Cambridge Junior Rugby Club is being considered as the possible venue for the teen club.
Discussions are underway to launch a youth centre teen club in Cambridge.
The Rotary Club of Cambridge’s youth and new generation director Kim Prichard has been brainstorming the idea of facilitating such a space, saying it would fill a need for Cambridge’s young people to have “somewhere positive to go and something to do”.
Others, it would seem, agree.
So far, he’s met with a group of Cambridge High School students and staff to workshop what shape it might take.
A management committee made up of high school students has been established as planning is underway, he said, and Prichard has contacted Hautapu Sports officials to discuss the possibility of basing the hub at its junior clubrooms.
Ultimately, the hope would be to make the hub space available to teenagers aged 13-19 Cambridge wide, he said.
Prichard spoke at Cambridge Community Board’s August meeting public forum last week to inform the board of progress to date.
The plans, he said, were being well received.
While specifics like gathering times – and how regularly gatherings would be – were still being ironed out, he told The News on Monday he had been part of such a group when he was in high school and saw many positives arising if Cambridge teenagers were afforded the same opportunity.
His club “…ultimately became somewhat of a positive central hub” in town.
He said feedback regarding the idea for a similar facility for teenagers in Cambridge was being well received.
“It’s about giving young people in Cambridge somewhere to gather and socialise in a safe space.
“Young people need something like that and there seems to be a sense of excitement about what that might look like.”
It would be an alcohol and drug free space, and an appropriate level of adult and parental supervision would be ensured to complement the management committee, Prichard said.
Those workshops with high school students had helped produce a list of event ideas they would like to see facilitated there once it’s operating – including movie nights, live music performances, hosting guest speakers and a wide range of other safe gatherings.
Hautapu’s junior club rooms would therefore be the “ideal” venue, he said.
Interlock Trust uses the space on several weekday mornings, and with the teen club gatherings envisioned to typically be held after school hours, the space would “work well”.
There would be some costs involved, he said, but totals were yet to be determined.
Certain types of equipment were being sought in order to facilitate requested gatherings at the hub, Prichard said.
