MyPlace @ Westfield Folkhouse
MyPlace @ Westfield Folkhouse – Mansfield
Who are we?
For many years now Westfield Folkhouse has been one of the main provisions for young people within the Mansfield area. Mansfield District Youth Team, through Nottinghamshire County Council, have run from this building for years and has provided many young people with a range of different experiences throughout its time.
Around 30 years ago Westfield Folkhouse had an extension built onto the side of the old house which, due to the amount of people using the building, has become old and worn. The County Council had funding to refurbish/build new youth centres around the county with Westfield Folkhouse recieving £1.5million to refurbish the building. However, as the original building is a grade 2 listed building the money we were given would easily sink into the old building without having any improvements to benefit the young people using the centre. This is when management heard of the Big Lottery – MyPlace funding. An application was made to Big Lottery which was successful and we recieved an additional £5,000,000.
The money we have recieved has gone into refurbishing the old house and also rebuilding the extension to create a ‘World Class’ state of the art youth centre for young people within Mansfield, including many different provisions for young people not only the Mansfield District Youth Team.
The building is planned to be officially re-opened Friday April 1st 2011.
Consultation with Young People
Due to the sheer size of the project at hand, it is extremely important that the youth service involves young people within the planning of the build. The young people we are working with come from all the different units that will be based in the new building including Mansfield District Youth Team, The Disbility Support Team, Deaf Club, Skills for Employment Teams, The Hall Homeless Support and various other support services for young people.
These young people have played a key role with the planning of the building deciding on equipment within the building, furniture design, wall themes and the name of the new building.
Young Roots – Heritage Project
As part of our work with young people we are planning to undertake a project called Young Roots. Young Roots is grant programme which is funded through The Heritage Lottery Fund. We are hoping to receive around £20,000 to do an arts based project to research and raise awareness of the history and heritage of Westfield Folkhouse. We have made contact with Mansfield Museum, Mansfield Historical Society and County Youth Arts to support us through this project.
However, we are looking for others to support us with our project and would like anyone who used to attend Westfield Folkhouse or have any memories of the youth centre to come forward and share with us their experiences. It would also be very helpful if anyone has any photographs or videos etc. that might help us with our project.
We would love for you to get in touch, but please don’t leave any personal details on this site. You can e-mail us at wfh.youthcentre@hotmail.co.uk and we would love to talk to you 🙂
Hope to hear from you soon!
Thank you.
Comments about this page
Regarding your request for information about The Westfield Folk House, you may not be aware I have uploaded an article entitled ’Westfield Folkhouse, Kessingland Holiday circa 1947 – Just The Boys’ onto this site. I have also seen photographs of events on the Old Mansfield site as well. You have my permission to use my existing text and the said picture if you so desire but you will probably need permission from The Old Mansfield Society for information from their website. I can supply many names of members in the late Forties and early Fifties if you so desire. There was a Barry Heath attending the Junior Section it maybe the same person as the local author and playright but that is just a personal impression and I may be wrong.
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