From Nursery to Boardroom: A Lifelong Journey with the YMCA

We reached out to one of our ex-board members, Mick Hydes. Here is his story:

“I was only three years old when my journey with the YMCA began.

I lived just a few doors down, on North View in Ashington, on the same street with the same postcode. So the YMCA truly was part of my doorstep and my childhood.

Some of my earliest memories are of being in the nursery there, and then walking to Mario’s Café on Station Road with my nana afterwards. Even now, that little ritual sits fondly in my mind.

I somehow remember nursery being held upstairs, and although the details have faded with time, the feeling hasn’t. The YMCA was always a place my family valued. My mam and dad were very community-minded, and the YMCA featured naturally in our lives.

Growing up, my involvement never stopped. From nursery to the youth club, to playing for the under-19s football team, watching the Ashington Players perform, using the Job Club, and later completing my university placement, the YMCA was with me at every stage. And as a young adult, I benefitted from the job club facility that was based within the YMCA at the time Years later, I came full circle and joined the YMCA Northumberland Board.

The YMCA was always there for me, the way my use of the place changed simply reflected my age and stage of life.

One moment I’ll never forget is from football: Ashington Football Club wanted me to play for them, but my heart was with the YMCA, my “local team”. Even though the Ashington ground literally backed onto my garden, I stuck with the YMCA lads. We’d been beaten 5-0 by Ashington FC earlier in the season, but in a later cup match we came back to win 2-1. I scored the equaliser, and Derek Lonsdale, set up by Alex Gibson, got the winner. The pride and joy we felt as underdogs winning on their turf was incredible.

As I grew, the YMCA gave me more than hobbies, it shaped me. It offered opportunity at times I needed it most. When I needed a university placement abroad, it was a YMCA worker who secured me a life-changing placement at Buffalo YMCA in New York State. That experience broadened my world and built my confidence, and years later I even brought YMCA young people from Scotland to visit for information sharing when I worked with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

There were so many role models along the way. People who knew my family, who welcomed me, who believed in me. In recent years, Rob Cox has been a huge ambassador for both the YMCA and Ashington, someone I’m proud to know.

The support stretched across my life in very real ways: through being bullied at school, building my career, and then when life took me up to Paisley, Scotland. Even now — nearly 28 years later — whenever I return home, I walk into the YMCA and feel that same warmth. My mam was always welcomed there too, and knowing she felt safe and included when I lived away meant the world to me. Her funeral and memorial were held at the YMCA, and her ashes now rest in the community garden, a lasting connection between my family and this place that helped raise me.

Today, my wife Connie and our greyhounds are welcomed there as well. The YMCA is still evolving — always in a positive way — and I’m proud to still be part of it, still introducing people who can benefit from its community and services, and still calling it home.

The YMCA gave me confidence, determination, belief in myself, and community. I know without doubt my life would not have been as rich without it.

To any young person just beginning their journey here, I’d say: Fully support, believe, go and explore, make plans, and live dreams.

If I could thank the YMCA for one thing, it would be this: Belief in myself — and the chance to build a life rooted in community, opportunity, and hope.”