Witham Boys' Brigade & Girls' Association

Witham BB is the working name of 2nd Witham Boys' Brigade and Girls' Association, and is a registered charity.

We work with the whole community with various different events and festivals. Some of these events include:
- #TeamWitham, a youth led project which supports young people to run businesses for a week;

- Le Tour de Witham, a family bike riding festival; and

- The Summer Saturday Open Crowd festivals, a family day of games and activities for all ages all around Witham, as well as many others.

The core Boys’ Brigade activities are on a weekly programme, based on a badgework scheme, with leadership awards, such as The President’s and Queen’s Badges, plus The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme.

We operate with the 5-18+ age range, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, age appropriate so that each Section can get the most out of the programme. Some examples of evenings are:

- Anchors (5-8 yrs) - let's build with Lego evening.
- Juniors (8-12 yrs) - an overnight stay complete with a film and making their own dinosaur fossils.
- Company Section (12-14 yrs) - our members competed against their mums in a mums vs sons evening.
- Seniors - an evening of “Whose line is it anyway” style improvisation games. In addition, woodturning, radio controlled car building, car restoration and BMX rebuilding also take place.

Though there is lots of fun, we still have challenges and evenings that will give our young people what they need to move on in the world.

Our schools department, the CYO team, work with most year groups in both primary and secondary schools; sometimes holding events in our local Academies with the help of the school staff. Some involvement in actual lessons, on personal development, also takes place.

We have a huge sports programme on offer, for BB members and for the community as a whole, during the week and school holidays. Three sports sessions each week on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, which includes various football games and sports sessions and during our BB time on a Friday we offer global sport and PR (Physical Recreation).

Our water-based activities include both a powerboat (RIB), at Bradwell, which we use during the year to teach and train young people to use and drive; and canoeing on the River Chelmer.

Witham BB own 18 acres of land in Peter's Vale, Twinstead, Sudbury, Suffolk which is an ancient broadleaf woodland and arable field. Having had this property since 1988, it has been our wish to make full use of it, for camping and recreation, as well as slowly turning parts of it into a nature reserve. A large amount of conservation work takes place, in partnership with TCV, ( The Conservation Volunteers), as well as running some of our programmed evenings and occasionally camping there.

As a youth facility in Witham, members become involved on an annual basis, helping to maintain both The James Cooke Wood and Witham Closed Church Nature Reserve. In recent years, we planted bluebell bulbs at the wood, and also cleared ivy from the churchyard, and made hedgehog hibernation nests from it.

Witham BB charity, have the free use of an empty shop unit in town as our Community Hub for a variety of purposes including a Youth Hub on Fridays and other projects during the year. Partners such as the Job Centre, NHS, Ignite Business enterprise and St John's Ambulance service plus others, use the hub for purposes like training and encouraging youth into business.

Youth and Community work enables us to have partnerships with local businesses, and young people from all over the town and surrounding areas, which brings them together. Our #TeamWitham project and our Witham Leadership Academy are two examples, both held every year, in which we lead and inspire young people to become the next leaders of our community and to make our town better for everyone. The Town Mayor’s youth Award, is another example of our work - an annual Award supported by Witham Town Council.