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Oisin Doherty

Ba-dee-ya, dancing in September

Updated: Oct 2

A selfie of the blog writer, holding up two fingers for a peace sign

It's back to porridge for the members! One of our members of the year, Oisin Doherty, gives us a recap of a busy September spent taking part in lots of REACH activities, while getting back to the school grind.


Band Skills: Band never stopped over the summer really but going straight after school it does feel different. We are getting more and more new members joining the band and getting good at our song list. If we keep up this momentum in October there may be something to see at Halloween (spoilers!). Overall this has been a really productive month for the band.

A group of young people performing as a band, with three singers, a drummer, a bassist and a guitarist rehearsing. The image also includes graphics of musiciancs, instruments and the two hand icon from the REACH Across logo
The band group are working even harder after a busy summer
A group of young people and one leader sat around in the REACH Across Youth Café. Graphics on the image include headphones, an astronaught relaxing on a chair and a cup of tea, with some stars and the word homework also included
Members unwinding at the Youth Café after a long day at school.

Drop Ins: Now I won’t lie, I haven’t attended all of these lol but they are definitely worth dropping in. The banter is fantastic and it is a nice chilled out time. I highly recommend going every now and then at least because you’ll have great fun.

5 young people sat on the sofas of the REACH Across Youth Café. The young people are all looking to the left of the image, where teh facilitator is sat outside of camera shot.
There's been a lot of growing and glowing from this group in 2024

Grow and Glow: Megan’s project is back! These are really informal and informative sessions at the same time (contradictory adjectives I know!) We are getting very interesting sessions. We have only started back at them but it still is very interesting.

A group of around 50 young people stood in front of a rolller coaster at Emerald Park
It was obvious the group were on the road from 7am that morning...

Emerald Park: Probably the one everyone reading this scrolled straight down to lol. Our annual Emerald Park trip (or still Tayto Park to some) was really fun. Gotta say I am a sucker for a rollercoaster so seeing these new ones they have was a particular highlight. The food was also lovely. I love my chicken tenders and these were some really good ones lol. Also going on a rollercoaster with Josh is something I’ll never forget (is he scared of anything?). Gotta say this was my highlight of september with Reach even if I was so exhausted that on the bus I couldn’t fall asleep but couldn’t stay awake either haha.

A group of young people sat around Josh, one of the youth leaders on his final night at club
One last club night sat in the Barr-den of Reflection

Club Nights: Oh boy have we had a busy few of these recently. Thursday the 12th was an especially emotional one where one of (if not the) most iconic leaders at Reach attended his last club night of course I am talking about Josh. There was a collection of video messages for him (organised by yours truly) and a few jaffa cakes as a farewell gift and by a few I mean 64. Although I believe the number is nearer 0 jaffa cakes at this point. All members and leaders are gonna miss Josh that is for sure. Who else will annoy Barney by constantly making everyone shout “For the Funders!”. The week after the 19th we had a visit from a group of young people from Umbria, Italy facilitated by the North West Academy of English. Which was certainly a fun night with all the team building games especially if some of us (me) get really competitive. Everyone enjoyed it thoroughly. Great energy and fun banter at club as always.


TLDR: September at Reach was full of activities with lots getting done and leaders putting in lots of work. Band Skills is booming (both figuratively an

literally), Megan’s Grow and Glow sessions restarting, Drop In sessions are proving to be a great idea, Emerald Park was the highlight of the month and club nights recently meant saying farewell to old friends and making some new ones. Let’s hope October will be just as prosperous for Reach.

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