Chairmans Diary March 2026: Use our Vets!
My Vice Chair, Cllr Stephanie Steevenson, is our Armed Forces Champion and it was her idea for me to attend the Veterans' Breakfast at Thatcham Rugby Club. As a veteran myself (20 years as a Royal Engineer officer with Military Survey) I found it a very welcoming and useful hour to start a Saturday.
Some 'vets' are still young: many uniformed personnel don 'civvies' in their 40s and with Government rightly talking about "Whole Society Resilience" as a key part of defence policy, their experience and knowledge of how to work together on public service in an operational environment could prove invaluable. Veterans remain a resource for our local community.
But many ex-service people find it difficult to adapt to life after leaving our Armed Forces. Homelessness, family breakup and mental health problems are high among younger veterans. So the social value of these monthly Veterans Breakfast are welcome. Thatcham's is one of the most successful in England.
My next notable engagement was attending the opening of the Old Library in Cheap Street, which now has a new career as a performing space (and café) for our community. The Corn Exchange managed to raise £1.2 million to pay for its renovation, carried out in immaculate style. An amazing number and range of local groups are queuing up to use it.
Both Stephanie and myself, on successive Saturday mornings, attended heats of the Berkshire Schools Mock Trials at Reading Magistrates Court. At the second one I witnessed pupils playing "The Witness" as well as advocates for prosecution and defence - and all the other court roles.
I learned a lot myself about how magistrates courts operate and the whole competition only exists because many legal professionals and teachers give their time to make it happen. I was extremely impressed by the confidence and skill that their young year 9 students performed - and the law is, in a sense, a performing art!
Best of all, Trinity School was announced as the winner of heats at my 21 March event. They go on to Regional Finals at the Crown Court in Reading on 16 May - when Stephanie should be the one wearing the Chairman's Chain.
Well done Trinity and all our other schools who took part. The Willink put up a good show and Kennet may have qualified for the finals too but they took part in the heats on 14th and at the time of writing their result isn't known.
