Students of Thrive Dance Academy performed a powerful dance at The Farnham Maltings as their graduation performance. It was a huge pleasure to present the certificates to the graduates, as well as a High Sheriff Youth Award to Rachel Deadman for Thrive dance Academy. Rachel’s inspiration in providing an alternative to main stream schooling to achieve success for young people through dancing is incredible.
The High Sheriff’s of East and West Sussex, Kent and myself were given an eye opening opportunity to see the incredible work of the Gatwick Police, part of Surrey and Sussex Combined Force. We went through airport security and then airside, and experienced the sophisticated operations required to ensure the safety of all those using and working at Gatwick airport.
The Chairman of Surrey County Council arranged a gathering of the Mayors and Chairmen of the boroughs and districts of the county together with the Lord Lieutenant and Vice Lord Lieutenant. It was a
great opportunity to hear from everyone of the charities and themes they will be supporting this year. An enormous variety of very worthwhile causes.
STEPS Woking Learning Centre held their open day today, before Graduation tomorrow for their young people moving on to college. It was an incredibly uplifting and inspirational visit and fantastic to see the essential work that is being done to provide care and mentoring and a family home for some of Surrey’s young people. Well done to all the team at STEPS.
The Guildford Shakespeare Company treated us to a fantastic evening on Monday. The Company performed Twelfth Night outside in the beautiful grounds of Guildford castle, as the sun lowered and dusk set in. The performance was outstanding, a fresh take on the comedy, full of catchy songs and frolicking laughter. All at once intimate, dynamic and highly professional. The performance is running until 29th June, and I can’t recommend it enough. Many thanks to all at GSC for a fantastic evening.
This was a fascinating evening briefing for Berkshire and Surrey, on our amazing Royal Navy,Army and Royal Air Force Reserves, Cadets and Veterans.The theme was diversity,inclusion and youth and we were left in no doubt at the professionalism,dynamism and determination to ensure diversity and inclusivity within the tri-service of cadet and Reserve forces. The presentations were very instructive and inspiring in helping the audience understand the challenges facing Reserves,Cadets and Veterans of the forces and particularly in civilian life ,and the support that as civilians we must provide.
It was good for the soul to see the variety and range of fruit and vegetables that women at Send Prison were cultivating (through THE CLINK charity) to provide for THE CLINK restaurant at High Down HMP. The opportunity to develop horticultural skills and gain NVQ’s, as well as the mentoring and ongoing support for the women is a wonderful example of what can be done, -a ray of sunshine-.
Gary Gates does a remarkable job in growing,cultivating and teaching and memtoring-thank you.
We welcomed almost a thousand visitors to our family farm last weekend, as part of the national LEAF Open Farm Sunday.
The gates opened at 10.30 am and from then onwards hailed a constant flow of cheery farm-goers, ready to explore the best of Surrey’s farming.
My theme for my year of office is ‘Nurture through Surrey’s Nature’, and Open Farm Sunday exemplified the nurturing qualities of Surrey’s nature. Giggling children jumped on tractors and learnt about cows, families ate picnics amongst the bluebells and learnt how to identify different trees.
The farm focused on three different areas – the cows, the woods and the natural environment. Each area had a host of different activities to get stuck into, from tree planting to worm counting, learning about pasture fed cattle to watching a chainsaw demonstration, following a woodland trail to making beeswax candles. The soil science was a particular hit, one child explained ‘my favourite part was learning about the unbelievable worms. I now know they are very important to help crops survive’.
No one left hungry, with ice creams from nearby Meadow Court Farm on sale as well as Hampton’s famous home grown beef sausages and home baked biscuits.
A plethora of local organisations were involved in the event – Seale Village forest pre-school, Surrey Wildlife Trust, Tice’s Meadow, Farnham Beekeepers, The Livestock Partnership Vets, and The Pirbright Institute.
As well as a brilliant team of volunteers (family and friends of the farm), the superb Surrey Voluntary Police cadets supported the day, ensuring everything ran as smoothly as possible. Caroline Drummond, CEO of LEAF, also visited the farm, impressed by the large range of activities on offer and commented ‘this is exactly what we hope for in an Open Farm event.’
Walton Firs Foundation has expanded its already magnificent outdoor activity center by adding a wonderful outdoor high ropes facility (officially opened by The Mayor of Elmbridge) for any group lucky enough to stay or visit the site. An incredible place.
Big thanks to local donors (through the Community Foundation for Surrey) who contributed to the High Ropes Course.
A first for the South East Of England-A Poverty Truth commission-made up of 15 Community Commissioners and 15 Civic and Business Commissioners. There were over 120 guests to witness the launch of this 18 month project for the Community Commissioners to share their thoughts on ways of reducing poverty (and the growing use of food banks), for the civic and business commissioners to listen with care and empathy to see how to help with this.Thanks to Jonathan lees for getting this Commission up and running. As Bill Gates said “I believe that if you show people the problems,and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act”-The commission aims for this and a cultural change to understanding poverty.