Report on YPP trip to BCU

Once we arrived we were escorted to one of the lecture rooms of Birmingham City University and we were allocated to our seats. Once we were settled down we were greeted and the senior members of staff at the YPP introduced themselves to us. To kick off the meeting we did a quiz on what we already knew about the houses of parliament and the house of lords. Basically we were questioned about our overall knowledge of politics. We had a green card, a yellow card and a red card and each card represented an answer to the question asked. (E.g. how many people do you think can fit in the houses of parliament, green=300, red=600, yellow=500).

After the quiz we learned about the original traditions of the houses of parliament and how they are still used today and we learned about the role of Black Rod who seems to be treated badly by other members of parliament! We were thinking that if we had our own parliamentary ceremony how we would do it, for example I contributed by putting my hand up and saying that maybe the Black Rod should be treated with respect rather than being treated like he is an outcast.

After that we had a memorial for a man called Dennis Edwards, who was the original founder of the YPP Handsworth. Sadly he passed away last year so the manager of the YPP came to talk about Mr Edwards who was a very humble man who changed a lot of people s lives by encouraging them to be more interested in politics. They talked about how much of a great person he was and how he inspired many people to make something of their lives. They then told us that the original YPP meetings were held in the Millennium Point but sadly they had to leave because Millennium Point turned into shops. But fortunately BCU let them use the university as a meeting point with no charge! Then it was lunch.

When we came back to the room we were greeted by the dean of the university Fiona Church, she told us to become something great for ourselves and she asked us what we want to be. I said I wanted to be a MP for Birmingham. After the dean talked to us we started the ceremony where we were given the writing YPP book to take to council meetings at our schools and they gave us the parliament scrapbook, then they presented us with our badges and then we went back to school on the green bus. It was a great day.