Weddin Shire Council has hosted their June ordinary monthly meeting on Thursday, 19 June where they discussed a motion moved by Councillor Wezley Makin that Council establishes a Junior Weddin Shire Council Advisory Committee comprising local youth aged 12-18 to provide insight into the interests, concerns and ideas of young people across the Shire.

After a lengthy discussion by Council, the motion was not passed.

Councillors saw merit in the motion, but hesitated to remove money from the roads budget to fund it.

Cr Makin said over the last few months they have been hosting workshops in regard to their 2035 plan with one of the main things established that youth are the core of the centre.

Cr Makin said unfortunately there is an ageing demographic in the town and they should want the youth to make their ideas at the forefront of the town and be part of the decisions which affect the town moving forward.

"We want them to be a part of those decisions as well," he said.

As part of this Junior Weddin Shire Council Advisory Committee, local students would be engaged in a platform where they can share their ideas, how they want the Weddin Shire to look and feel and be part of those collaborative decisions which affect the shire with the Council.

Cr Makin said this will start them on the journey to civic leadership, getting involved in local government organisations and potentially opening up more funding platforms to engage with the youth in that area.

Councillor Chad White said he really supports the idea of a youth committee advisory group but his concerns are staffing and someone to guide the committee.

Cr White said there might be a conflict of interest if Cr Makin were to navigate the youth through the committee process and if this was to go ahead, there would need to be a position created within Council because policies and so forth need to be drawn up or drafted.

He said as such this will cost money as well as creating that position such as a community engagement officer to run this program.

"I fell that we don't have the population of youth that be interested to form the council or advisory group," he said.

Cr White said if they want to see something for our youth, they need to have the community grow.

Cr White said he doesn't believe it is a wise idea to take funding out of the roads as the roads are such a hot topic within the community.

"There is a lot of funding sources out there for youth activities and advisory groups and so forth," he said.

Within Council's business papers, it was noted that Council is currently undertaking a recruitment for a Cadet Communications Officer who could provide some level of secretariat support once hired.

Council's business papers highlighted that a budget allowance of up to $6,000 for three meetings a year will need to be utilised to subsidise the secretariat function, which could be taken from the road maintenance budget towards this trial for the 2025-26.

Weddin Shire Council's General Manager Noreen Vu said the $6000 was the staff recommendation, not from Cr Makin, and they don't have a community service function within Council like other Councils do.

"In reality when you've got limited budget the roads budget is the biggest budget that Council manages so that was just where the recommendation came from," she said.

Cr White said there is a lot that needs to be done with this youth advisory group or youth Council and this is something he has looked into many times to establish, but it is not something so easy to set up and run.

Cr White said while he supports the idea, he feels they need to do more work in the community around the LEP to grow the community, grow the population to form such things.

Councillor Jan Parlett said she is always in favour of any youth initiatives but she does have hesitation with the allocation of $6000 from the roads, considering roads are a high priority throughout the community.

Cr Parlett said they had something in the past similar to this, where the Cowra Neighbourhood Central girls through Interagency did develop a youth group organisation on Council and they did start discos and events such as that for the local youth.

However, this was discontinued once they were unable to keep coming over.

Cr Parlett said the Health Council has tried many times to get a young person on as a Council representative, but that has been proiblematic.

Cr Parlett said maybe as a way forward, they already have with The Henry Lawson High School a student representative council who Council might already be able to connect with to do surveys or gauge the interest.

She said they can also tap into the local primary schools to get their inputs and find their insights on whether they would be willing to join or take part.

Councillor Colleen Gorman said she she can see the merit of what the motion is trying to do, but takes issue to the fact it would take money from the roads funding, which would cause probably cause a lot of angst in the community as a lot of people are fighting for the roads to be improved.

Cr Gorman said speaking as someone who has been a teacher for many years and with a history of working with the high school's SRC and their events, the older kids would definitely have a lot of value to contribute and they would also have the skills and the big picture information to deal with the responsibility of the position.

However, Cr Gorman said the younger students, over the years it was difficult to run it as an inclusive meeting with a lot of input from them.

Cr Gorman said there is a lot of value the younger students could add and a lot of students with abilities who would really benefit with something like this, but perhaps starting with an older group.

"But the biggest problem is most of those kids, especially the captains, have a lot of responsibility within the school and they're also starting to be very focused on their life beyond school and a the big deal for a lot of them is getting the marks for the career they eventually wanted to get into, particularly if they're looking at university education," Cr Gorman said.

Cr Gorman said they probably need to have it really sorted out before they attempt implementing the Junior Weddin Shire Council Advisory Committee.

Cr Makin said growing up in Grenfell and working in the education sector, something like this would be quite beneficial, citing the skate park which had been driven by the local youth.

He said these sorts of initiatives are not so much a social aspect, it is a learning tool for students to be active participants in the town.

Cr Makin said they have seen a decline in junior sport and other areas within the town where junior participation has dropped and he thinks it is important they need to refocus some aspect of Council's outlook in ensuring junior participants within the shire are included in big things like the Festival and what's important in the shire and what is important to them.

"We have been fortunate enough that a lot of people with children have moved to this town. We want to give them a reason to stay and make their children a part of our Weddn Shire as much as possible," he said.

"It's not just Grenfell it's the villages as well to get them involved in what's important to their village as well."

Cr Makin said as Ms Vu said the $6000 from the roads was just a figure they could fit within the budget and it's not to take away from anywhere else.