Youth club members in Alderney learned about recycling through a course run by States member Liz Bennett. (1020499)

YOUTH CLUB members had fun making objects from recycled materials during the final week of the summer holidays.

States member Liz Bennett and youth services manager Lisa Oates led the activity at the Butes Centre for youngsters aged seven to 13.

As well as enjoying the artistic element of the task, the children also learnt about the importance of recycling.

Liz said: ‘The idea was to encourage youngsters to have fun making objects from recycled materials but also to increase awareness of why reducing, reusing and recycling is important.

‘There was a quiz on the last day to test their knowledge about waste in Alderney and to stimulate their thinking as to how they can each make a contribution to lowering the island’s waste costs.’

The children made decorative fish from plastic bottles, woven baskets from cardboard and decorated mirror frames using card and papier-mâché.

Liz’s partner, Eric Pye, also got involved. Eric, who works at Alderney Pottery, helped the children make good-quality prints of wildlife and local landscapes.

Liz said: ‘Although this wasn’t strictly under the title of “recycling art”, it added to the sense of achievement and provided a fascinating and easily accessible form of art for everyone.

‘Of course all the hard work was done by Eric, who made the prints previously, but he was happy to share them since the originals have been on sale at the pottery for a few years now.’

Liz thanked Eric for his input and also praised Chloe Rhodes, Ellie Chiswell and Jean Llewellyn for helping.

‘Their reward was the enjoyment of the youngsters, but a lot of time and effort was needed to get such good results,’ said Liz, who is planning to leave the island for Yorkshire in the near future.

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Serena Brown’s first message in a bottle found its way to England – and her second made it to France.

While the 10-year-old schoolgirl (pictured) was being filmed for TV in Cat’s Bay recently, she wrote another message, put it in a bottle, and flung it into the sea.

And just to prove the first wasn’t just lucky, she received a postcard from Carnac in Brittany.

The reply was written by a boy called Simon. He said: ‘When I was kayaking I found your bottle bobbing along in the ocean near some rocks. I was very surprised to see you’re from Alderney.’

Serena, who attends St Anne’s School, was delighted to get another reply.

‘I was really happy. I’m going to keep throwing bottles in the sea – it’s good fun. It’s like having a pen pal.’

The only problem with the latest message is that Simon didn’t include a return address.

‘It would have been nice if he had put his address as I would have liked to have written back,’ said Serena.

As for the Morrow family, who discovered Serena’s first bottle in Goring-by-Sea in West Sussex, they have been in contact again.

‘I sent them a map, a box of chocolates and some information about Alderney,’ said Serena. ‘They wrote back to explain where everyone came from and it turns out there were people from Australia and Sweden who found the bottle with them. They said they had already eaten half the chocolates and would be taking the other half to their family in Sweden.’