About Us

What’s our purpose?

NAYC (Northamptonshire Association of Youth Clubs) & ACUK (Action Centres UK) is a diverse organisation here to help and educate young people, especially, but not exclusively, through their leisure-time activities to develop their physical, mental and spiritual capacities that they may grow to full maturity as individuals and as members of society.

How do we achieve it?

Originally founded in Northampton, our work has expanded the facilitate youth work across the UK. This looks different across all our sites. We have a charitable youth association (NAYC) that focuses on Youth Development in Northamptonshire. In a nutshell, Youth Development assist the work of existing groups and help develop new groups. We have also developed King’s Park Sports, located in Northampton, we have sports facilities that include tennis courts, badminton courts, a climbing wall, trampolining, archery and more. These facilities serve young people, families and the local community. They provide a space that young people can have fun, develop their skills and grow in confidence. On the same site stands King’s Park Conference Centres, a centre developed initially to provide a space for youth leaders to come and receive training. Now King’s Park Conference Centre supports organisations and leadership teams across the country. Finally we have two activity centres; Pioneer in Shropshire and Whitemoor Lakes in Staffordshire. The two centres were built to give youth groups a place to take their young people away on a residential trip where they could escape their busy lives and build strong lasting friendships whilst experiencing the outdoors. These centres have a variety of activities available between them including climbing, abseiling, high ropes, zip wire, caving, sailing, kayaking and more!

What does this look like specifically for our Activity Centres?

For our Activity Centres this looks like continually developing our centres to remain places that schools, youth groups, faith groups, families, charities and businesses can use to bring young people, receive training and host events. We believe there is so much power in young people experiencing a residential so we want to build and maintain centres that make this possible. We strive to provide the best outdoor activity experience out there because we want to see young people flourish in learning new skills, developing new friendships and gaining a fresh confidence for their future.  

We aim to provide top quality centres that can facilitate life changing youth work, places that youth leaders, teachers and parents enjoy and feel safe bringing their young people. 

We place a high importance on our Firm Foundations Trainee Instructors and commit to developing their love of the outdoors and passion to serve young people. Releasing potential isn’t just something we want to see in every guest we have at one of our centres but in our staff too. 

What’s our history?

We’ve been supporting youth groups across Northamptonshire since 1961. We have pioneered opportunities for young people; organising expeditions allowing young people to travel and explore the world, opening a hostel to help young men recover from crisis, founded a youth association in Bedfordshire and developed activity centres across the UK. Some of those include Frontier Centre near Irthlingborough – now run by Rock UK; The Ranch Discovery Centre in North Wales – now run by CMC; and an Expedition Base on the Isle of Harris In the Outer Hebrides – now known as the Scaladale Centre and run in conjunction with the Lewis and Harris Youth Clubs Association. NAYC & ACUK also helped to envision and develop the Discovery Centre in Uganda which is run by Adventure Projects Trust and YWAM. 

Why are we passionate about releasing potential in young people?

The motivation of our work springs from the personal faith of the staff; a love of God issuing in a love for others. The aims and objectives of our work are to serve young people and their needs. We are open to all and so are not restrictive or exclusive.  We believe that God has put something special inside every one of us so we commit to releasing potential in all. 

If you want to find out more about us as an organisation click below.

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