These weekly updates are taking a while to create… thinking I’ll post as stuff happens in real time, or a few hours after… then joining them up on a Sunday will take like 30 mins… allowing me to relax more while fine dining by the pool 😉 Monday 15th July Met up with Jason Mills,…

Monday 8th July New Rotary year start’s 1st July and I’m chair of the Club Services & Youth Services committees, so I organised a meeting before lunch for Club Services and after lunch for Youth Services. Club Services are going to encourage club chairs to report more frequently and I have a new recruitment idea…

Biggest learning of last week’s council meeting and what shone out Monday evening, was the reality that the councillors need to learn how to work together. While the conservatives are not used to having so much opposition, they are still in the driving seat when it comes to votes but they are also hugely exposed…

Monday 24th June I wanted to get a letter to the Conservative lead on finance, Cllr Hilton and Cllr Rayner about the budget “CY27 Dedworth Manor-Community Café 250k” to invite them to form a cross party group on the decision making around the ideas. I offered, they knocked it back but hey, at least I…

I was talking to the youngest councillor of RBWM yesterday, Joshua Reynold Lib Dem, who phoned me to discuss my Motion regarding council meeting attire… he introduced me to the concept of Boris’s dead cats… Apparently, because Boris always finds himself in bother, to detract from the really bad stories, Boris chucks in a non-story…

Some really interesting conversations this week, more news as it happens from your Councillor… launched new Facebook Group, see link at the end… read on… Monday 17th June Invited to be part of Garter Day celebrations at Windsor Castle… this councillor caper just gets better and better 😉 Up early to get the hours in…

People are so desperate to get on the housing market that they think buying a cheap bit of land at auction will be the start of their dreams coming true… but Buyers Beware, you could end up having a nightmare! Auctioneers, happy to take their share, position land within the law but leaving a lot…

Morning… just spotted last week’s newsletter talked about May when it was in fact June… can’t believe no-one picked up on it and told me, anyway, what’s been going on this week in my councillor and community world? Picture above is all the Local Independents and Lib Dem candidates plus the Flood chap from Datchet….

My aim is to create a weekly blog / digest of some of my activities. Cllrs obviously get a bunch of emails and phone calls and reciting every moment might be a tad dull… it might be that anyway but let’s give it a go 😉 (Just realised, today’s 16th, that this was talking about…

It would appear, from reading the available information, that the new cabinet would like to push through a policy putting £450,000 into a budget that would value the filling of a pot hole at £700* each? Does that sound right to you? (Read the minutes down the page) As an Independent Councillor in opposition to…

The 7 principles of public life (Nolan Principles) were published 31st May 1995 and govern the actions of those in public office. Since I’ve just taken up public office as Councillor for Clewer & Dedworth West in the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead it made sense to take a look… up until now I…

The Household Cavalry will be exercising their right to a Freedom of Entry March through Windsor on Saturday 18 May 2019. This will be a “goodbye” to Windsor as the Household Cavalry, which have been based at Combermere Barracks for over 200 years, will be relocating to Salisbury Plain later this year. This move is…

As you may be aware, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that we have just 11 years left to prevent 1.5 degrees warming; warming beyond 1.5 degrees represents a threat to the future of humanity, and even warming limited to that level will wreak havoc upon the livelihoods of countless people…

Winning Tenders will be on Stand 14, come and join us… Register for your FREE tickets here >>>

Morning Windsor, would you like to see us run a Windsor’s Got Talent competition around Christmas 2019 at The Theatre Royal, Windsor? Well it’s simple, Windsor & Eton Rotary Club need sponsorship pledges, not cash at this time, to the tune of £6,000 to make this happen… read on… In June 2019 Ralph Cooper, who…

In alphabetical order by ward and first name, the elected Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead councillors are… numbers are votes tally… Ascot & Sunninghill Conservative David Hilton – 1446 Conservative John Story – 1355 Conservative Julian Sharpe – 1372 Belmont Lib Dem John Baldwin – 838 Lib Dem Simon Bond – 959 Bisham &…

The Swan had a barbecue tonight and it was O so fun… Richard shared some kind words… Then Richard introduced Jamie who has created a logo for me… Then Jamie shared a little more about him helping those that had helped him… Then someone asked who had refurb the Swan? And it all went horribly…

What can be said when your beloved granny gets up from the table and walks out because you’ve not been listening to what she has to say… then you know you are in BIG trouble :'( For 50 years she has been conservative, blue through to her core… and enough is enough, describing the PM…

We need to be doing more to celebrate St George’s Day and encourage a positive, all inclusive national pride that is missing and very much needs rekindling. If the people of Clewer & Dedworth West Ward in the RBWM vote for me on 2nd May then one item I will be championing is a borough…

Mate of mine just posted picture of his dog on Facebook, lying on it’s back, legs 90 degrees at the elbow… got me thinking about Her Majesty’s birthday and the 21 guns salute in Windsor Great Park on Monday, she’ll be a magical 93 on Sunday! I know what she’d like more… and I know…

When I saw the news about Yolanda, back in Nov 2013, hitting the Philippines, it made me appreciate how lucky we are not to live in a part of the world where natural disasters occur all too often having a devastating impact on the local community… and I wanted to do something to help but…

If Wisdom & I are elected to represent the people of Clewer & Dedworth West in the upcoming elections on 2nd May then I will be proactively inviting more engagement with the residents. You may have read this story in the Maidenhead Advertiser and on social media about banning supplementary questions which was agreed at…

Someone sent me a blog yesterday announcing “Stress Awareness Month” warning that our addictions to social media are causing us real stress… If you are engaging with social media and ask too many questions then trolls will come out to play, increasing your stress until you recognise a potential cure for this irritating infection. I…

This is a question I’d appreciate an answer to as I’ve been hearing scary things about 5G and I’d rather we were not going there. Brussels has banned 5G because they are tuned into its negative effects… Mark Steele is a UK weapons expert who has decided enough is enough and he’s trying to make…

Took my first steps on the campaign trail yesterday and it was mighty interesting to hear what folk were saying… Picking up on the conservative manifesto, they’ve got it bad with pot holes… promising to fix any pot holes reported in 24 hours… it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out… I reported these…

Yvette Cooper and Oliver Letwin had the MPs pull a night shift yesterday to rush through a bill to slow down Brexit, trying to prevent a clean Brexit. They just got the legislation through the House of Commons by 1 vote… and it’s on to the House of Lords to ensure the people’s will is…

Do we really need more houses built in Windsor or is it simply all about the balance sheet? Here’s my take on the whole property thing… In the good old days of the 80’s when you could get a 2 up 2 down for less than £100k and you had a family income of say…

Not sure the idea of the Great British Spring Clean was to produce more plastic waste than you pick up but hey, why let logic get in the way of a great idea? Hat’s off to those that took part. I know many people who randomly pick up litter as they stroll about but it…

I celebrated my birthday this year by taking my family for dinner with 50 fellow Rotarians from Windsor & Eton and our sister club in Celle, Germany and popping over to Windsor Castle for the final of Windsor Festival’s International String Competition. Talking Brexit with our German cousins, the chap I was talking to was…

I’ve been joining in with Peaches People on BBC Radio Berkshire since Brexit was voted for back in 2016. Today four of us were in the studio, sharing our thoughts on what’s next… One of the key questions Andrew asked was, “were we angry that Brexit was being delayed?” I reflected and shared that I…