Building a Youth Forum with Clay, Conversation and No Boardroom Table

Clay, card dragons and relaxed conversation helped the Wrecsam2029 Youth Forum share ideas about the city without the pressure of a formal meeting.

2 min read

A Youth Forum does not need to spend every session sitting around a table talking about strategy.

In fact, we are fairly sure that is one of the quickest ways to lose people.

For one of our Wrecsam2029 Youth Forum sessions, we met at the Shed Space in Wrexham University’s Regent Street School of Art. Instead of agendas, presentations and formal introductions, the tables were covered with clay, wooden rounds, card, paints and materials.

Leila Hodgson led the creative activities, giving everyone the freedom to choose what they wanted to work on. Some experimented with clay. Others decorated wooden pieces or made card dragons. Nobody had to produce the same thing, and nobody was expected to explain the deeper meaning behind what they had created.

They could simply make something.

Conversation without the pressure

There is a reason we keep returning to practical activities with the Youth Forum.

Sitting opposite somebody and asking for their opinion can make even a simple conversation feel like an interview. When people are working with their hands, the pressure changes. They can talk while looking at what they are making, listen for a while or join in when they have something to say.

The quiet moments do not feel awkward because everyone is still busy.

That helped the group continue getting to know one another. Some young people chatted while they worked. Others concentrated on their activity and joined the wider conversation gradually.

Both mattered.

Youth participation should not reward only the most confident person in the room. If every session relies on people speaking quickly and publicly, the same voices will always be heard first.

Creating alongside one another gave people more than one way to be part of the group.

Looking ahead to 2036

The session was relaxed, but that did not mean it lacked purpose.

Morgan from Wrecsam Community and Culture Trust and Leon Bowen spent time talking with the young people about their experiences and their hopes for Wrecsam. The conversations looked beyond the 2029 City of Culture bid towards what the city could feel like in 2036.

That is a big question.

Young people spoke about the places they use, what they enjoy and what they would like to see more of. They were not being asked to design an entire city plan between pieces of clay. The point was to start gathering honest thoughts without turning the afternoon into another formal consultation exercise.

Good youth engagement often happens in the gaps. It happens while somebody is deciding which paint to use or trying to stop a card dragon from falling apart.

Those small conversations can reveal far more than a questionnaire.

More than a creative afternoon

From the outside, the session might have looked like a group of young people doing arts and crafts.

That was part of it, and we do not think creativity needs to apologise for being enjoyable. But something else was happening around the tables.

Relationships were developing. Young people were growing more comfortable with the group. Conversations about Wrecsam were happening naturally, and the adults involved were listening rather than arriving with all the answers.

The session reminded us that youth voice does not always need microphones, meeting papers or a boardroom table.

Sometimes it needs clay, space to think and enough time for the real conversation to begin.