Visits

Over the next few weeks I am trying to get out and about around the County visiting events and staff teams. This is not helped by the fact that my hand is in plaster and so I am not able to drive - but we are making it work.

Yesterday I had a great afternoon visiting a few of our County Farms in Fenland.  I learned a huge amount from it, about diversification, employment of foreign labour and about how farming is changing.  I was also encouraged by the enthusiasm being shown by the tenant farmers.

After that I went to a fun day that was put on at Wisbech Adventure Playground, a project I had a huge amount of involvement in when it was first delivered.  The scheme was not without its critics at the start - but I am incredibly pleased that we seem to have worked our way beyond that and I am very proud of the role I played in making that playground happen.  The day they had yesterday is probably best summed up using the words of one of the staff there:

Thank you for making the time to visit the playground yesterday during our "Playday" celebrations, and for your supportive comments. Thanks also for quality assuring our longest slide. We got a great photo and will forward that on to you once he has downloaded it! 

We estimate that around 500+ people from Waterlees and beyond attended yesterday and great fun was had by all according to our comments book.

In these difficult economic times I thought you might be interested to know the cost of the day, over and above the standard staffed play session that we would have run anyway during the holidays. The main expense was the collection of inflatables at £650. Funding donated by the Town Council (£200) and Community House (£300) contributed towards this. In addition, we made £75 in commission from the Ice Cream van, £160 from our tombola and an amount yet to be counted from Community House's barbeque stall, which will pay for the inflatables and return some money to the kitty of our "Friends Of" fundraising group to support future activities and contribute towards equipment etc. 

All the other stands and activities were provided free of charge with input from key partners such as our Community Development colleagues Wendy Lansdown & Tammy Liu (SPICE project), the Wisbech South & Oasis Children's centres and FDC's Community House. Furthermore I estimate there must have been 10-15 adult and young person volunteers helping throughout the day: conservatively a total of 105 volunteer hours!

I will publish the photo when I get it.