Robs Weekly Round Up

06 December 2024

Dear colleagues,

Croeso i mis Rhagfyr. We are into December and this week it feels like the Christmas spirit has taken over the Vale.

Yesterday was the annual Family Information Service (FIS) Christmas Party at the Memo in Barry. As always, the event was a huge success. Hundreds of children attended across the morning and afternoon sessions.

There were great activity stalls for children to craft their own decorations, as well as festive play stations and indoor games. Ten separate Council teams - Adult Community Learning, CELT, Childcare and Early Years, Communities for Work, Dewis team, Families First, Flying Start, Sports and Play Development, Unpaid carers, and the Vale Youth Service - were there to talk to parents and childcare providers about all the help and support our services offer.

It’s a huge effort to pull all of this together and create an event that gives families a great free day out at a very expensive time of year as well as helping our teams build vital links with the community. Even more impressive was that the team managed to arrange a visit from the big man in red!

The event is a real collective effort from the FIS team but special thanks should go Kelly Fenton and Cath Broad for all their work in making this the biggest and best FIS Christmas Party yet. The work undertaken by all these teams should never be underestimated. This work is going to be even more critical as we approach 2025 and we embark on delivering on our new Corporate Plan for 2025- 2030, which has at it’s core a key objective of giving everyone a good start in life. The need for information, and on occasion, specialist intervention is greater than ever as we continue to support children and families across the Vale.

Our Santa’s Cause team were also at the party. The team were raffling gifts, running a challenge to win a giant teddy, and offering festive face paint at their stall. They raised over £250 during the day. This was one of several big contributions to the fundraising pot this week.

The first Santa’s Cause fun run on Sunday raised nearly £500, with £160 of this coming from one of our cleaning team, Ellen Shire. Congratulations on a phenomenal effort Ellen!

The Hen Goleg Christmas Fayre generated over £700. A cake sale by the ICT Services team as well as a combined donation from the Greenlinks, Dewis and Family Information Services teams at the Docks Office has also made a big difference. Donations for the cause close on Monday.

Fresh from the fun run on Sunday the staff of Ysgol Y Deri were back on our TV screens on Monday evening with the latest series of A Special School.

The programme has been nominated for two BAFTA Cymru Awards and won a Royal Television Society Cymru prize in recent years. It showcases the inspirational work that goes on at Ysgol y Deri, our quality and commitment of our staff always shine through, and each series so far has been a fantastic advert for education in the Vale.

The first episode did not disappoint, and I am very much looking forward to the rest of the series.

Before A Special School was winning awards, probably the Vale and in particular Barry was best known for was Gavin and Stacey. The final ever episode is going out on Christmas Day and there is lots going on to make sure we capitalise on the opportunity to focus attention on what makes Barry great.

Some of you may have seen last week that the Premier Inn at Barry Waterfront was renamed the What’s Occurr-inn. This week it was a new Transport for Wales train being renamed in honour of the programme. Our Tourism and Marketing team helped coordinate the launch event on Thursday and pupils from Barry Island Primary School welcomed the newly branded Gavin and Stacey train to Barry Island station.

The Leader of the Council formally unveiled the new train for the pupils. Santa Claus also made an appearance at the event, clearly making the most of his time in Barry after visiting the FIS party earlier in the day. Thanks to everyone that helped make it a success.  Diolch I bawb.   

One final update on the Christmas theme. Our annual social media campaign to celebrate some of our best work this year is also now underway. We’ll be looking back at twelve projects that have had a big impact in 2024 between now and Christmas day. The best way to catch-up on these is via our new Instagram account.

The Communications Team launched the new account at the end of November. It gives us a new platform on which to tell people about our work and show new ways to show the people delivering them. Visit the Vale and the Vale Youth Service already have really popular accounts and if you are on Instagram you can follow all three to keep up to date with what’s going on in the Vale.

Finally, an exhibition hosted at The Pod in Barry has had some very positive media attention this week.

The Pod, part of Golau Caredig in Barry gave up some space to a powerful and inspiring exhibition titled Autism Through Art. The exhibition was the work of local artist Euan Balman, also known as 'Bug.' His work shines a light on neurodiversity and aims to celebrate creative expression in all its forms. The Pod works with individuals, including those who are neurodiverse, to help them find opportunities for training and employment and so offered the perfect venue.

It's great to see our services linking in with those who use them and finding new ways to get people through the doors. The Employability team host all sorts of events and if you’d like know more you can check out their section of our website or subscribe to their newsletter.

Supporting people to gain new skills is a big part of our work and I’m going to end this week by sharing some of a letter of thanks from an ESOL student to one of our Adult Tutors Sharon Kitching. The letter praises the “training, guidance and helpful advice” that has helped the learner progress so much. It ends “I would like to thank you so much for the teaching, patience, and support that has had such an impact on my learning”.

This is a perfect example of the difference our work can make and gratitude we receive from our residents for a job well done. Diolch yn fawr iawn to Sharon and the rest of the Adult Community Learning team for providing such highly valued support.

Lastly, I wanted to urge everyone to be careful this weekend as South Wales is set to be hit by Storm Darragh. 

The Met Office has issued a Red Weather Warning as very heavy winds are expected between 3am and 11am on Saturday, while an Amber Warning indicating a risk of flooding has been placed on some areas by Natural Resources Wales. 

The first of those alerts indicates a threat to life so the situation is extremely serious. 

This will undoubtedly affect some Council services, and I would urge everyone to heed these warnings and stay safe. 

Thanks as always to you all for your hard work this week. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Rob.