Time certainly flies when you’re having fun and it’s hard to believe that the summer is already over. Before winter officially began, we wanted to take some time to celebrate our youth groups, who have achieved so much this year.

Our participants have not only transformed their local green spaces for wildlife but have also transformed their lives, building their confidence and self-esteem, developing new friendships, supporting one another and learning new skills.

To say thank you, we invited our youth groups along to Brockholes nature reserve for a big summer party in the woods. The trees were decorated in bunting and we laid out a huge spread of cakes and jacket potatoes that had been freshly warmed on a wood fire.

Dr Sarita Robinson from the University of Central Lancashire kicked the festivities off with a short talk on the amazing benefits of being outside. From helping us to get a better night’s sleep, to facilitating a space for new friendships to be made, there’s certainly no doubt that Myplace offers people numerous, significant benefits.

We spent the evening listening to live folk music and playing games, blowing giant bubbles, crafting bracelets and learning to tie-dye bits of fabric with onion skins, mud pie building races and even our very own hoopla and coconut shy tournament.

Cath Hare from Our Bright Future and Mayor of Preston, Trevor Hart also came along and got stuck into the evenings activities. They got the chance to speak with our participants about the project and the impact it’s having on their lives whilst also experiencing the benefits of Myplace for themselves.

After the games we gathered around the fire to listen to Sophie, one of our ‘Our Bright Future’ youth forum representatives give a moving speech about her experience of the project and youth forum.

Finally, the Mayor presented some of our participants with their John Muir awards and we are delighted to say that we have 40 more awards to hand out to our hard working groups over the next few weeks.

We had a fantastic evening of celebration and could have easily stayed and played games all night. Plans are already underway for a big Christmas party with all our Myplace and Men in Shed groups, till then, we will continue to be outside, soaking up the benefits of nature and looking forward to a wonderful winter with Myplace.