The Awards recognise the region’s most innovative individuals and the organisations behind many life-changing, environmentally friendly or money-saving products.

Jerry Glover, Chief Executive at OnSide said: “This is a great honour for our new Youth Zone to be shortlisted in the North West Pride category. Recognition of this kind will help spread the word of what The Factory is achieving and hopefully gain more support across the City.”

Winners will be chosen by a public vote, and The Factory needs your support to ensure that it wins this prestigious award.

Voting has already opened and will run until 29 March, so if you want The Factory to win, then log onto the Businessdesk.com and register your vote.

The Award winners will be announced on 26 April 2012 and we’ll let you know as soon as we can whether we have been successful.

Click here to visit The Factory’s website.

The new £5million Youth Zone will welcome partners, local dignitaries and stakeholders to this special event, offering them the long awaited chance to tour the building and experience the facilities and types of activities that will be available to young people.

Helen Taylor, Chief Executive at Mahdlo Youth Zone said: “We are absolutely delighted to finally showcase Mahdlo to our supporters following years of hard work and commitment from within the borough.

“Mahdlo is a cutting edge youth facility that will inspire, motivate, raise aspirations and take pride in Oldham’s young people. Our aim is to make a tangible difference to the lives and futures of local young people, by providing them with a safe and engaging place to spend their leisure time.”

Located in the Oldham Town Centre, Mahdlo will open seven days a week, all year round for young people aged between eight and 21 years old (25yrs for those with disabilities and/or learning difficulties). Young People will be able to enjoy the Youth Zone for an annual membership fee of £5 and then just 50p per visit.

Councillor Jim McMahon, Leader of Oldham Council said: “It gives me great pleasure to see Mahdlo open its doors and I’m sure it will become a popular, fun and enjoyable destination for our young people

“Oldham has the highest proportion of under-25s in the region so it is vitally important that we offer the best facilities available for them to enjoy – and Mahdlo certainly fits the bill.

“The Borough already has some outstanding facilities for young people and together with our partners we offer great activities through our year long Go! Oldham initiative, so this state-of-the-art facility can only enhance that offer.”

Find out more about what is happening over at Mahdlo over the next couple of weeks by clicking here.

First there was The Mosquito, a troubling invention which emitted high frequency sounds that were particularly painful to the ears of under 25years. The idea was to deter young people loitering in specific areas.

Of course Council’s across the country jumped on the back on this one and began installing them in areas where young people congregated. Obviously the idea was barking mad and destined to fail! As soon as young people and their parents began to ask Councils “is this how you really want to treat our young people” they were taken down as quickly as they went up.

But wait! Cardiff Council are considering an idea even dafter than The Mosquito… The installation of special pink lights in areas where young people gather. For what reason I hear you ask… the pink lights show up teenagers’ acne, so that they run home screaming with embarrassment!

Councillor Neil McEvoy told the media recently that the Council was looking to pilot the pink light scheme for areas where young people congregate. He went on to admit: “I know when I was that age I would have been put off if blemishes on my face were shown up.”

Click here to read the full story on BBC News Online.

In my opinion the only people who should be ‘shown up’ here are Mr McEvoy and his fellow councillors for wasting everyone’s time and money on such a brain dead idea!

Mr McEvoy there is another way…

Provide a safe, modern, welcoming and affordable place that is open whenever schools are closed. Pack it with activities and great staff and I can guarantee it will be full instantly with young people enjoying themselves. Bingo, you won’t then have to go around with high pitched dog whistles or acne highlighters.

OnSide has worked closely over the years with public and private sectors across the North West. The Youth Zone model is our practical and achievable solution to young people congregating on the streets. With Youth Zones in Manchester (Harpurhey), Oldham, Blackburn, Carlisle and Wigan we are providing evidence our model really works. Take our Manchester Youth Zone (The Factory), within five weeks of opening 1300 young people have joined and they are averaging over 200 visits each evening.

We asked 14 year old Gemma Smith from Manchester whether she thought the Youth Zone was a better idea than The Mosquito or Pink Lights, she shook her head and said: “Sometimes I despair for the older generations.”

Point Proven!

Jerry Glover
Chief Executive, Onside

With the steel framework due to be in place from the end of March onwards, we thought you might in the lastest update from Ian Thorpe, Site Manager on how the development is progressing.

Take a look through our recent picture gallery of the latest site images, because in a couple of months time you won’t recognise the progress being made:

Find out more about Wigan Youth Zone by visiting their website: www.wiganyz.org

Tony Robinson, Glyn Thomas, Natalie Turner and James Voce raised almost £20,000 to undertake the six day trek in January, for four chosen charities. OnSide North West was one of the lucky charities chosen by the team to support and we would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you for the efforts of Glyn and his team!

To tell us what the expedition was like and why the team decided to raise money for OnSide, we have been speaking to Glyn Thomas, Director at Coutts:

If you would like to know more about how you can support OnSide then visit our Get OnSide page for more information.

The Mayor of Newtownabbey Borough Council, Alderman Billy Webb and his colleagues embarked on a journey to Bolton to spend a couple of days with OnSide, to gain a more detailed understanding of how a Youth Zone works and experience the Bolton Lads and Girls Club, which our model is based on.

With two days jam packed of presentations, club visits and group discussions, the team from Newtownabbey were able to take away information about the key principles of developing a 21st Century Youth Zone and what impact it can have on a local area.

Listen to Mayor Billy Webb about why he felt it important to visit OnSide and what he will be taking away with him:

If you feel your organisation would like to know more about the work that OnSide does to support its Youth Zones please don’t hesitate to let us know. Take a look at our services pageto find out how we could support your organisation.

If you want more information about what The Factory (Manchester) Youth Zone is offering then visit its website: www.thefactoryyz.org.

We’ve put some pictures of the facility on the Manchester Youth Zone page. Take a look to see what is now on offer to young people.

CEO at OnSide North West

I am delighted, over the moon, happy as Larry, even as happy as Harry Redknapp, though not because I have escaped the grasps of the HMRC, but because like a football manager I have made an audacious double signing for OnSide. For an undisclosed fee, I can’t tell you how much, but it’s somewhere between 1 & -1, I have played a blinder and recruited a Dream Team of Warren Hegg (Lancashire & England) and Marc Studholme (Bolton!) to head up our forthcoming Charity Golf Day which will be held at Mere Golf & Country Club on 15th May.

The event will be known as The ‘Warren Hegg Golf Classic’. Warren had a glittering career playing cricket for Lancashire and had the honour of representing England on two occasions. Warren now works for Lancashire CC as a Development Officer and when asked if he would lead our Charity Golf Day he said “I am thrilled to be involved with such a worthwhile charity like OnSide, which is making a difference in the lives of our future generations. I’m looking forward to a competitive, but fun game of Golf in May and hope you can join us”.

I did warn Warren that the last time I asked someone to head up a Golf Day (Francis Lee) it turned into a bit of a life sentence, Franny is still going strong 23 years later and to date has raised over £300,000 for Bolton Lads & Girls Club through his golf day.

So we have a Leader and now we needed someone to pull everything together, a Fergie, a Barberoli, a tournament organiser. I knew just the man, step forward Marc Studholme. Marc is already a friend and supporter both of OnSide and the Factory Youth Zone.

Marc is passionate about our mission to support and invest in young people by simply giving them a safe and decent place to go in their leisure time. He is just the man to put in the “hard yards” and make the inaugural Warren Hegg Golf Classic a success.

So on behalf of everyone at OnSide a huge thank you to Warren & Marc and here’s to a great day. Keep an eye on our Events page as we will be posting details of how to enter a team.

Jerry Glover – Chief Executive

The Youth Zone came alive with activity when over 300 people from across the town filled the facility. There were tours of the building, presentations and cupcakes, performances by young people and the finale of HRH Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex KG GCVO officially opening the building for young people to enjoy. It was definitely a day that won’t be forgotten for a long time.

This event was a culmination of years of hard work by many people and as Andrew Graham, Chair of Blackburn Youth Zone said: “This is not the end of the beginning, it is the start of something amazing”.

Click here to take a look at our Gallery of Images of the building.

We caught up with Peter Little, Chief Executive at Blackburn Youth Zone for his thoughts on the day:

Take a look at some of the soundbites from people who attended the event yesterday:

MP Jack Straw:

Blackburn’s Young People:

David Watkinson, Lancashire Telegraph

Mark Serventi, Architect

Check out the footage from the official opening and the young people’s performances that followed:

ASC Renewables, a UK based renewable energy company specialising in the delivery of renewable energy solutions to both the private and public sectors, has pledged its support for our Charity. But why do companies decide to support an organisation like OnSide?

Rather than us telling you, we thought it would be better to hear it directly from them. Watch our interview with Stephen Critchlow, Chairman of ASC Renewables to find out first hand what inspired his company to get involved with us.

Click here to watch our interview with Stephen.