00:00I'm going to pass on now to Jo Jordan from the PTA, who was part of a very small but very productive team of parental volunteers that worked so hard to get the grant to make this all happen.
00:18So, Joachim Fawrity Jo, clap Fawrity Jo Jordan on PTA. Joachim Fawrity.
00:24So, Carol just asked me to say a couple of words about the PTA.
00:27And the first was, what does the PTA do? And that is, in fact, a question that my eight-year-old son, Kean, asked me.
00:33And I said, well, it's for parents and teachers to work together to make the school a better place.
00:37He looked a bit thoughtful and said, do you think the PTA could ask Mrs Macy to cancel the national test?
00:44I said, no, but do you have any other ideas? And he said, well, we've got a big problem in school with flooding.
00:50There's this area in between the concrete part of the school and the field, and it's flooded for many months of the year.
00:57Do you think the PTA could work with Mrs Macy to do something about that?
01:01So, I had a coffee with Hannah, and we got together a small team of the PTA to work out what we might be able to do.
01:07We invited a local landscape gardener, Mark Lewis. I don't know if he was able to make it today.
01:12It's not a big shout-out to Mark Lewis, who visited the site and said, what you need is a boardwalk.
01:17I've built many miles of these for natural resources as well.
01:21So, all we needed to do now was raise the money.
01:24Hannah and I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and realised we'd need to hold about 20 summer fairs.
01:29We thought, can we do it a little bit quicker than that?
01:31You know, summer fair is a big team effort, but can we do something a bit faster?
01:34So, we started looking into grants.
01:36And what was brilliant is there was some seed funding available from Averesthurst Town Council.
01:40Thank you, Steve and the Town Council.
01:46That really got us started.
01:48And so, it's in a really good position to then be able to apply for a large £30,000 grant from the Welsh Government,
01:55Local Places for Nature, facilitated by Ceredigna and Nature Partnerships.
02:00And this is really the investment that you see today in front of you.
02:03So, it funded the boardwalk and also the developments in the Year One Yard, the polytunnel and all the raised beds.
02:08And children are growing their own food in the polytunnel and actually selling it at the summer fair today, if you'd like to buy some.
02:14I've been given the lavender before I've actually done anything, which is great.
02:30Thank you so much, Mrs. Macy, PTA, for the invitation to come along back to see the completed boardwalk, or completed as it is for now.
02:45So, I think this might be the first boardwalk I've ever officially opened as a boardwalk.
02:50So, it's really great to be part of this.
02:54I'm really so pleased to be, well, first of all, to have been shown the work in all its various stages from last year
03:03by a couple of pupils from years five and six, who took me through the whole process of getting the grants,
03:12getting the work together to put this boardwalk in place.
03:17So, just making sure that the efforts of everybody involved, both money and efforts in terms of time and commitment,
03:27have all been recognised and marked by all concerns is really important.
03:32And what strikes me about the importance of this project is that it opens up nature and it opens up outdoor activity for young children in this school.
03:44And we're in the middle of a town here, a busy town of Aberystwyth.
03:49And it's more important that schools that are based in busy towns such as Aberystwyth and in the centre of those towns
03:55have the access they need to outdoor spaces and to access to nature.
04:01So, I'm really pleased that this work is going to make that activity that much more accessible for all
04:08and that teachers don't have to face all the muddy shoes that were coming back, hopefully, into the school
04:14as a result of walking outdoors prior to this.
04:18I'm told that there's a real concern for teachers getting their school muddy.
04:23So, hopefully, this will keep the school cleaner as well.
04:26But the PTA, especially for being the driver for,
04:31much of this work and everybody involved, including the student from the university,
04:37has been actively involved as well as all the financial donations to this.
04:42So, diolch i bawb.
04:43Diolch i Esgol Tlasgrig am bod yn ysgol mor wych ar rhoi cyfle i gymaint o blant yr ardal yma.
04:49Thank you to Esgol Tlasgrig for being such a fantastic school in this community
04:53and giving our young people such a great start in life.
04:58Bethi, diolch i chi gyd.
05:00Enjoy the fair, enjoy the Bouncer Castle and the burgers and whatever comes next.
05:05But thank you to all the efforts that have gone in to making this a more accessible,
05:11friendly, access to nature place for all our young people.
05:16Diolch i bawb riawn.
05:16I now do the official job of using a scissor to cut the ribbon.
05:23So let's have a look to see how I do that.
05:26Who's going to hold my microphone?
05:28Okay, I'm going to cut the ribbon now.
05:34Are you all watching?
05:36Everybody watching?
05:37Okay, I'm going to do one, two, three.
05:39Indai, three, one, two, three.
05:41And here we go.
05:50This is probably the first boardwalk I've ever been asked to open officially in Ceredigion.
05:56So I'm really chuffed that it's here.
05:58And I think what's so great about this boardwalk here in this school in Clasgrig
06:04is that it opens up now and provides the access for children to access all this nature around them.
06:11So that they'll be able to get that much more outdoor activity into the wet winter months as well.
06:17So it provides, because making sure that young people have access to nature and outdoor space
06:23in the middle of a town like Aberystwyth is particularly important.
06:27So this boardwalk provides a good clean access for that.
06:32So it's a great addition to the school.
06:34Yeah, this area of the school gets completely waterlogged every winter.
06:39It's completely unusable.
06:41And this wonderful boardwalk will open the whole area up for the school,
06:46for all the children in the school, for the whole year.
