As a leader of the youth section of our unit, I am not happy with moving our training meetings to St. Johns in the field church hall, down to a number of reasons. I start with the access to the church hall, most of our children walk to our training meetings, and this will mean they will have to walk out of the parish of St. Ives and out of the town centre. The St. Ives unit of St. John Ambulance has been in the centre of St. Ives for the past 111 years. When they reach the area of the church grounds they will then have to walk up a long unlit road, which is covered in trees. I believe that this would be a child protection issue, as we do not know who will be on the grounds when we start and finish our training meetings. The parents of our youth unit are unhappy with their child walking up the unlit road at night, knowing that dogs are let to run free and not being able to see who is on the grounds, and many of the parents are not willing to walk up on their own, let alone with child. The room that we have been offered is smaller then the badger room we have in our old premises, this will mean we will be unable to expand our unit making it a bigger and more cost effective unit within St. John Ambulance. There is no where to display the work that the youth have done in their badge subjects, they like to be able to show their parents and family when they come and pick them up what work they have done. As there are two age groups that meet, badgers (under 10) and Cadets (over 10) this means to be able to meet St. John criteria we should have two good size rooms to enable us to have two activities to be going on at the same time with the two different age groups. We meet every Tuesday during term time, on the first Tuesday of every month we would not be able to meet as the hall is already sub let to another organisation, this would cause confusion with parents and children when we are or not meeting. St. John like us to put posters up about upcoming events within the organisation, by hiring this hall we would be unable to do this. Part of the child protection within St. John is that we display anti-bulling posters, along with many other posters and books should be out for all members to have access to, we would be unable to do this. We would be unable to display any duties that we having coming up for all members to see. The storage space that we have been offered at an extra cost, would be a small unlit shed in the car park, this is about the size of a toilet cubicle. We have also been offered a small cupboard in the main hall this works out to be about the size of a wardrobe. With the large amount of equipment that we have to be able to train, to help save life’s would fill these storage spaces up in no time will still large amounts of equipment left to store somewhere. The member’s record cards with all their health information would be left (in a locked filing cabinet) in a hall in which many people use. We would be unable to keep our ambulance in the same area in which we train and in an enclosed area where it would be safe from vandals. To be able to run our unit there are large amounts of paperwork from week to week, yearly planners to letters home to parents and even booking duties. There is no office space that we can use to carry out the paper work. With the hall being out of the town centre we would be unable to do fundraising events here, meaning we would have to hire a hall at a extra cost, closer to the town centre. To enable us to run public first aid courses we would have to hire the hall (if available) at an extra cost for us to undergo this. Where as if we were to be at the old lifeguard building we would be able to hold fundraising events as it is close to the town centre and run public first aid course. The old lifeguard building is close to the town centre, in walking distance for all our members, along well-lit roads/paths. Has a large training room with a smaller training room suitable for both age groups to meet at the same time, and for the unit to expand. Large amounts of storage space. Lockable side rooms for us to lock the members record cards away when we sub-let the building, to other organisation or for children’s parties. It has smoke detectors in place along with emergency lighting at throughout the building. There are notice boards, which would enable us to display, St. John events, posters, duties and Cadet/Badger work

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