Dragons Den for young people

UPDATE 140918: I have just been informed that the Social Action Week funds raised in total were...£24,078.65. Wow! Most impressive!

On Thursday, I was invited to be part of a Dragon's Den type panel by the team at Action 4 Youth. During the summer, A4Y put dozens and dozens of young Bucks people (which includes MK) through a three week 'National Citizen Service' programme:

NCS For Your Teen
National Citizen Service (NCS) is a 2-4 week programme which takes place outside of term time in the spring, summer and autumn holidays. NCS is proven to have a massive impact on young people’s lives.

It looks to be a fantastic programme, one that is well worth exploring for next summer if you or a young person you know is at the right age (15-17 I think). The bit I was involved with involved teams of around a dozen young people making a pitch for up to £50 to seed-fund their plans to raise money and support a local charity. To use A4Y's description:

The Dragons Den is the day after the groups have visited their charity and follows an intensive 24 hours of project planning. Each team has been planning a social action project and this is now their chance to present their ideas to you. On this day you can make a difference by:- Your questions and feedback help improve the quality of Social Action Projects- Your presence as part of the panel of Dragons demonstrates to the young people that their social action projects are important and this encourages accountability

So I was treated to seven presentations by diverse teams who all had fantastic ideas about how they were going to support their chosen charities (such as Sparkles, Wheelpower, Aylesbury Vineyard Storehouse or the Bucks County Museum). Lots of plans to do sponsored walks, three-legged hikes and triathlons... lots of cakes being made and sold at a profit etc. All the teams were fab and a couple really stood out. Most got between £40 and £45 with best team getting the full £50. I worked with Nick Lund (A4Y Development Director, Jenifer Cameron (A4Y CEO) and Richard Stansfield (A4Y Trustee) on the panel. We had a great time and as always, I was blown away by the ingenuity, energy and commitment of the young people.

The facility that A4Y run at the Outdoor Education Centre in Caldecotte is amazing. Here are a few pics I took as Nick showed me around before the 'Den' started. It is used lots by local schools, youth groups etc. What a fantastic set of facilities.

Nick inside the hub of of the yurt villages

A yurt dorm

 The week's programme

This mound includes a series of tunnels and cavern to crawl around in! I think I could only fit in the biggest tunnel!

And some fabulous sailing boats and equipment including a totally accessible boat.

And there is much, much more including a massive climbing wall (or two) - one of which is equipped to allow people in wheelchairs to abseil down. So go there if you can! And support A4Y if you can too!

200,000

Visits to my mayoral blog have now topped 200,000. I just want to say thank you for reading my posts. This blog was my way of explaining what a Town Mayor does. I am of course, one of many Town Mayors up and down the country and this blog only records how I have filled the role. But I hope that I have shown the people of Buckingham and people nearby (and perhaps further a field) something of the range of activities that a mayor gets up to. This blog is my commitment to being open and transparent in all that I do. There is nothing up my sleeve.

I have a few months yet to go, so please keep reading. Maybe this blog will top a quarter of a million visits. I am sure it won't go viral or rival the vloggers with their millions of followers! But it will serve as a long term archive of what the Buckingham Town Mayor did from May 2017 to May 2019 on the behalf of the people of the town.

Yesterday evening I had a meal with an old client now a good friend of mine. She told me of her involvement in a masters programme about community led regeneration. She decided to spend two years of her retirement studying ways in which communities can be more involved in shaping the future of their places: places where they live, work, visit, play and study. She told me that the first chunk of the programme was first developing more understanding of her own values, starting positions, priorities etc. She is the middle of writing a long essay called "The Ground on Which I Stand".

I just love that title.

In a way I have been doing something similar with this blog. The blog has not just been a document of my travels. I have tried, particularly through the speeches I have written, delivered and published here, and the reflections I have added as well: to put something about me here on these pages. I am not (just) a mayor, I am not a number: I am a free man!

(For those that don't know that was an allusion to an old TV series called "The Prisoner" with Patrick McGoohan playing the lead role.)

So what is the ground on which I stand? I could write lots about that, and perhaps one day I will. But for the time being I will simply restate my summary of my politics - particularly in the my current context:

I want Buckingham and indeed the world to be a place in which everyone has dreams and ambitions, and the wherewithal to achieve those.

As the Mayor, I will continue to look for all the ways in which I can be doing that. So for example today I am taking part in a 'Dragon's Den' type event organised by Action4Youth in MK (as part of their National Citizens Service summer programme). I can't wait to admire, praise and critique the work that the young people will have been working on!

The Silent Soldier

I have just returned from the inauguration of 'The Silent Soldier' in Buckingham - on the wall of the Town Council Chamber (opposite Waitrose). There were many people there to mark the occasion and remember those who fell and who returned from the First World War. It was a solemn moment of commemoration. Our Town Crier heralded the event and I welcomed everyone who came along. The Chairman of the Buckingham & District Royal British Legion, Mr Andrew Cooper then said these opening and familiar words (from the poem by Robert Laurence Binyon)

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

After some moments of reflection, I then went on to give this speech:

This is all part of a nationwide effort by the Royal British Legion to remind people that this is a very special year. It is one hundred years since the peace was declared at the of the First World War, the Great War or indeed, as it was called, the War to End to all Wars.

Today is an auspicious day: the Battle of Amiens, also known as the Third Battle of Picardy (French: 3ème Bataille de Picardie), was the opening phase of the Allied offensive which began on 8 August 1918, later known as the Hundred Days Offensive, that ultimately led to the end of the First World War.

With thanks to Philip Sturtivant for this research, I would like us all to note that the last man from Buckingham to die in the Great War before the 11th November was Frederich Erbach, who was English but born of German parents. At the time of enlisting he was listed as a lodger at the Old Gaol. Frederich was 38 years old when he died in the 10th General Hospital in Rouen on the 7th November 1918 of influenza. He was a sapper in the ‘L’ Signal Battalion of the Royal Engineers.

He, along with many, many men from Buckingham, died in the Great War. Many others arrived home, severely injured physically or emotionally or both. In our act of remembrance today, as with all other similar occasions, we must never ever forget, that we are remembering real people with real lives whose existence on this earth was cut short or terribly harmed by the dreadful scourge of armed conflict.

The Silent Soldier stands as a tribute to those who didn’t return home and to those whose lives would never be the same again. The Silent Soldier serves to remind us of those who did make it back. 

Following the end of the war in November 1918, the process of demobilisation and discharge was still a long process as the British Army still had commitments to fulfil in Germany, North Russia and in the garrisons of the Empire. 

On arrival back in England the men would move to a Dispersal Centre, this was a hutted or tented camp or barracks where they received a railway warrant or ticket to their home station. From there they were on their own, and would be seen across the country, walking back home, down the roads and across the fields, returning to their families. Most of the war service men were back in civilian life by the end of 1919.

Just for a moment, try to imagine this silhouette is of a of a soldier, a 100 years ago, finally reaching his home here in Buckingham. If we had been here a century ago, how would we have felt to have seen him arrive? I wonder how he would have been feeling? Or perhaps as one of my Town Council officer colleagues has suggested, the silhouette represents the voids left behind by the men who did not return. How would their families have reacted when peace was declared? Can we imagine ourselves in their shoes?

Buckingham Town Council and the Royal British Legion have a shared aim to ensure that we pay our respects to those who gave so much.

I will end with a poem by our Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, which I find very moving. She wrote the “Last Post” to mark the deaths of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, the two longest surviving soldiers from the 1914-18 First World War.


In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud ...
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too -
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert -
and light a cigarette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.

I thanked everyone who came along: the assembly included many veterans, and others townsfolk, most of the Town Councillors, journalists from the University and some visitors from France. 

Good Endings Fair: Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Town Council hosts country’s first “Good Endings Fair”

Not everyone gets married, but we all die. So Buckingham Town Council thought it was very worthwhile organising a fair to get people talking more about their plans for their own demise or the death of a loved one.

On 8 September, the Council will be hosting the country’s first ‘Good Endings Fair’ in the town centre Community Centre from 10am until 1pm. All are welcome.

“We have more than a dozen organisations signed up to share their expertise with members of the public” said Town Mayor, Cllr Jon Harvey. “Everyone will have chance to talk about their plans. We know how hard it is when people die without a will for example or when people find they cannot afford a funeral for their loved one. These are all problems that can be solved with a little bit of forethought”

The event is all about making it easier to talk about this difficult subject well in advance of the emotional turmoil which happens when someone close dies. “There are so many more choices than I was aware of” said Amanda Brubaker, Town Council Events Coordinator, “it makes so much sense to think and talk about these ahead of time”.

Beth Heale, Personal Funeral Adviser at The Midcounties Co-operative Funeralcare, said: “We are delighted to be involved in Buckingham’s Good Endings Fair. We recognise that everyone is unique and we all have different preferences and budgets. That is why we believe in providing choice and flexibility when it comes to planning a funeral, including pre-paid plans that can give additional peace of mind. The Good Endings Fair is a great way of giving people further information on all of the options available to them. We’ll be on stand throughout the day and will be happy to answer any questions Buckingham residents may have.”

“Even if just one or two people leave the event better prepared perhaps with a list of people to contact should the worst happen, this fair will have been worth it”, said Cllr Harvey. “This is all part of Buckingham Town Council’s commitment to making the Town an even better place in which to work, study, play, visit and live (and indeed die)!”

There is still space for more providers and services to be represented at the Fair. Please contact Amanda if interested.

For more information on all this event see Buckingham Town council’s web site www.buckingham-tc.gov.uk.

Contact: Amanda Brubaker, Events Co-ordinator, Buckingham Town Council, 01280 816426 or events@buckingham-tc.gov.uk


Editors Notes:

Longer article below from which you might want to use some copy as well.

Most people will be able to recall a time when a close friend or relative died and how difficult it was to make any sensible decisions for a significant while. Some people will know how hard it is to wrestle with deep grief while having to make important decisions about the practical matters connected with someone’s death. Typically, we don’t talk about these matters enough until we have no choice.

Buckingham Town Council has decided that perhaps we can a help a little by arranging a “Good Endings Fair”. The Community Centre will be filled with people and organisations who help to administer arrangements and provide support before and just after someone dies. There will be funeral directors present, naturally. But there will be other people too representing churches, celebrants, solicitors, crematoria, natural burial sites, funeral plan providers, financial and health advisers, grief counsellors and voluntary organisations, among others.

The focus will be on preparing for the end of life, and helping challenge taboos around talking about death & dying. We hope the event will encourage family discussions towards the aim of achieving ‘as good a death’ as possible for everyone.

The Town Council talked to lots of people about the idea before deciding to go ahead with it. Reactions from local residents and businesses, after an initial step back or a raised eyebrow, then quickly turned into very positive and enthusiastic support. Most people, of all ages, recognise it does make sense to do a little forward planning. Afterall, we all die sometime and sadly some people die well ahead of their time.

We know of people who are parents who don’t have a will or a statement about what should happen to their children in case they die. There are many people who worry lots about the cost of funerals. There are others who have strong views about what should happen if they become seriously ill but have never committed these views to paper. And so forth.

So we do hope that lots of local people will come along where they will be given an information folder and the opportunity to meet the various people and organisations present. The Town Council’s ambition is that everyone will leave with a little more understanding of how death and dying can be better prepared for, and more knowledge of some of the choices available.

Buckingham Good Endings Fair:
Saturday 8 September 2018 from 10am to 1pm in the
Buckingham Community Centre

Such wonderful talent in the heart of our town

Last night, Julie and I enjoyed a fabulous, rich and diverse concert put on by the students of the University of Buckingham. They were mainly from the Medical School but they also had some friends from other departments and elsewhere. It was a sumptuous feast of sublime talent and joy. Below are pics of some of the performers together with Richard Lin who was the impresario behind the whole gig. Well done to all involved: a truly delightful evening!

I was invited to say a few words of welcome at the beginning. I said it was a wonderful coincidence that the concert came on the same day as the first meeting of the Pontio Group (see blog post below) as both were about harmony and making the most of the melody of Buckingham. And as it happened, the first piece was a medley including 'Bridge over Troubled Waters". How brilliant was that!

Richard Lin and Valentina Gritsenko (who MC'ed the evening)

The audience joining in with 'Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters'

The Student's Union President sings

Hidden talents of local publican (The Mitre)

The ensemble

Pontio #1

The very first meeting of the Pontio Group was held yesterday, jointly chaired by myself and Professor Susan Edwards from the University of Buckingham. The Pontio Group is the Joint Action Group between Buckingham Town Council and the University of Buckingham. The aims are:

1. To initiate, coordinate and support actions which harness and blend the various resources of both the town and the university for the benefit of all who live, study, work, play and visit in Buckingham
2. To build excellent relationships between the civic, academic, commercial and leisure organisations in the town
3. To work for a future of Buckingham in which all enjoy a life full of ambition, learning, prosperity and well being

I am hugely excited about the future and what this group will achieve for all who spend their time here in Buckingham. Watch this space! 

Why Pontio? Pontio is Welsh for ‘bridge, span or transition’ which was successfully used in Bangor as the name for the joint University and Town arts centre which symbolises their joint working together. By using this name, this will echo the research road trip embarked upon by the Vice Chancellor and Mayor in Spring 2018 to visit the ‘towns and gowns’ of Aberystwyth and Bangor.

Here is the agenda of the first meeting. The minutes will be presented to future meetings of the Town Council and will therefore be available for all to see. 

Great to Picnic!

Julie and I spent an enjoyable couple of hours at Hamilton House on Saturday as they held their 'Picnic in the Park' event for their residents, friends and families: great tea, cakes and company. What more could one want on sunny Saturday afternoon. Charlotte Fenton, the Recreation and Leisure Coordinator sent me this statement and the pics below. 

Here at Hamilton House, one of our residents grandson has brain cancer and is fundraising for treatment as it isn’t available on the NHS so they have set up a go fund page to raise the funds for his treatment. We decided to show our support by turning our Picnic In The Park event into a fundraiser for the Oli’s Fight.

We had a flute player, singer, magician and a Zumba dance group. We had stall set of food and drink stall, kings and queens children’s fancy dress competition, raffle, tombola, hook the duck, lucky dip, guess how many sweets are in the jar, guess how many balloons are in the mini and a selling stool.

The Town Mayor Jon Harvey also held a presentation for a cheque to Hamilton House that ‘The energy effect fitness studio’ in Buckingham raised for our resident fund and a special gift and thank you to our resident Betty Saving for all the dedication and hard work she puts in to help maintain our garden.

The residents, relatives, team and visitors had lots of fun at the event and managed to raise over £250 for Oli’s Fight.

It is all good stuff! Well done Hamilton House for putting this on and raising so much money.

Skywatching

As part of the Buckingham Fringe, yesterday afternoon and evening was Camp Out and Astronomy session. I popped over for an hour late afternoon and had a long chat with the team from UK Astronomy and their very varied collection of telescopes. The day was spent looking (safely) at the sun (amazing images of solar flares) and as the evening arrived, I understand the focus shifted to the planets on the horizon and more.

Elsewhere there were bungee races, a bouncy castle, information about the new Stagecoach Buckingham club, a korfball demonstration and some food vans. There was also first aid support on hand too. It was a glorious afternoon with something for everyone. Sadly it was not as well attended as it might have been (although I think numbers picked up as the day wore on) but the Town Council committee will review this event (as indeed all are) and decide what to do. Personally, I hope it is not the last of something like this: I want people to be interested in astronomy. We all need to reach for the stars!

There was no fix!

I had great fun being the Quizmaster last night at the annual Fringe Family Quiznight in the Community Centre. Four teams were competing:

Team Korf (of local KorfBall fame)

The Three Musketeers

Daisy

Council Calamity

And Council Calamity won by nine points! They promised they had no sight of the answers before the competition. But they did have Katharine - the Town Council Oracle on their team though!

And well done to Cllr Terry Bloomfield who organised this and wrote all the questions & answers! Great time - looking forward to next year.

The quizmaster trying to figure out how to pronounce some of the words in the questions! How ~do~ you pronounce prosciutto?? (Thanks to Lisa O'Donoghue for the pic)

Primary Concern

While I was Buckingham Primary - with the back packing project - I was guided towards joining the local Buckingham Age Concern group and their regular get-together with the school children of the school. And I am so glad I was: what a wonderful event! About 30 older people were serenaded by two choirs and then treated with a short play about leaving school for the bigger secondary school. And there was tea. And there was cake! The children sang and acted beautifully. Later on both groups got together for a chat. What brilliant idea for all concerned.

Here is one of songs that the children sang:

Back packing to the future!

The local Rotary Club has been organising back packs from local school children to send over to children in poorer countries, stuffed full of school equipment and other useful things. The scheme is organised by Mary's Meals. Club President Janis and colleague Margo invited me to the part of the latest bag pick up at Buckingham Primary this afternoon. Here are all the children with the back packs on, before they were all dumped into Janis' car. (Janis is the one facing the camera - the rest of us are turned away). Thanks to Vikki at Buckingham Primary for the pic

Buckingham Royal: Community art and drama

This was the eleventh year of a project initiated by the Town Council to sponsor the two secondary schools coming together for a joint art and drama project. I have been to many of these over the years and last night's performance was no exception to the usual: it was powerful, creative, insightful and cohesive. The art on display was equally poignant and a feast for the eyes and mind.

The drama featured four vignettes on the subject of 'community'. The first focused on the impact of smart phones on building (and eroding) a sense of community in young people. The next looked at how the world would be different if there were no sport, and how that would affect life and community relations. The third one looked into in and out crowds, discrimination and bullying. And the last (or was it the third!) explored how major calamities (such as the Aberfan disaster in 1966) bring people together. Given that these 40 or so young people only had about 10 (very hot) hours in which to assemble each performance, these were amazing, moving and sometimes funny shows. Thank you!

I would of course prefer to show you pics of the smiling young people from both schools involved in each of these sets, but I cannot. So you will have to imagine the 'Buckingham Royal' (as they called themselves) drama group in your imagination or look at the Advertiser story for one peek. But also here is one from the RLS twitter feed.

The two drama teachers: Clare Checkley (TBS) and Rachel Stevens (RLS) did a brilliant job guiding the students through this. Well done to them too!

Matilda!

I am struggling to put into words just how amazing, impressive and moving was the performance of Matilda by the children of George Grenville School yesterday evening. Julie and I were just blown away by the superlative acting, the singing, the dancing from every single student. All the main parts were delivered with subtly, confidence and depth: far, far more that I was ignorantly expecting from Year Six actors. And the Y3, Y4 and Y5 ensemble were on point all the time throughout the performance too. Stunning! This was a tour de force! I feel so fortunate that as Mayor & Mayoress we get to be invited to such events.

So may I congratulate and celebrate in the strongest possible ways - all the students and all the teachers/staff who helped make this show possible. And a special thanks to the Royal Shakespeare Company who assisted and guided the staff in helping the children shape and deliver this production. You are all shining stars! And who knows maybe film and stage stars of the future. But whether or not that happens, know this: you created a magnificent musical that I will never forget. Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!