Robs Weekly Round Up

08 November 2024

Dear colleagues,

I’d like to start this week by saying welcome home to Youth Workers Alex Thomas and Michaela O’Neill who have just returned to the Vale from an international youth exchange to New Zealand.

The pair travelled there to support four young people from the award winning Her Voice Wales project.

In February I wrote to you all to share that Her Voice Wales had won a national award for the work of the young people involved in tackling gender inequalities. They have also been the subject of a television documentary for their groundbreaking work.

The international youth exchange organised by Plan International UK gave the Vale Youth Service the chance to team up with Pembrokeshire Youth Service and take some examples of the best work being done in Wales to tackle gender stereotypes, gender-based violence, and harmful attitudes towards young women and girls to an international stage. The trip was funded by the Welsh Government’s Taith scheme.

Particular highlights were a day spent with New Zealand Rugby and working with Dear Em, an organisation empowering young women and girls to support each other through similar schemes. All the highlights can been seen in a brilliant Instagram reel the team have posted.

Young people have such a powerful voice and it’s fantastic to see the work of our teams giving them such a great platform to use it. Alex and Michaela have done great work to make this such a success and I know it’s just one example of what a big impact the work of the Vale Youth Service has.

I mentioned last week that our teams were helping host a UK Government ministerial visit to St Athan to allow Luke Pollard MP the chance to see firsthand how effectively various partners are working together to support the resettlement of Afghan families.

I know how important and successful that work is but it was great all the same to receive a letter of thanks this week from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Defence praising the work at East Camp. Our joint work there was so impressive the MP has said it will be presented as an example of best practice to similar schemes elsewhere in the UK.

As well as being a very pleasing review of one of our services this is also a great example of what we can achieve when working effectively with our partners. Our teams have worked alongside the Ministry of Defence, the health board, Welsh Government and a number of others in establishing the resettlement centre and putting in the place the support that families arriving there need. This is exactly the way of working that will enable us to provide even better support to even larger communities as move into 2025 and the delivery of our new Corporate Plan.

I write a lot in these messages about our services and the county as a whole being featured on the national stage and it was great to see this week the Vale featured as one of the 12 best places to visit in the UK in The Times.

According to the national publication “the Vale is jam-packed. There’s lashings of good food and drink… 14-miles of coves, fudgy sands and unsung beaches to revel in, while away to the east is Barry Island. A setting for end-of-pier peninsula fun.” That sounds about right to me.

It is of course not by accident that our county appears in a list like this alongside capital cities and national parks. As well as the excellent work of our Visit the Vale team to position our towns, coastline and resorts as such excellent places to visit, it is the work of teams across the organisation than make them such great places to live and work. Great work by all involved to put us on the map.

If you are looking for an excuse to visit Barry Island then you can sign up for the Santa’s Cause fun run next month. The run is open to anyone whether they want to walk, jog or run a 2.5k or 5k route at Barry Island on 01 December to raise money for our Christmas appeal. Entries are now open. If you don’t feel like the run but still want to get involved then the team are also looking for steward volunteers, and first aid support on the day.

Looking ahead to next week, on Tuesday we will welcome the members of our performance assessment panel to the Civic Offices. As I mentioned last week the panel of external experts will be visiting to evaluate how we are doing in several key areas.

We have asked them to help establish whether we are on track to be even more outcome and future focused and increase our resilience in delivering key services to our residents. They will also be offering some feedback on the new Corporate Plan and Reshaping programme.

They will be speaking to a number of colleagues over the course of the week and many others will be involved in the focus groups taking place as well. I’d like to thank all those giving up their time as part of the process for your support and all colleagues who will I am sure extend a warm Team Vale welcome to the panel.

Thanks as always to everyone for their efforts this week. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Rob.