Rotary in Southport for Technology challenge and Annual Conference

My visits to Rotary began with the Technology Challenge organised by the Southport Rotary group at Greenbank High School. I met students from local school and colleges who were participating in this event. Their task was to design and make an electrically powered car to travel along a course and pick up a load. I was genuinely impressed by the inventiveness of the students who ranged in age from 12 to 18 years old. Some of the older students from Southport College were undertaking apprenticeships or preparing to go to university, they had the task well in hand. But it was the younger students who really impressed me. It was good to observe so many girls actively and successfully participating in engineering.

At the weekend I was at the Floral Hall for the annual conference of the Lancashire and Cumbria Rotary district. They have come back to Southport for three of the last five years. It is my habit at these events to speak to as many of the delegates as I can about their experience of our town. Conferences likes this fill our hotels and Guest Houses and provide bookings for our restaurants so it was very pleasing that there was universal praise for the welcome they have received. A special mention must go to the staff at the Floral Hall.

Among the charities that the Lancs/Cumbria Rotary support is the Blood Bikes

My Visiter Column this week

I have had the pleasure of showing several groups around our Town Halls. First up were the students from Range High School Formby who came with their visitors from Germany. They were followed by the pupils from Waterloo Primary School. Their party was drawn from the School Council, Eco champions and anti-bullying leads. I always find that primary school youngsters are the most inquisitive. They ask the questions that come into their head. This makes for a much more interesting and challenging time.

On Thursday evening I hosted the first civic reception for LGBT people in Bootle Town Hall. Members of Embrace- which is a network for all Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB) people who live, work or socialise in Sefton-attended including their Co-Chairs Dr Mike Homfray and Rach O’Brien. They were joined by Queer Notions a voluntary group that offers support, advice and information on mental health matters. I was particularly keen to host this reception as it marks an important stage in a journey from exclusion to full acceptance. The Town Hall is a venue for marriages and across England and Wales, we have seen over 5000 same-sex weddings celebrated since the passing of the Equal Marriage Legislation. Early this year I was privileged to open the General Assembly of the United Reform Church (URC) when they became the first mainstream Christian church in the UK to empower its local churches to conduct same-sex marriages.

On Friday morning I was back in Bootle Town Hall to meet two school students who had won the competition to design a mascot for the Sefton Coast. The two winners were Lydia Orvice Gibson who attends St Oswald’s Primary School and Saskia Williams a student at Maghull High School. Their designs will be used on a range of promotional material-both printed and digital-to promote 2017 as the year of Sefton’s Coast. I will put both designs on the Mayoral Blog 

This weekend I shall be with the Formby Choral Society at the Pheromonic Hall in Liverpool when they will performing Mendelssohn's wonderful oratorio, Elijah - with a combined choir of something like 275 singers, 4 superb soloists and a full professional orchestra. 

The restored splendour of Old Christ Church Waterloo

Today I had the pleasure of visiting Old Christ Church in Waterloo. This is an impressive mock gothic building which became redundant as regular place of worship.It eventually came into the ownership of the Church Conservation Trust who in partnership with the local Friends Group have done a magnificent job of conserving the church and opening it up for community use. (I shall be visiting the Beer Festival there in April).

  Today we were marking the completion of the latest phase of restoration. It was great to meet so many of the enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers, their partnership with the Church Conservation Trust has borne fruit. I also met the contractors who specialise in conservation work and carried out the work on Bootle War Memorial (which I was involved in re-dedicating) and the Observatory at Hesketh Park in Southport.

The church was built out of Bootle sandstone and covered with Westmoreland slates. (One of the volunteers told me that the quarry was at the top of Fenhill Rd in what is now the park). The architects were the leading Lancashire firm of Paley,Austin & Paley who were at the forefront of the later Gothic revival. Some of their decoration is said to verge on Art Nouveau and they had a penchant for adding Latin quotations over windows and doors

Laudate Dominum-Praise the Lord

Chair of the Friends and the contractors

First Mayoral Civic Reception for LGBT people

On Thursday evening I hosted the first civic reception for LGBT people in Bootle Town Hall. Members of Embrace- which is a network for all Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB) people who live, work or socialise in Sefton-attended including their Co-Chairs Dr Mike Homfray and Rach O’Brien. They were joined by Queer Notions a voluntary group that offers support, advice and information on mental health matters. I was particularly keen to host this reception as it marks an important stage  in a journey from exclusion to full acceptance.

The Town Hall is a venue for marriages and across England and Wales we have seen over 5000 same sex weddings celebrated since the passing of the Equal Marriage Legislation. Early this year I was privileged to open the General Assembly of the United Reform Church (URC) when they became the first mainstream Christian church in the UK to empower its local churches to conduct same-sex marriages.

My column in the Midweek Visiter

The entries in my Mayoral diary this week are very varied. I began with the Technology Challenge organised by the local Rotary group at Greenbank High School. I met students from local school and colleges who were participating in this event. Their task was to design and make an electrically powered car to travel along a course and pick up a load. I was genuinely impressed by the inventiveness of the students who ranged in age from 12 to 18 years old. Some of the older students from Southport College were undertaking apprenticeships or preparing to go to university, they had the task well in hand. But it was the younger students who really impressed me. It was good to observe so many girls actively and successfully participating in engineering.

At the weekend I was at the Floral Hall for the annual conference of the Lancashire and Cumbria Rotary district. They have come back to Southport for three of the last five years. It is my habit at these events to speak to as many of the delegates as I can about their experience of our town. Conferences likes this fill our hotels and Guest Houses and provide bookings for our restaurants so it was very pleasing that there was universal praise for the welcome they have received. A special mention must go to the staff at the Floral Hall.

The Mayor’s Parlour was the venue for a citizenship ceremony to welcome five people who had completed all the procedure to be accepted as UK citizens. I have regularly presided over events like this and it is clear to me that those I have met who have chosen make this country their home will make a significant contribution to our society.

I was back in Mayor’s Parlour later in the week to welcome students from Range High School in Formby. They are involved in a exchange with German students and I showed forty of them around the Town Hall. Next week I shall be meeting more school students this time at Waterloo Primary School.

My final visits of the week was to the charity Nugent who have a number of impressive projects in our borough. I met staff in a children’s home in Formby and at a school proving educational day placements in a therapeutic setting for girls and boys aged 7-19 years old, with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Waterloo Primary School visit the Town Hall

It was good to welcome pupils from Waterloo Primary School to Bootle Town Hall. We have a well organised tour for young people including a quiz and a question and answer session.

The pupils were drawn from the School Council, Eco champions and anti-bullying leads. I always find that primary school youngsters are the most inquisitive. They ask the questions that come into their head. This makes for a much more interesting and challenging time.
As part of the quiz they have to identify things in the Council Chamber. To their credit this group out performed the question setter. When asked to identify all the birds in the room they noticed a whimbrel -one of our coastal wading birds -that we had missed !.And when they were looking for bees they noticed one on the stain glass window with the Burnley Coat of Arms that had also been missed.

After the tour of the council chamber we went into the Mayor's Parlour and the Mayoress's dining room and the pupils had the chance to dress up in Mayoral robes and ask lots of questions about the Maces and the moyoral chains. In the picture one of the pupils is carrying the Mace used by the former Crosby Council and another the silver oar presented by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board the Bootle County Borough.

German exchange with Range High School in Formby visit Southport Town Hall

It was a pleasure to meet students from Range High School and from a school from Bavaria in Germany who were involved in a school exchange.

They all packed into the Mayor's Parlour at Southport Town Hall at beginning of a tour of the building. We have a well-rehearsed tour of Bootle Town Hall but the Southport one is still of a bit of a 'work in progress'. As we were gathered in the Parlour I was able to show them some of the historical regalia from the Southport County Borough including the Mace and Mayoral chain. We next visited the council chamber. The students from both schools were full of interesting questions and we discussed the difference between a burgermeister and my role as Mayor here. In the anti room to the chamber there is a 'rogue gallery' photographs of former Mayors dating back to the mid C19th which stimulated a lot of discussion.

It was an excellent tour, the special ingredient was the interest shown by the students from both schools

My visit to the charity Nugent in Formby

I recently accepted an invitation from the charity Nugent to visit their services in Formby . I met Sister Benedicte at Clumber Care Home which cares for vulnerable children and young people of all ages and Tony Saleh, Principal at Clarence High School which provides education for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, including those on the autistic spectrum.

It was a privilege to meet Sister and Tony, and to learn more about the work they do. It’s inspiring to see how passionate they and their staff are and to hear about the kind of difficulties some of our young people face. These two services give so much support, hope and love to help the young people realise their ambitions. 

Nugent is a great organisation, which offers a diverse range of support to adults and children at the heart of some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. 

Opening Stedy Chefs new Cookery School for young adults with learning difficulties

 I left the Southport Foodbank and went to open a new Cookery School on the Dunningsbridge Rd. This project has been established by the Stedy Chef catering agency a business that is well established. It was a delight to meet the new trainee, young adults with learning difficulties, who have come from all over the region to sign up to the training on offer. The enthusiasm of the new recruits was infectious. They were already hard at work preparing a buffet when I arrived. Whilst they got on with the preparation I met some of the families and supporters of the young people. This project clearly fills a big gap in provision. The young people were receiving job training in a proper work environment and they were being prepared to get proper qualifications. This is a far cry from many of the unrewarding training schemes on offer that lead nowhere other than to enrol onto another training scheme.

The food was excellent especially the newspaper wrapped mini fish and chips.

The project is situated in the managed workspace/ storage unit run by Rent a Space who are clearly very supportive landlords.

I hope this project enjoys the success it so richly deserves

My visit to Southport Foodbank

Some of the many volunteers at Southport Foodbank

I started my day with a visit to Southport Foodbank housed in a church down by the north end of the Marine Lake. This is a major voluntary effort and draws its support from across the community. The churches play a significant role in collecting food, recruiting volunteers and managing the project. Local supermarkets support the scheme and along with special events these three sectors provide most of the resources. But it doesn't stop there, schools, youth organisations and individual donations are important. On my visit I was told about the involvement of the 58th Southport Brownie who helped collect food at Tescos before Christmas. They returned to the Foodbank to help label and stack the bumper Christmas collection and I understand they followed that through in February with further work at the project..

Demand remains high with December 2016 being a particularly high month and though they are seeing a slight drop off in demand from single people that is more than compensated for by the increase of support to families. The foodbank ahs no taken on welfare benefit advice for its clients and it was good to meet the volunteers involved. They intend to have an adviser at each foodbank session across the Southport network. Benefit delays and changes were the cause that led lmost a third of the foodbank's users to its doors.

After the volunteers has shown me round I joined them for a coffee overlooking the Marine Lake. They have plans for further work. Our town is fortune to have such a large body of willing volunteers to carry out this work. They deserve our thanks.

My visit to HeartStone Birkdale and Ainsdale

Saturday morning I was at Sacred Heart Church on Liverpool Rd Birkdale where along with their partner parish St John's Stone in Ainsdale (jointly known at HeartStone) they were working through their priorities for the next few years. The priest Father Slingo had invited Nugent charity to show case their local work: Margaret Roper House, Clumber House and Clarence High School. I shall be visiting all these projects in the near future.

Nugent CEO Normandie Wragg introduced each project in turn and after lunch the parishioners committed to working alongside the charity. More about my visits to these projects later on.

Concern expressed about the plight of Polish people working in UK at Southport's Anglo Polish Annual Lunch

The plight of Polish people and other EU citizens living and working in the UK was raised by Andrew Otto, a respected local solicitor and the Vice Chair of the Southport and District Anglo Polish Society, in his speech proposing the toast to the guests at the society's annual Lunch .

Andrew was keen that the House of Lords should pass the amendment to safeguard the rights of folk already settled in the UK believing, as I do, that there is no risk that this will not be reciprocated.

My role was to respond to Andrew's toast which I was pleased to do. The UK owes a great debt to Polish people who came to our aid in WW2 some of whom settled here after the war. The story of how individual families were driven across Europe as first the Russians and then the Germans made them homeless in a dangerous war torn continent is one of the tragedies of the 20th century. The story is well known to the wartime generation and to those of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s and went to school with the sons and daughters of those immigrants. Today the story is being told afresh to a new generation. The revival of Terence Rattigan's  play Flight Path by Trevor Nunn in 2011 with Sheidan Smith and Sienna Miller in the lead roles is an important part of that re-telling.. Since then various versions of the play has been touring the provincial theatre's of Britain. Even closer to home our own Little Theatre in Southport is staging the play. (I learned from one of the guests that a similar role was played by Polish seamen.)

That generation of Polish who made the UK their home have made an enormous contribution to our society; economically, socially, culturally and every which way. As with so many immigrant group we are far better off because of their presence. Today a new generations of Polish men and women  have come to Britain and the Society has done a good deal to welcome and support them. As Andrew Otto pointed out there is a great deal of uncertainty about their future.

One little trivial fact I picked up -thanks to one of those irritating emails- was that exactly ninety years ago on the day of the dinner the Polish nation adopted a new National Anthem . I also had a crash course on Polish pronunciation from Society chair Richard Kowalski  all of which was a great help

Finally the new Manchester based NW Consul for the  Republic  of Poland Lesvek Rowicki spoke about the changing European landscape and how that would impact on his fellow country men and women who had settled here. .

After the dinner and the speeches were entertained by a group from Manchester singing Polish sea shanties  and a few English ones they had adapted.

My column in this week's Visiter

It has been a busy and varied week which started with a visit to two of the Borough’s foodbanks and ended with lunch at the Southport Anglo Polish Society. First stop was at St Leonard's Community Centre Foodbank where I met up with Debbie again. She had been nominated for an award earlier in the year by one of her volunteers. Most of the volunteers on the day that I visited were former firefighters. Everything was very well organised in accordance with the Trussel Trust's good practice. The centre had just taken delivery of a new trolley, in the photo, donated by the staff at Maghull Lidl .

Next stop was the main storage site for foodbanks in the area at the Waterloo Town Hall. Gail, the manager, explained the various partnerships they have developed with supermarkets, local businesses and most particularly with the churches and schools. I was impressed by the professional organisation. I was interested to learn that they produce a regular shortage list of products they need to make up the deliveries. I know myself that you are not sure what is needed. Each bag has a set variety of goods and sometimes the foodbank has to 'buy in' products to ensure they get the right balance of foodstuffs. I have put the shortage lists on the http://themayoralblog.blogspot.co.uk I think these visits are very important as the give me an opportunity to acknowledge and thank the volunteers who carry out important work in our communities.

At the weekend I was with another voluntary organisation Nugent who were showcasing their work at a meeting organised by Father Slingo at Sacred Heart Church. The organisation’s C.E.O. Normandy Wragg introduced a packed hall to the services that Nugent provide in the borough. More details are on the Mayoral Blog

Finally, this week I attended a lunch with the Anglo Polish Society. There has long been a Polish community in Southport and they have made a significant contribution to the community economically and in many other ways. They are anxious about the impact of Brexit. Speaking at the meal respected local solicitor, Andrew Otto, drew attention to the uncertainty many Polish feel about whether they will be able to stay after 2020 and urged parliamentarians to accept the amendment being proposed in the House of Lords. As I write the House of Lords have done as Andrew asked. The event was attended by the Polish Government’s new Consul General for the NW.

My Visiter Mayoral Diary

On Monday it was a real pleasure to meet Ethel Williams on her 100th Birthday and to help her celebrate the event. Ethel lives at Dovehaven in Southport. During the war she served as a Land girl in Montgomeryshire in Wales where she met her husband who worked for the Forestry Commission and she settled after the war. It was great to hear Ethel's memories and to discuss how much things have improved. She spoke of how much difference the automatic washing machine made. Ethel played the organ at the Victoria Methodist church in Southport. Early in the week I was pleased to help launch a new business at Ocean Plaza. Three young women who have already set up a Vets practice in Widnes and have now opened a new one in Pets at Home in Southport. There was, of course, cake, balloons and a ribbon to cut. I wish them every success. On Saturday evening I was the guest of the West Lancs Yacht Club at their annual dinner. The club is one of the town’s oldest institutions having been founded in 1894 and is most famous for its 24 Hour Race. The Club is proud to be recognised as a Royal Yachting Association (RYA) Training Establishment and as a Champion Club for its support of Junior and Youth Sailing. The dinner was well attended and it was particularly pleasing to see the level of cooperation that exists between the many sailing clubs along the coast most of whom were represented at the dinner. After the meal I was introduced to variation of snooker played at the club called ‘flying snooker’. Tomorrow I shall be visiting the Seafarers’ Centre in the borough that offers support to sailors from all nations that visit the Port of Liverpool. After that I shall be attending the Annual General Meeting of the successful Southport Music Festival of which I am President. The Festival was established in 1907 and I am promised that we will be treated to some excellent speech and drama from contestants who were winners at this year’s festival. Information about all these events is available on the Mayoral blog http://themayoralblog.blogspot.co.uk where you will also find lots of photographs and news about the other visits I have attended. Next week I shall be visiting the Foodbanks in the borough to thank them and their volunteers for the important work that the carry out.

On Monday it was a real pleasure to meet Ethel Williams on her 100th Birthday and to help her celebrate the event. Ethel lives at Dovehaven in Southport. During the war she served as a Land girl in Montgomeryshire in Wales where she met her husband who worked for the Forestry Commission and she settled after the war. 

It was great to hear Ethel's memories and to discuss how much things have improved. She spoke of how much difference the automatic washing machine made. Ethel played the organ at the Victoria Methodist church in Southport. 

Early in the week I was pleased to help launch a new business at Ocean Plaza. Three young women who have already set up a Vets practice in Widnes and have now opened a new one in Pets at Home in Southport. There was, of course, cake, balloons and a ribbon to cut. I wish them every success.

On Saturday evening I was the guest of the West Lancs Yacht Club at their annual dinner. The club is one of the town’s oldest institutions having been founded in 1894 and is most famous for its 24 Hour Race. The Club is proud to be recognised as a Royal Yachting Association (RYA) Training Establishment and as a Champion Club for its support of Junior and Youth Sailing.  The dinner was well attended and it was particularly pleasing to see the level of cooperation that exists between the many sailing clubs along the coast most of whom were represented at the dinner. After the meal I was introduced to variation of snooker played at the club called ‘flying snooker’. 

Tomorrow I shall be visiting the Seafarers’ Centre in the borough that offers support to sailors from all nations that visit the Port of Liverpool. After that I shall be attending the Annual General Meeting of the successful Southport Music Festival of which I am President. The Festival was established in 1907 and I am promised that we will be treated to some excellent speech and drama from contestants who were winners at this year’s festival. Information about all these events is available on the Mayoral blog http://themayoralblog.blogspot.co.uk  where you will also find lots of photographs and news about the other visits I have attended. 

Next week I shall be visiting the Foodbanks in the borough to thank them and their volunteers for the important work that the carry out.