Fair Fun

Each year the department looks for new places to visit and add to the three-week YL programme they currently run. Leisure Manager Simon Nelson and his YL Co-ordinator, Vicki Lyall, were developing new ideas long before the busy summer season finished.

Simon says that the year at LAL is, for the Leisure Department, a little bit like riding a rollercoaster. Just as the department is really busy with young learners at the end of June each year, they have to start thinking about the next year. There are so many things to consider when they look at a new venue and the only way to see if it will work is to try it, so, once they have established all the logistics of each excursion, the next stage is to go and see it. It might then still be a case of it not being suitable, as Simon explains: “I went on a considerable pilgrimage in 2007 to look at three fantastic attractions for our programme, all of which for various reasons failed to make it on in 2008. That’s life though. Vicki and I normally know exactly what we are looking for."

This year Simon and Vicki whittled their list of possible new venues and attractions for 2010 down to three. One is still being planned, but they were able to try two possible places with our October 2009 intake which was around 75 Young Learners.

The first new attraction is the Fairground Heritage Centre. This is an impressive site which combines not only a wonderful museum, but also an indoor vintage working fairground. This contains original working and restored fairground rides and sideshows that the students can try. They can experience what the young (and not-so young) people of yesteryear would have enjoyed when attending the annual travelling fair when it came to town. This would have been long before the days of the theme parks and white-knuckle rides that the young people experience today, so Simon and Vicki were a little unsure how today’s young people would take to it!

Simon saw the reaction of the students at first hand and it turned out to be a phenomenal success. “It was beyond my wildest expectations, they absolutely loved it,” Simon comments. “There was a good mixture of ages and nationalities and everyone enjoyed it so much so that most did not want to leave.”
It is really good when all the planning comes together and everyone has a great time, and the Fairground Heritage Centre is almost certain to go on the programme for 2010.

The trip to the Fairground Heritage Centre was also a chance to experiment with going across to Tintagel in North Cornwall for part of the day. Although this is a tour we have offered to Adult students for many years, we have never been able to do it with the young learners because we could not visit for a whole day. However, because Tintagel is quite close to the Fairground centre, it made a perfect stop of for about 1.5 hours to get a flavour of the King Arthur theme along with the other attractions it offers to visitors.

All in all the combined excursion worked out better than Simon and Vicki anticipated and they are very keen to see this become part of LAL’s  programme. SN

You can find out more about the Dingles Fairground Heritage centre here.