• The Royal Mail is launching a design competition for UK school children to honour our COVID heroes, including key workers and others, who have done amazing things since the start of the pandemic to help the country and our community through what we all know has been a very challenging period. Visit www.royalmail.com/stampcompetition to sign-up for one of 6,000 resource packs available and get involved with this great competition!
• Marie Curie nurses and hospices provide incredible care and support to families facing terminal illness, and this year their Great Daffodil Appeal is more important than ever with the pandemic putting its usual fundraising on hold. Please join me in supporting the appeal by wearing a daffodil and donating, if you can, at www.mariecurie.org.uk/daffodil.
• Only one third of people in the UK realise that it is possible to reduce their risk of dementia and I am aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle to overall brain health. With this in mind, I am happy to further highlight the importance of brain health through Alzheimer’s Research UK’s ‘Think Brain Health’ campaign. This is a fantastic initiative, which raises some very valuable points about how to keep our brains healthy and you can find out more on the Alzheimer’s Research UK website, here: https://tinyurl.com/4wky4s6w.
• Given the flooding issues we have seen locally of late, the Environment Agency has developed a factsheet to explain what their responsibilities are, the maintenance activities they may carry out in local areas, and actions people and businesses can take to help address flooding. I thought it would be worth sharing it and you can find it, here. Of course, if there are flooding issues affecting you or your community, please don’t hesitate to approach me if I can be of any help, as others have had cause to do this winter.
• I have been informed that the National Lottery have reopened applications for heritage grants and I wanted to share this good news which may be of help to a number of organisations locally. You can find the details on their website, here.
• A particularly concerning aspect around our collective national effort to fight Coronavirus is the impact it is understandably having on people’s mental health. In response, I am pleased that the local authorities in the county and the NHS have launched a mental health support line, and whether you are feeling lonely, anxious, frightened, or struggling with other issues, there is friendly, professional support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by calling 0300 330 1011.
If you have anything you would like to be featured next week, please email all the details to pursglovet@parliament.uk.
Also, if you have taken any photos of constituency landscapes or landmarks, which could be featured in my ‘Community Notices’ headers, please send them in and I will try to use as many of them as possible (and credit them accordingly!), as a celebration of the fantastic place we live and work in. I know we have many budding photographers in our community and it would be great to showcase their work!