By Bridport Eco-Youth Crew

WE all want to make our town a better place and that's what Bridport Eco-Youth is about. We are a group of young enthusiasts who want to make changes to our Youth Centre which will benefit everyone in the long run.

The group has recently received a small grant from the Dorset Youth Council's Youth Opportunity Fund to help us look ways of reducing the youth centre's environmental footprint.

This enabled members of the group to take a weekend trip to Machynlleth in mid-west Wales to visit the Centre for Alternative Technology.

The trip was a fact-finding mission to get out ideas and information about ways in which we could put green ideas into practise at the Youth Club.

We left for Wales on a Friday evening, and after spending all Saturday expoloring CAT, returned on Sunday.

The group which visited the centre included six students (these were Charlotte Pearce, Dan Jones, Debbie Bird, Ellie Pritchard, Michael Ray amd Zoe Bevis) along with youth workers Debbie Gale and Keith Hatch and a Japanese visitor Taki Suzuki, who was involved with the Japanese exchange that took place last year, and will be happening again this year.

CAT itself provided a huge range of new ideas that could be introduced to the youth centre.

We had a great time looking at practical examples of solar, wind and wave power systems, as well as ways of reducing the amount of energy that we use in the first place, something that is just as important.

One strong idea, that was particularly popular with us, is a rain-water collection system, linked to a small wind turbine. This could be used for the toilets and watering plants, and something we hope to explore further.

No specific plans have been made just yet, however, many ideas, thoughts and new ways to save energy and consequently be more eco-friendly have come out of CAT.

Any young people keen on joining Bridport Eco-Youth should pop along to the launch night.