Mayor of Worcester

For many Worcester residents, this has been the first week back to work after the festive break. As Deputy Mayor, I am no exception; I run my own small business and it’s high time to get back to it! I’d particularly like to thank all those people who worked over the festive period to make sure transport was running, shops were open, vital public services were accessible and news got reported. Our city simply couldn’t function without your efforts.

I am Councillor Mike Whitehouse, and am stepping in to write this week’s column while the Mayor takes a short but well-earned break from a hectic schedule.

The weather will be at the forefront of many minds as we enter 2016. How much more rainfall can the River Severn take? The signs so far are that we won’t get flooding of anything like the severity which occurred in 2014. Rest assured that even if things do take a turn for the worse, Worcester is a very resilient city and we will remain open for business, whatever the weather.

This week we’ll be focusing on the Mayor’s pledge to plant 2,000 new trees in Worcester. Local Explorer Scouts will be in Battenhall Park this Saturday to plant hazel trees which the Woodland Trust has kindly donated to our city.

Over the next few weeks, several other community groups and businesses will be giving up their time to help plant trees in other locations including Cripplegate Park, the riverside and King George V Playing Fields. We are extremely grateful for their help.

This is just the latest example of the remarkable benefit that volunteers bring to Worcester. Indeed, last year volunteers collectively contributed over 2,700 hours of their own time to help spruce up our city’s parks and spaces, operate allotment sites, organise community events and undertake conservation work.

I had the pleasure of recently meeting Jane Moorhouse, Vice Chair of the Arboretum Residents Association.

She told me: “I really believe that you only get as much out of your local community as you put in. I moved to Worcester two years ago and think it’s a fantastic city – I was keen to get involved and gain a great deal of personal satisfaction from volunteering – you get to meet some great people along the way too.”

If you haven’t made a resolution for 2016 yet (or have made one and already broken it!) then I hope you may find her words inspiring.

Wishing you and your families a very happy and prosperous New Year.

 

Councillor Mike Whitehouse

Deputy Mayor for Worcester

A highlight of the Christmas season is always the Cherry Orchard School Carol Service held in the Cathedral – and this year was no exception! It is a bit of a military exercise getting that many children to and from the Cathedral safely and without losing any – and ensuring they are all in the right place with the right equipment, on time. However as always, it went off without a hitch.

The children sang beautifully and this year, we were treated to a performance by the staff choir, which was also very good. Those in the nativity, the Tableau actors, were dressed in some splendid costumes and they really looked the part. As we have seen in other schools’ carol services, the children enjoy performing and taking part was obviously great fun for them. The mix of traditional carols and popular songs was new and worked very well, giving a slightly different slant to previous years. Those in the group singing “Oh Happy Days” were excellent, and the boy soloist was superb. Well done Cherry Orchard – another excellent year!!

St Paul’s Hostel put on a film and poetry show in St Paul’s Church, on the corner of Spring Gardens and St Paul’s Street. Firstly I must comment on the building, this being the first occasion I have entered this church, I’m sorry to say. It is the second largest religious space in our City, after the Cathedral, and in its former days it had the Revd. Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy as its minister. A hero of World War 1, he was awarded the Military Cross for bringing in wounded troops under fire and is better known, of course, as Woodbine Willy. As a military Chaplin he not only gave out copies of the bible to those along the troop trains at Rouen, but packets of the famous Woodbine cigarettes from which his nickname came.

Back to the Church – it is a magnificent building and well worth a visit, you will be surprised! The St Paul’s Hostel performance was impressive, not only were the videos and brilliant photography excellent , the poems were written and read with incredible feeling, and so well presented. One member of the group has a placement at the Heart of Worcestershire College to further his skills as a poet and special thanks has to go to Claire Badsey for both her writing and the reading of her work. The host and mentor of the group, Gerry Lowman, led us through an enjoyable evening.

Simon Geraghty and I met at the Wainwright Road GPO main sorting office, to thank our postal staff for the incredible hard work in getting our parcels and letters delivered on time and before Christmas. There are 225 employees working out of Wainwright Road and they handle one million items to be delivered each week.  Throughout the year they close on only one day: Christmas Day. They are the unsung heroes of Christmas.

Our visit to Worcester Royal Hospital on Christmas Day was a lovely experience.  Patients and staff alike were so welcoming and it was great to see how happy and positive everyone was. One lady over from Ireland for a family Christmas sadly found herself in hospital rather than the family home, but she was smiley and happy and so pleased to meet the mayor, she said how she was looking forward to telling her family all about our encounter! It was quite humbling really – a lovely lady, hope she is home with friends and family very soon. Another lady was about to be discharged and looking forward to going home when I made a very unthinking remark, saying, “You’re on the way out then are you?”!! Fortunately she saw the funny side and we all had a good laugh; must choose words more carefully in future….

My thanks to all our hospital staff for their dedication and work – may I take this opportunity to wish them all a very happy and healthy New Year.

 

Christmas is coming, and the carol services and nativity plays are in abundance. RGS The Grange did not disappoint, with two delightful examples this last week. The tiny tots were a pleasure to watch and with some participants as young as two, it was an amazing production. Years three and four put on a very professional show, and their delight in performing was a treat to watch.

Worcester District Scouts, together with some very proud parents, filled the Cathedral for their Christmas carol service. The readings were so well delivered, and the carols took us through the Christmas story. In parallel they were supporting the homeless, by collecting a large quantity of warm garments for distribution in St Pauls Hostel and Magg’s Day Centre.

To see how trade was developing in the run-up to Christmas, we took a tour of some independent retailers. Whilst business was under pressure from national chains and the internet, they seemed to be doing ok. Talking to Rick Knowles of Knowles’s Sport, a long standing family business, it was clear that the benefits of buying face to face with a retailer are greater than the online option, which focuses just on price and convenience. Advice and guidance, along with the option to try out products, adds considerable value.

The same could be said of New England Country Store, a lovely shop with a Christmas grotto on the first floor giving the opportunity to touch, feel and see Christmas decorations and accessories in a homely setting. It was here I discovered the upside down Christmas tree and although I’m a bit of a conventional person, I thought these looked very good and, in some circumstances, better than the usual orientation!!

The two and a half hours I spent one evening dressed as Father Christmas and being towed in a “Sleigh” around the streets, proved to be very worthwhile. It was nice and warm inside Santa’s outfit, together with the wig, beard and hat, and the children loved it – together with some quite enthusiastic mums and dads too! This was a “Lions” event to raise money for those less well off, and it proved very successful.

The production of Dr. Faustus at the Sixth Form College was amazing! A very difficult script in some long pieces, delivered faultlessly. How they remembered it all is beyond me. The lead boy and lead girl were outstanding, in fact all the cast were, and I gather they only started rehearsals in September. A brilliant effort – I congratulate them on a first class production.

 

 

Digging the first sod in preparation for our new swimming pool was a great honour and a great pleasure, as it means the pool is well and truly on its way!  The chosen contractors are Speller Metcalfe, a locally based giant in the construction industry.

It’s good to know that we have been able to design an eight lane pool at an affordable level of investment. It will be such a great asset to both our City and swimmers in the wider world, and that it is being built by local people working for a local company. Great stuff!!

The Mayoress and I were invited to an event at the University to celebrate extracurricular work of primary schoolchildren and to award them their “graduation” certificates. We hadn’t heard before the event of this opportunity for children – it was lovely to see their efforts being both recognised and rewarded.

This project, called The Worcestershire Children’s University, is managed by the Children’s University Advisory Board and has been running for two years. It encourages children to become much more involved in local activities, undertake projects to help the environment and to get involved in clubs and their activities. On the day we attended, certificates were awarded to children of Abbeywood First School, Matchborough First School and St Barnabas First and Middle school. It was good to see the pride on their faces!

The Trashion Show put on by Oasis School, Warndon, threw a completely new light on “rubbish”. They had turned unwanted items into clothing and had a fashion show to display their very inventive creations. Not only was it fun for the children, but it also taught them quite a lot about recycling and the environment. Apart from all that, it was thoroughly entertaining!

RGS The Grange Carol and Christingle Service in the Cathedral was superb.   I’m often astonished by the confidence young children have in today’s world. To stand before a full congregation in our Cathedral and not only deliver readings, but to sing and play musical instruments, some giving solo performances, would be daunting for an adult, let along a child. Having seen many children in our schools, I think I can say that our future is definitely in safe hands!!

Two other events worthy of note have taken place: the Daisychain Christmas Tree competition where organisations and companies enter trees to raise money for charitable causes – in this case the Children’s Ward at Worcester Royal Hospital, Riverbank Ward. The trees are on display in the Cathedral Cloisters and well worth a visit. The other event was the Jack and the Beanstalk production at Pitmaston School, produced by Alsorts Performing Arts, which was a delight.