NEET), who have been recruited from the Youth Employability Service for six-week training in various skills such as plastering, painting and DIY skills to gain a level 1 qualification.
As well as giving young people of the town a much-needed space to take part in fun activities and spend time with friends, Sophie hopes that the collaboration of RYZ and Rye and District Youth Club (RDYC) will work with other agencies to combat anti-social behaviour including a youth offending team (YOT), YMCA Wise, Rother Police and other services.
The last youth club session at Tilling Green is hoped to be on July 19 and the Mermaid Street building opening will be held on July 26 (to be confirmed).
If you are interested in helping to renovate the Mermaid Street building or in volunteering to help at the club sessions visit the RYZ volunteer page here or register at https://bit.ly/3F4rPVi
Image Credits: Juliet Duff .
Sophie you are a star and all the businesses and helpers.
What a community effort for such an important space urgently for young people.
And a full snooker table. Can’t wait. I hope local residents will support it.
Heidi
Such a positive development with Sophie’s vision and guidance! Wishing RYZ every success
Thanks, Heidi and Simon.
I think we should also add that there’s a very small team making an outsized contribution to this community endeavour as Saturday volunteers and trustees.
Thanks to Ruth, Owen, Kieran, Graham, Carina, KT, Martin, Anita, Niki, Nick, Josh, Sam E and Sam S.
Thanks also to all the businesses who have already assisted us (inc. Andy at Jenco, Danny at Drainman, and Joel at Rye DIY) and to those we’re currently talking to. We should not forget Caroline Drummond either. With Sophie she played a huge part in getting this off the ground.
This is a big project that will take a sustained community effort, so we’d love to hear from anyone who can give a few hours a month as a volunteer, businesses who want to support us, or local tradesmen who may be able to assist us in the coming weeks to get the Club ready for the Summer holidays.
Thanks to all who are lending their time and support.