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A Heartfelt Thank You: Celebrating Sarah Grey's Leadership and Service

It is with immense gratitude and a touch of sadness that we mark the end of Sarah Grey's tenure as our Chair and Trustee. Serving almost continuously since our founding in 2007, Sarah has been the bedrock of The Activity Den, guiding us with remarkable dedication, expertise, and a clear vision for the community we serve.On behalf of the entire team, the board of Trustees, our Volunteers, and our Community, we extend our deepest appreciation for the extraordinary legacy she leaves behind.Instrume...

County Durham YouthPrint - Statement to recent events

County Durham YouthPrint has released a statement in response to recent events, reaffirming our commitment to inclusivity, respect, and supporting young people. As part of Durham YouthPrint, The Activity Den proudly support this important statement. All children and young people across the region need to know they will always have safe places to go....

The Activity Den - Welcomes new Chair Phillip Marshall

The Activity Den is delighted to announce the appointment of Phillip Marshall as the charity’s new Chair of the Board. A long-time advocate for community development and youth engagement. Phillip returns to the organisation to help guide its next chapter of growth and impact. With prior experience on the board, Phillip returns with extensive knowledge and a renewed commitment to empowering children and young people. Phillip appointment represents a key moment in the charity’s continued missi...

From Volunteer to Employee:

A 17 year old from Stanley has started a new job at a local children’s charity that she has been visiting for almost 11 years thanks in part to a Karbon Homes funded programme.Jessica first started going to The Activity Den in Stanley in 2014 after she had just turned six years old. Now, a couple of months away from her 17th birthday, she’s about to start a new job there as Den Assistant.Jessica was part of the Young Volunteers Task Force, a group set up by the Activity Den and first fu...

A Hauntingly Good Halloween Party

Here at the The Den we welcomed over 50 devils, monsters, witches and ghouls along with their family through our doors to enjoy a fantastic Halloween Party!...

Projects with Pride 2023

This year our staff and Young volunteer Task Force came together with various other north east youth organisations and attended NE Youth's projects with pride.We had a fantastic evening celebrating all of the fantastic achievements and hard work of all of our youth people and enjoyed a showcase of performances and awards. ...

October Fun and Food 2023

This October half term we have had a fiendishly good time here at The Den! Our young people took part in a scary scavenger hunt, finding all of our freaky figures hidden around our building! Pin the spider on the web, spooky statues and even made their own monster masks!...

Dancing our way through the dark nights

Our fantastic new freestyle dance session is now on it's second term and the boys and girls in our community are loving it! This group for children aged 6+ has definitely had a positive impact within our community with our numbers growing each week!Led by our brilliant dance tutor Erin, our members have been getting active, learning various dancing techniques and important stretches and cool down methods, whilst enjoying various dancing activities and games, having fun and socialising with frien...

Summer Den Update

Over the Summer we got up to loads here at The Den! Check out our summer edition of Den Update to find out all about it!...

Young Volunteer Task Force

Our Young Volunteer Task Force have been working extremely hard throughout 2023 and here is just a few of the fantastic things they've been doing!...

Karbon Homes Holiday Squad

We partnered up with Karbon Homes again this Summer to deliver some exciting sessions for young people in our local community. Thanks to Karbon Homes we were able to open our doors to over 20 bright smiling faces over two sessions here at The Den. ...

Fun in The Sun - Fun and Food 2023

Thanks to Stanley AAP and Fun and Food, here at The Activity Den, we have been able to deliver a range of fantastic activities alongside a healthy meal throughout the Summer Holidays for children and young people in our local community. Read on to find out about what we have been up to this Summer!...

Our Camping Adventure!

We kicked off Summer 2023 with an amazing camping trip to Dilston Scout Camp in Hexham! Our Woodcraft folk group and The Activity Den group came together with our Young Volunteer Task Force to plan a truly memorable experience. Together with our leaders, trustees, staff and members, everyone had a fun filled week team building, exploring nature and surrounding areas as well as developing various skills!Our young volunteers were given a fantastic opportunity to shadow group leaders and help out w...

Jumping for Joy in June!

June has been a very busy month here at The Den! We have had so many smiling faces through our door and we can't wait to see you all for our Summer Fun in the Sun Programme. We celebrated Environmental week, where our members created their very own recycling tree from recycled material, they learnt all about the importance of recycling whilst having fun and getting creative!...

Exciting things are coming from our Young Volunteers...

Our Young Volunteers are working extremely hard planning something big for our local community this summer! Watch this space to find out more!...

All Aboard The James Cook!

Over the weekend our Young volunteers were given an amazing opportunity thanks to Durham Association of Boys and Girls Clubs and Ocean Youth North Trust who have recently started offering sailing opportunities specifically for young people. Upon arrival, the volunteers were given an opportunity to explore their surroundings, find themselves a sleeping bunk and unpacked. Everyone aboard played 'The name game' where they found out each others names and fun facts about each other, creating pot...

Have you heard about our Sound Hub Project?

During the Spring half-term, newcomers to The Activity Den tried out our flagship music project: Sound Hub. We are delighted that the event was fully booked giving lots of young people the opportunity to play an instrument. For some of the young people this was their first taste of playing the guitar or drums....

Sponsored Sleepover

Woodcraft Folk and The Den are holding a sponsored sleep over for all current members on Wednesday 26th October 2022 to raise funds for The Rainbow Trust. This amazing charity is currently supporting one of our Woodies members who's little sister is awaiting a heart transplant. We can't think of a more worthy cause.Please check out the full details and how you can donate to this fantastic charity on the document below....

All things Spooktacular

October half term is almost upon us and that means it's time for us to announce our Halloween events. We have our Spooky Spectacular for children aged 6 - 8 years, our Ghoulish Gathering for children aged 9 - 13 years old and our Family Halloween party which is suitable for all ages.Our Halloween Party is a free event, just turn up on the day dressed in your spookiest outfit for fun, games, food and dancing. Our Spooky Spectacular and Ghoulish Gathering are bookable events with limited numb...

We need your help!!

After the last few years of lockdowns and social isolation, we are back and community spirit seems as strong as ever. Here at the Den it is exciting times, this is the term where we like to have lots of events. We want to grow our offering to all members and the community but we need your help. If you have enthusiasm, ideas & can spare a little time, we would love for you to join us in kicking off our events calendar.We are having an Events Group Meeting on Wednesday 28 September at 7pm at The A...

At our new scheduled times

Our Youth clubs have started back up again as of yesterday (Wednesday 7th September) and they certainly made an impression. The children had the most amazing time at Den Shoots when we welcomed them through the door at our new starting time of 5PM. They were building dens as a team and creating story book puppets to go along with the books the young volunteers were reading to them all in the spirit of International literacy day (Thursday 8th September). As for our older kid's session, Later...

Back to school

We are passing on information on behalf of the Witherslack Group. Follow the link below for events, resources and much more. Check the poster above for information on the live webinar. Link-  https://www.witherslackgroup.co.uk/resources/back-to-school-support-pack-2022/ ...

Cooking up a storm with Creative Kitchen

The children had such a fun time with Creative Kitchen here at The Den!Rainbow pasta and Lemon cake was on the menu and The Den has never smelled better. So many different colours and flavours were bouncing around and it was a delight! We have attached some pictures that you can scroll through and see all of the amazing things your children got up to!...

Extraordinary General Meeting

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Making a Big Bang with Big Science

Our Summer programme went off with a BANG (literally) as we welcomed Big Science though our door. The children had an amazing time blowing the biggest bubbles and making the tastiest sherbet whilst also learning about gasses, chemical reactions and so much more! Who knew science could be so fun?  All of the experiments were safe using ingredients that can be found around the house, showing the children that they use science in their everyday lives. Bicarbonate of Soda and Citric Acid w...