MAYOR'S MOMENT: Easter celebrations

The first saw me at St James Church on Good Friday for a concert, The Armed Man, A Mass for Peace, being performed by the Edwin James Festival Choir and Orchestra.

As always the choir performed beautifully, showing off some excellent harmonies and vocal talents.

This work was particularly emotive and moving and was very much appreciated by the full capacity audience that it attracted.

The acoustics of the church lend themselves perfectly to the choir and, once again, I was amazed at the range of works they have been able to perform here over the past year and look forward to their next concert, Sussex Summer Nights, on June 16 which will see them having fun with music from the 70s.

On Saturday I was at the St Barnabas House shop in Wick with store manager Michelle Ede and her team who had arranged an Easter bonnet competition and raffle.

With egg-cellent prizes up for grabs, this one-day raffle raised £120 and the entries from the children for the Easter bonnet parade were egg-ceptional!

Michelle and the whole team at the shop work exceptionally hard to put on varied theme days in their shop as well as taking care of the day-to-day business.

I commend them as this is much more than just a charity shop as it has personality, it feels part of the community and acts as a reminder to people of St Barnabas House and the wonderful work that it does, and I can only imagine how much money has been raised through the inspiration of this one shop.

Continuing with their hard work Michelle and the team are already busily working away on their next themed day – May the 4th be with you.

Despite being a Trekkie through and through I still urge you to support their Star Wars themed day.

On Sunday I was at Mewsbrook Park Café where David Chase had teamed up with former mayor of Littlehampton Emma Neno for an afternoon of fundraising for CancerWise.

The day included gift bags for £1 with goodies, bottle of water and voucher for a free ice-cream at the café; raffle, Easter bonnet competition, face painting and of course rock painting for #CancerWiseRocks. The day was well attended, everyone had lots of fun and it raised £212. It was great to see the miniature railway busy and people of all ages enjoying the park.

Finally I would like to ask you to please lend your support to Rosie Costan, Littlehampton Town Council’s assistant clerk, in her free the frog campaign towards my fundraising efforts as mayor.

Kermit has recently been seen trapped on top of one of the carriages at the Littlehampton Miniature Railway at Mewsbrook Park and if she raises £100 or more Kermit will be freed!

Rosie and her partner Jim have given up their own time during the Easter weekend to escort Kermit on his adventures at the local attractions and have produced a YouTube video (above) and JustGiving page – www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/freethefrog – to encourage people to give a little to help raise money to free Kermit and help the miniature railway and park.

I encourage you to watch the video as it is sure to put a smile on your face – and perhaps you would then like to give a little donation too?

Please keep letting me know of all your events within the town so I can continue getting around to as much as possible before the end of my year as mayor.

Easter bonnet competitions at the St Barnabas House shop in Wick and Mewsbrook Park Café

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