Mayor’s Blog 147

This week: St. Vaast Twinning Christmas Party, Visit to the Bridport Bandits, Community Kitchen Christmas Lunch, St. James’ Care Home Carol Service, Bridport Round Table Hampers.

St. Vaast Twinning Christmas Party

Last Friday, Bridget and I attended the Christmas Party for the members of the Twinning Association held in the W.I Hall. A really enjoyable occasion with French themed food, drinks and carols (in French) which was a first for me!  We are both so glad that we joined the Twinning Association and we are looking forward to our first twinning visit to St. Vaast next year.  The Twinning Association has enjoyed 36 years of exchange visits with ever deepening friendships on both sides. St Vaast is a working fishing port in the unspoilt Nord Cotentin. East facing, with a balmy climate, its two Vauban Towers are now a World Heritage Site.  The port also boasts an integrated 600 berth marina, and above all, very hospitable and ‘sympa’ inhabitants. And the world’s best oysters too!

For more information: www.bridport-and-saint-vaast-twinning-association.org.uk

Visit to the Bridport Bandits

Bridport Town Council help support the Bridport Bandits who are based in a workshop next door to the Bridport Youth and Community Centre.  As Mayor I was invited, along with other Stakeholders and supporters, to their workshops on Tuesday to see some of the work they are doing with young people.
Bridport Bandits, also known as Bridport Autograss Racing Club is a Youth Motorsport project based at Bridport Youth Centre. The club aims to support young people to participate in Motorsport according to the NASA (National Autograss Sports Association) rules and regulations. The club will prepare race vehicles and support young people in the preparation and development of their race vehicles. The Bridport Bandits are solely a voluntary organisation that is entirely self-funded assisted by the local community. New members are always welcome. Sessions cost £2 and are held between 7pm and 9pm on Monday and Thursday evening. I was pleased to see young people from Colfox School also visiting on the day and Bridport Bandits certainly offer an addition to the normal school curriculum!

For more information: https://www.facebook.com/groups/174205001845/

Bridport Community Kitchen Christmas Lunch

The Community Kitchen is one of my Charities for this year and this Wednesday all of the volunteers came together to provide a Christmas Dinner for those who use the Centre at the Beacon Church. Bridget and I managed to secure funding for the Turkeys from Bridport Round Table and St. Mary’s Masonic Lodge (many thanks to both organisations for this) which, together with food, drink and donations from the Co-op, Morrisons, Guy Crabb, Stags, Symondsbury Estate and Maribar, provided a wonderful lunch complete with Christmas crackers. As a volunteer I drew the short straw and worked my way through a few kilograms of sprout peeling, Bridget happily prepared the parsnips and carrots so we were both busy behind the scenes. We were fortunate that the Local Food Links Company located just around the corner at St. Michaels Trading estate helped out by again cooking the turkeys for us in their ovens, a really big thank you to them for this.

The lunch was really a great festive occasion and everyone enjoyed the time we spent together celebrating Christmas a bit early.

As always, thanks to those wonderful volunteers and businesses who continue to support this much needed community safe place that helps so many people in Bridport.

St. James’ Care Home, Bradpole Carol Service

I love a good carol service, it brings back magical childhood memories of school visits to church and nativity plays, I even made Shepherd once!

Bridget and I were invited to St James’ service on Wednesday and it was a pleasure to see the Staff and residents again. The Service was led by Janis, supported by the Staff , family members and representatives of the Choir from Bradpole Parish Church. We had a lovely afternoon of singing and chatting with the residents and I hope they all have an enjoyable, safe and peaceful Christmas.

Bridport Round Table Hampers – a Christmas plea for support

Bridport Round Table have asked if I could include their request for help – happy to help such a wonderful organisation:

Over the past three years, we have run successful campaigns to help the local community through both Covid and the Cost of Living Crisis.

The response from the community has been overwhelming. With your help we have raised over £32,000 in total. This money has had a huge impact on the local community:

The feedback we have had is uniformly positive, with many families declaring it a lifeline, and something that they just cannot get by without.

Therefore we want to keep providing this help, and to do this we need your help again…

As a minimum, we are again looking to raise enough money to distribute 170 Christmas Hampers to families in need in the Bridport and Beaminster area.

As before, these will not be emergency food parcels – our friends at Cupboard Love and Beaminster food bank will continue to supply these to those who need them.

Rather, our Christmas Hampers are intended to ensure that every family that received one has all the necessary ingredients to enjoy a traditional family Christmas.

The Hampers will contain enough food for a full Christmas dinner and more for a family of four: they will contain a Turkey, and all the trimmings, all fresh and locally sourced; they will contain cheese, biscuits and chutney; Christmas pudding, and yule log. Finally, they will also contain enough sweets and chocolates to comfortably last the Christmas period!

For those families who receive a Hamper, this will mean one less thing to worry about. But like last year, we want to do more!

Our campaign will also look to raise money to fund more support for people through the cost-of-living crisis this winter and into the new year. This will include:

• Donating money to local spaces setting themselves up as warm spaces this winter, for local people to congregate in knowing that that the heating will be on, and a cup of tea available
• Providing food vouchers to vulnerable families over the school holidays, all from local butchers and greengrocers
• Providing a dedicated pot of money for emergency requests from either local people who need help, or for community workers to access should they spot signs of distress.

We know last year was a huge success, fuelled by the enthusiasm local people and businesses had for the cause. Whilst it may not be possible to match the £22k raised last year, we want to shoot again for a high number – every penny counts, and will be spent helping local people get through these hard times!

With that in mind our target for this year is to raise £10,000, which would give us enough to make and deliver all 170 hampers, AND have enough money to make a meaningful impact to the community over the next year.

This sounds an awful lot to raise, but we are hoping again that Crowdfunder will be able to help us by connecting us to their match funding partners, amplifying every donation you make by adding corporate funds to the pot. This had an absolutely phenomenal impact last year, and if our application is successful will bring in significant levels of new money into the town to help us

Add this to our ability to obtain gift aid from the government, and we are again incredibly well placed to meet are target.

So please be as generous as you can, and help us get as much money as possible into the town and the surrounding areas to help those who need it most.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. At this really difficult time we know that those who can help, will help.

This is a special area, with people who have gone above and beyond over the past months and years to support their friends and neighbours when they have needed it the most.

Your donation will help us continue that great work.