In my last column I wrote about the collective efforts across the town including Frome Town Council, to raise and send money to our Polish twin-town of Rabka who are roughly 60 miles from the Ukrainian border and have been stepping up incredibly to support, accommodate and provide refuge to thousands of Ukrainians fleeing from the abhorrent violence at home. FTC put an initial £5,000 in to get the ball rolling and I’m so proud to say the town and its various organisations have come together to bring this total to nearly £40,000. Bravo! So, so incredible. I attended the ‘Big gig for Ukraine’ held at 23 Bath Street last week which raised a whopping £1,480 and featured the musical talents of: Flash Harry, Rivers of England, Leander Morales, Al O’Kane and Emma Harris with professional raffle ticket extraction techniques from yours truly. Keep your eyes peeled for more fundraisers coming up soon.
A massive well done to the good folks at the Gateway club for doing such a fantastic and athletic job recently on their sponsored swim! I had a great hour watching all the participants nail their laps and it was a great pleasure to hand out SIX medals to you all after. Lovely stuff. In closing I’d like to extend a sincere and heartfelt thank you to Thomas Sheppard who has just stepped down as The High Sheriff of Somerset to dutifully see in his successor, Jennifer Duke. I’m very much looking forward to meeting her and wish her all the success in her new role! Thomas was very generous with his time and energy where Frome was concerned and I hear through the grapevine he had a few lovely words to share with others on his travels about my work here as Mayor during his time as High Sheriff and I personally found that to be nourishing, humbling and very heartening. You can catch a conversation with myself and Thomas Sheppard recorded during his tenure as High Sheriff in season 4 of my podcast ‘The Giant Pod’ which is coming very soon, so watch out for that.
Until next time!
