Last week I mentioned that it was 1 year since the London Olympic Games opened and to mark this anniversary Gamesmakers across the country were invited to attend the Anniversary Games in recognition of the valuable role that they played as volunteers in making last year’s Games such a unique and extraordinary event. The focus nationally and here in Wiltshire is the ongoing impact since last year, and on Friday morning (last week) I was invited to talk about our legacy work on BBC radio as part of a panel with Swindon Borough Council and Swindon and Wiltshire Sports Partnership. It’s interesting and not surprising that in Wiltshire an additional 6000 people have volunteered to support events, activities and services in their local communities following the success of last year. We’ve always been fortunate to have a huge number of volunteers in the county; 109,000 people (28 per cent of our population) regularly support services but we need to make sure that this number continues to grow as their support and capacity will help to maintain the delivery of key front line services and make communities stronger in the future.
Last year demonstrated that when local communities are provided with a “hook”, people are only too eager to come together and resolve issues, deliver events and participate in activities in their local community and, we know that there is a strong correlation between people who feel a sense of belonging and connected to each other and how happy and healthy they are; so the more we can encourage communities to come together the better it is for everyone.
With this in mind, we know that next year (2014) marks the centenary of World War 1 and we are aware that many communities want to come together and actively commemorate this huge historical event. We are looking at how we can support them and assist with the education and living history, which is vital to remembering the sacrifice made by so many; particularly in Wiltshire which has immense military history. Today I am meeting with the Brigadier Piers Hankinson at Tidworth to discuss how we can work together and support communities with the commemoration which starts next year.
Last Friday evening, I accompanied Maggie Rae, Keith Humphries and Jemima Milton on a visit to the renowned WOMAD festival, which is held at Charlton Park near Malmesbury. The event was in full flow and it was great to see so many families and all ages enjoying the music and atmosphere and we were all really impressed that the organisers had focused on making the event as accessible as possible and it was so great to see disabled and able-bodied people of all ages celebrate music from around the world. It’s a big event that helps to boost our local economy and bring thousands of visitors to Wiltshire.
This week I had three days in Kent undertaking “Gran Gran” duties babysitting which is always extremely satisfying albeit hard work! Yesterday I was back in the office and spent the day catching up with a number of people including meeting with the Police Crime Commissioner, Angus Macpherson and the Chief Constable, Patrick Geenty. These meetings are always really useful; particularly as we develop how we work together and consider the resources and buildings that we may share in the future. The need to work smarter and more efficiently has never been greater as the financial pressures continue to increase. We have do work differently and adopt a can-do approach to everything we do.
I mentioned earlier that I am in Tidworth today meeting the Brigadier to discuss next year, but we are also discussing the plans for the Army Basing project that will see 14,800 military personnel based in our county by 2016. It means Wiltshire will have the largest settlement of military personnel in the country and will house a quarter of the entire British Army. Not only does this make Wiltshire unique, but it means we have to plan to deliver services infrastructure and housing that will be needed and look at how we integrate the military and civilian communities to create a strong and vibrant local area around Salisbury Plain.
Finally, I’m looking forward to officially launching the Legacy business dinner next week. The dinner, which will be hosted by Phil De Glanville – former Bath and England Rugby Union Captain, takes place on 25 October in the Atrium will bring future Olympians and Paralympians together with businesses. More than 250 people will have a unique opportunity to hear from a celebrity speaker; to be announced next week at the launch, and to have the opportunity to “adopt” an athlete and support their journey to Rio in 2016.
Have a good weekend and hope the sunshine holds out...
Jane
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