johnfletcher

Middlesbrough Football Club in the Community and the African Sports Embassy organised a football tournament for young people this afternoon at Eston Sports Complex.  Teams from Billingham Campus, Blakeston, Ian Ramsey, The Norton and Thornaby Community Schools and the African Sports Embassy competed.  I presented the John Owens Trophy to the winning team from Billingham Campus School and medals to all members of the other teams taking part.  John Owens's grandfather presented medals to the winning team. 

The John Owens Trophy is in memory of a football-loving teenager from Thornaby, the only white person to play for a multi-cultural team in Stockton (he signed up for Stockton International Family Centre, an ever-changing, multi-national team of refugees and asylum seekers), who died of Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS) at the age of 17 in June 2005.

This evening we both really enjoyed the dinner-dance of Daisy Chain (one of my mayoral charities) at Marton Hotel & Country Club.  This event combines fund-raising with an opportunity for staff, helpers, supporters and relatives to enjoy a night out together.  The group playing was The Wildcats of Kilkenny, under Mick McGrother, a native of Eaglescliffe.  We remember hearing this band, now very well-known in the region, when it was first starting off here.  Their lively, informal style got many people on their feet - even me!  One of the company tables was from Tristar Homes Ltd, the Council's housing-management subsidiary, who bid successfully in the auction for the privilege of a colleague abseiling / doing a bungee jump from the Transporter Bridge.  We promised to sponsor him when he did it, so I hope that others will follow suit.

As, for once, we stayed until midnight, it will be rather a struggle to get up tomorrow morning, but I have a non-mayoral meeting to chair at 10 a.m.

[Photos will appear in the next few working days at www.stockton.gov.uk/mayorsblog.]

We were invited by Stockton Sixth Form College to their Open Evening, which was aimed at Year 11 pupils in schools (considering where they will go next year) and their parents.  We were met by the Principal, Mr Martin Clinton, who showed us and a number of councillors round the College.  We didn't see every department, but among the things which impressed us were:

• The number of computer terminals - seemingly in nearly every room -one to 1.8 students.
• The standard of the art work displayed all round the College.
• The look of expectancy on future students' faces.
• The attention which was being paid to finding solutions for students encountering difficulties.
• The Learning Resource Centre, so different in attitude form traditional libraries.

Not all the interesting things lent themselves to interesting photos, but what we saw included the Biology and Chemistry Labs, sports training facilities and the Art Room.  Pudsey Bear came and relieved me of some cash for Children in Need!

We also had the benefit of computer graphics to display the design for the replacement building, which aims to be environmentally friendly, on another part of the site, for which planning permission is awaited.

A 6^th form today has changed a lot since I passed my "A" Levels 45 years ago - I think that most of the changes have been for the better.

[Photos will appear at www.stockton.gov.uk/mayorsblog in the next few working days.]

This afternoon I had a spare half hour, so I went for a short walk in Preston Park.  After the recent winds, the paths through the woods were carpeted in golden leaves, which had not yet had time to decompose.  It really looked beautiful in the sunshine.

Durham University had invited us to Queen's Campus (which is in this Borough) for me to preside over that Campus's annual prize-giving ceremony.  After a speech of welcome by the Vice-chancellor (Prof. Chris Higgins, DL), the new Principal of John Snow College (Prof Carolyn Summerbell) said a few words about each of the winners.  I presented the Mayor of Stockton Community Placement Report Prize, which had been instituted by one of my recent predecessors as Mayor.  Medical students in their first year and the following autumn term have a community placement involving regular visits to local groups and organisations in the social or health care sectors.  By volunteering or work shadowing they get a taste of the real world in which live the patients they will be treating one day.  After the Placement, the students write a reflective report.  The winner, Miss Laura Parnell, had spent time with Stockton Borough Intermediate Care Service, whose purpose is to aid reintegration back into the home following hospital discharge.

I then had to give a speech.  This was one of the very few which I had written in full beforehand.  I congratulated the winners, spoke of the growing relations between the Council and Queen's Campus, the essence of which was communication, which was something at which we all had to work in many facets of life.

This was an enjoyable occasion for all - we enjoyed meeting again friends and acquaintances from the University, especially as mayoral duties mean that we shall have to miss the first three dinners this academic year of John Snow Senior Common Room.

[Photos are at www.stockton.gov.uk/mayorsblog.]

Suzanne and I went this morning to Middlesbrough Town Hall, where we met up with the Vice-chair of Middlesbrough Borough Council, the Deputy Mayor & Mayoress of Redcar & Cleveland, the Chairman of Hartlepool Borough Council & his Lady and the Chief Constable.  We processed to Teesside Combined Court Centre - as the only mayor present, I was the only one robed.  There we waited with the High Sheriffs and Under-sheriffs of North Yorkshire and Co. Durham and the trumpeters of Cleveland Police Band.  On the arrival of HM High Court Judge, the Hon. Mr Justice Moylan, a fanfare was sounded and we were introduced to him.  There were few passers-by to see this grand ceremony, only people coming in and out of the Court Centre on their own business.

We were then all taken into a court room and stood while the Letters Patent were read by a court official.  These are the document by which the Crown Court sittings there are authorised by HM The Queen.  We then moved to the Judges' Dining Room, but had little time for coffee and conversation before we all went down in the lift to the foyer to join the court staff to observe the Two Minutes' Silence.  The civic party then returned (with the Chief Constable to guard all our gold chains!) to the Town Hall.

You may be wondering why all the formality, but it is part of our strong heritage of an independent judicial system, and it is important that the system continues.

This evening, Suzanne had ward commitments, so I was accompanied by another councillor to the Innovation Building of the University of Teesside for a lecture to a joint meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers North East and the Institution of Structural Engineers by Mr Robert Thorniley-Walker of Structural & Civil Consultants Ltd.  His title was "Return to real Timber and the Stone Age: Problems and Advances in the use of Local Ethical materials".  He spoke about people's perceptions of climate change and the need to cut carbon emissions.  He said that the use of concrete and steel in building involved carbon emissions, so where possible one should try using timber.  He gave examples of this in recent building work, together with some of the snags encountered.  I was interested to hear that a mature tree ceases to absorb carbon dioxide and, once it has fallen, starts to give it all out again while it decays.  His point was that trees are an effective carbon sink only if they are protected from decay, but a timer beam inside a building is retaining its captured carbon.

Our afternoon in the Town Hall began with a visit from two groups of teenage students who had arrived yesterday on an exchange visit to Ian Ramsey C of E School.  One group was from Meppen in Lower Saxony (Germany); the other from Cheste in Valencia (Spain).  By coincidence, they were from the same schools as the exchange students whom I had met as Deputy Mayor last year, and they were accompanied by the same teachers, whom I was delighted to see again.

I have never done any classes in German, but picked up a little from a radio course and book many years ago.  Although I can now make some sense of straightforward written Spanish, I'm not yet up to composing many of my own sentences.  My welcome to both parties was therefore in English, punctuated where possible by appropriate Spanish and German phrases.  Fortunately, the teachers from Spain and Germany spoke fluent English.  The German head was visiting for the first time.  In exchanging gifts, I was pleased to be able to tell the Meppen people that we had their calendar on our kitchen wall.

After the visitors had been given a tour of the Town Hall, we then entertained Mr John & Mrs Mary Mackie, with one of their ward councillors.  Mr & Mrs Mackie had taken my letter of civic greetings and a shield with the Stockton coat of arms to the Mayor of Seymour, Indiana (USA).  They had now returned with a letter from Mayor Craig Luedeman there, together with photos and some gifts from that city's Oktoberfest, which celebrates the German origins of many of the families there.

Unfortunately, there is not room in the Town Hall to display all the tokens of friendship from all over the World which successive Mayors have received, but it is good to be part of so many gestures of international friendship at grass roots' level.

[Photos will appear in the next few days at www.stockton.gov.uk/mayorsblog.  Owing to the light from so many directions, it is difficult to take good photos in the Council Chamber - sorry!]