A week of Aico’s Summer Club with SYA

The Aico headquarters in Oswestry has recently welcomed 40 Year 5 & 6 students at their Summer Club; an initiative formed by Aico in the Community alongside the Shropshire Youth Association (SYA). SYA are a registered charity that helps youth clubs in Shropshire to get set up and keep going. The charity’s focus is to make sure these clubs can give the best opportunity and experiences to youth and provide the suitable provision needed.

Aico regularly welcomes school groups to their headquarters for a day of educational activities. With the popularity of school visits, Aico expanded by collaborating with SYA to offer a Summer Club week in August 2023. The week aimed to encourage the educational development of future generations and alleviate the pressure families may face during the summer break. The Summer Club was led by experienced and qualified leaders from SYA and supported by Aico colleagues across departments, who are fully safeguard trained and DBS checked.

The Summer Club ran from Monday to Friday and included activities such as sumo football, nerf wars, pyrography and crepe making. The group also participated in tag archery, unihok and a music workshop. The music workshop brought the children together in Aico’s auditorium where they experimented with ukeleles, samba drums and various other instruments. The group also visited Aico’s chicken coop, where they helped feed the chickens and collect the eggs.

On Friday morning, the children arrived at Oswestry Leisure Centre for the choice of a roller disco or inflatable aqua challenge. This was a fantastic activity and the group then departed to arrive back at Aico’s headquarters for a silent disco and just dance games. To end the day, the children were given goodie bags and certificates for completing the Summer Club.

Jess Williams one of the Youth Workers from SYA commented on the week, “SYA have had a fantastic time working with Aico this week. It has enabled us to give the young people of Oswestry and surrounding areas a chance to take part in activities and socialise with groups they may not normally be able to. It would be wonderful if more corporations could offer this opportunity to their local community and support young people’s development. Thank you again to Aico for providing a great venue and supportive volunteer team.”

The activity schedule was designed to encourage creativity, teamwork, and personal development within the group. The week also saw the children making new friends as the group was made up of people from a variety of schools.

Jane Pritchard, Community Liaison here at Aico added “We are delighted to have partnered with SYA to offer a Summer Club for children in Oswestry and the surrounding area. The children all said how much they enjoyed the week. We are grateful to all of our volunteers and to SYA, who helped to make the week a great success.”

Aico are proud to have brought smiles to the children in attendance and are hopeful that they have enjoyed their week at the Summer Club, learning new skills.