fantastic to be here this evening honest
on a wet miserable evening usually when
I’m out and about at the adventure
playground the sun’s shining as miles of
smiley faces and then pics more here
we’re very looking for people who don’t
know what an adventure playground is a
it’s a space that’s fenced off and has
workers working with the children it’s
it’s a space where the children can
choose to come and go freely and to do
things that children used to do in past
generations I’ve been very fortunate to
come to pitts more i arrived in pitts
more in 1994 and i know i only look 22
but actually I’m 50 I worked at the
adventure playground for six years and
had some of the best times of my life
and the adventure playground and
absolutely amazing community very
diverse and it’s a place where children
used to play freely but unfortunately
several years ago due to austerity the
council we’re going to cut the service
and we’ve had to establish a charity to
to start a reset up and redesign what
the offer is we’ve now got a charity car
picks mill adventure playground CIO and
as many people in this room have helped
support and develop that so when it was
given the opportunity to say a few words
by Martin tonight about children and
bloody kids I couldn’t resist so with
three years into pits more adventure
playground CI CI olds project and it’s a
vibrant place if you’ve got children
aged between five and 13 please bring
them down or smaller children it’s great
it’s like when lots of people in the
past could play naturally so we do some
water play we’d have water fights we’ve
got some fire play there’s some pizzas a
large slide we’ve got loose parts we dem
bild we’ve got community artists we’ve
got music we’ve got quite a few people
who are presenting tonight who have
participated in in the work of it
me pixma adventure playground has been
eight years out of my life it’s been an
amazing journey with an amazing
community you know we’re getting
historically we’ve had a lot of bad
press it’s one of the most cohesive
communities I’ve ever worked in a
pleasure to work in a cross Sheffield
I’m one of the greatest things that the
children tell me is that they like being
together they like playing together they
like learning together you know recently
we had a visit from the Sheffield start
and they call it a children’s paradise
now that’s something from the Sheffield
star isn’t it really in the last year
we’ve been fortunate to be recognized as
a national award winning playground and
we’ve got a tremendous team of local
residents volunteers paid workers and
community partners and everybody
contributes and to me really I’ve got
one of the best jobs in the world and
and really we’ve all gotta stand up for
pitts more and stand up for the
community and the diversity diversity is
the most important think about it you
know collectively people do with
responsible things to try and make us
move apart but I think the best thing
about pits more is the people and the
children and I think that you’ve got an
amazing area let’s all work together and
look after it and thanks for listening
to me for a few minutes [Applause]