Last night saw John Button become our new President with Nigel Farthing our Senior Vice President.  We had a lovely evening over at Sproughton Barns somewhere I had never been before but very impressed and an excellent meal.  We were all in an extremely good mood as the Orwell Walk raised over £100,000 for local charities so all that hard work was worth every minute.  Some of us leave for a week in Ipswich Massachusetts with our Rotary friends there so a lot going on with my wonderful Rotary Club!

Suffolk Mind and the Churches Conservation Trust were awarded a grant of £3.6m from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to restore and rejuvenate the redundant medieval church, St Mary at the Quay, into a Wellbeing Heritage Centre for everyone in the community.

This is a really exciting project and the aim of this innovative collaboration is to create a building that will provide a quiet and beautiful sanctuary.

The Centre will be a flexible and welcoming community space which is open to all.  It will offer wellbeing and heritage activities, a centre for local events, complementary therapy and a café servng light refreshments.

I visited earlier this week and you can see from this picture that it will not be long before the project is finished.  It is amazing.

 

I have spoken about Oyster Community Press CIC before and last Thursday (Referendum Day) they held a private viewing of the Eye for Ipswich Exhibition which looks at Ipswich through the eyes of twenty four people from thirteen countries now living here in Ipswich.

Here is a picture of Rebecca Crerar from the Suffolk Refugee Support Centre with one of the exhibitors. It is very appropriate that Rebecca should be there as this week is Refugee Week. As you know Suffolk is taking part in the UK Government’s Syrian Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme and all the political leaders across the County unanimously agreed to take up to 200 Syrian refugees over the next 5 years.

Below is a picture of Mick Allison the Chair of the Ipswich Furniture Project of which I am a Trustee and we worked in partnership with Oyster Press to deliver this exhibition allowing our premises in St Matthews Street to be used for training.  Mick is talking to my brother and sister in law Karl and Janice Daniels.  Karl is the outgoing Chair of Governors at Ipswich School and they have been working on this project too.

The exhibition is open to the public today – do go and visit in the Ipswich Library in Northgate Street it really is worthwhile and Alison and her husband should be congratulated on what they have achieved.

It is very pleasing that Jack Wills have opened a brand new outlet in the Croydon building in Tavern Street. A great asset for Ipswich.

As Paul Clement, Chief Executive of Ipswich Central, said: “It’s a great time to be a business in Ipswich. National chains are investing and choosing to expand here and individuals are seeing the town as a great place to start their businesses.

“If ever there was a time to be excited about the changes going on in Ipswich, it’s now.”

Rapidly-expanding chain Kaspas Desserts has just opened in the former Ipswich Building Society premises next to Sainsbury’s in Upper Brook Street and when I walk pass it is absolutely packed out. Haven’t tried it yet looks a bit naughty!!!

I attended this conference yesterday at UCS which was a Research and Scholarly Activity Day.  It was extremely worthwhile and an outstanding speech was given by Laura Higgins the online safety Operations Manager at South West Grid for Learning, the lead partner of the UK Safer Internet Centre, where she established and manages two specialist Helpline services. In February of last year SWGfl launched a brand new service specifically to support victims of revenge porn, the only service of its kind in the whole of Europe.  Laura told us some horrendous stories stunned the audience to silence at what might seem a laugh at the time can be used by someone you have an argument with to ruin your life.  It seems that professional people such as teachers are the most vulnerable and their employers do not acknowledge that this is a crime and they are the victims. It made me feel nervous about the use of social media and I wonder if any of you have suffered because of this.

There were so many good speakers, Fiona Ellis from Survivors in Transition, Dr Emma Bond who is internationally renowned for her work on online and social media environments and has extensive research experience in this field and Mark Manning.  Mark and I start a Criminology degree together about 5 years ago.  I had to pull out when my husband was taken so ill but he is now a lecturer in Criminology and is now reading for a PhD.  This follows a 30 year career in the police service what an achievement!  In all an excellent conference and very well organised as well.

Lynn Turner runs Cake & Catwalk a very successful dress shop in St Peter’s Street and last night she was the speaker at the WiRE meeting I attended.  Her presentation talked about the future of Ipswich with Devolution high on the agenda and whether Ipswich will survive and become the powerhouse it should be.  Please look at the Orwell Ahead website for more information: http://www.OrwellAhead.co.uk

Next week will see local Councillors like myself having to decide whether Suffolk and Norfolk should become a combined authority with a directly elected Mayor.  It would be interesting to hear your views.  You can attend the meeting in the Town Hall next Wednesday 29th of June at 6 p.m. to listen to the debate – this link will hopefully allow you to read the papers beforehand:
https://democracy.ipswich.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=145&MId=1791&Ver=4

Street. 

This marvellous new restaurant has just opened at 10 St Peter’s Street in Ipswich and offers typical Italian food from the Emilia Region. I attended a WiRE meeting last night which is a business networking meeting and is invaluable to all women doing business in rural areas from the established or growing business, to new or potential businesses and run by my friend Sue Hall.

The meeting was held at Cake and Catwalk and lovely Lynn Turner had organised Locanda to bring over some delicious Italian food.  I do recommend a visit to this restaurant you will not be disappointed and how nice to see yet another new business open in Ipswich.

I’ve just had a week on the wonderful Greek Island of Rhodes so apologies you haven’t heard from me. I am very lucky to be able to stay with my dear friends Hilary and Brian Offord in the beautiful picturesque village of Lindos where they live.  No cars allowed in the village so local transport is just donkeys!!! We had a day in Rhodes Town really something special and I can truly recommend a visit to you all.

Don’t forget this week is Refugee Week and hopefully we will be able to support their stand at the Multicultural Day at Ipswich Library this Saturday 25th of June. Nice to hear that Halifax Primary School have been involved in making cards for this week.  Well done to Rebecca Crerar for her tireless work.

Suffolk County Council launched their “Connecting Communities Transport Services” at the Town Hall yesterday.  The scheme will come into force on Monday and will replace the existing dial-a-ride we are familiar with here in Ipswich.

The scheme is predominantly to help residents who are unable, for one reason or another to use public transport however it is hoped that all residents will use this scheme whenever they can.  The cost is £2 for a 6 mile journey.  Dial-a-ride was £1.50 so an increase but a brand new vehicle as shown in the picture below.  The facility will also be offered to parents who have difficulty in getting their children to school but the cost will be 58p per mile.  It should be noted that bus passes cannot be used for this facility but they can be exchanged at Suffolk County Council for vouchers.  We were also told that residents will be able to book, for example, to go to the theatre and the company running this transport scheme have an arrangement with a taxi company.

The telephone number to ring to book is 01449 614271 and the website: suffolkonboard.com.

We were treated to a wonderful meal cooked by the students at Suffolk New College last night which was held to say goodbye to Christine Walters Vice Principal of the College.  Christine started at the college back in 1988 and has worked tirelessly to improve the College and help many thousands of students to achieve their goals.  It was a lovely evening tinged with sadness but Christine and Rod are looking forward to lots of travelling but we at the College will miss Christine a lot.