A celebrity came to town to deliver the Civic Society’s Annual Lecture held in the Guildhall, and what a delightful evening it proved to be! Griff Rhys Jones was in Worcester with his wife for the occasion, a charming couple who really made the evening something special. Griff spoke for about an hour or so, without notes, in a most captivating way on the subject of “Our Heritage”.  A most timely subject as our City reaches out to become recognised as a Heritage City, in the company of Bath, Chester and Cambridge.  Admission was free and around 200 people attended. A raffle was held with some brilliant prizes including an enormous chocolate hamper which I named “death by chocolate”, and  during the evening over £700 was raised for the three charities, bringing our total for the Mayoral year to around £30,000.

WODYs, the youth section of the Worcester Operatic & Dramatic Society, held a rehearsal in St Mary’s Hall, Northfield Street, in preparation for their production of Les Miserables at the Swan Theatre from 2nd to 6th August 2016.  A cast of 67 eight to eighteen year-olds sung a variety of well loved numbers such as I Dreamed a Dream and One Day More.  We stayed for about an hour and a half, but could have easily spent the rest of the day there as the singing was quite breathtaking and with three months still to go, I think it will be an event not to be missed this August. Not only will it be a great show, but the cast will be raising money from the interval raffle for Worcestershire Young Carers too.  Freda and I will be going and if you do want to book tickets, the Box Office number is 01905 644427.  There’s much more information on their web page at http://www.wodys.com/

An usual service was held in our Cathedral: a “Pet Service”. My first thoughts were centered on the prospect of a number of dogs not getting on too well, or maybe a cat would be the centre of their attention.  As it turned out, all the animals, (mainly dogs, but there was one tortoise), were beautifully behaved – not so much as a growl!  It was a very nice event and the people were great and just as well behaved as their pets.  The most significant thing for me was seeing another example of our Cathedral being managed for the people.  This is not always the case, and we should be grateful to the Bishop and the Dean and Chapter for such an open approach.