COMMITTEE members are needed for 2018.

Several committee members have given outstanding service to Berkeley WI but now need to hand the baton on.

In 2016 Helen Jones a long standing member of Berkeley WI lost her battle with cancer. Within days of her death her husband Mike also sadly passed away.

They were stalwart members of the Berkeley Community and in their joint memory their family are gifting a bench to be placed outside Berkeley Town Hall.

The WI have been invited by the family to send representatives to the dedication of the bench ceremony on August 12.

We were delighted to welcome Penny Wride as the speaker for the evening.

Penny demonstrated her commitment to her community and getting fairness for her constituents. Her exemplar was her father who was a parish then district and ultimately county councillor before her.

She described her input into achieving a play area for local children; guiding families to understand what they could achieve; and now perhaps the outstanding achievement the new Berkeley Green College due to open its doors to students in September of this year.

Local engineering businesses have had significant input which has required considerable networking.

Penny described the role and limits of being a parish councillor. Setting the precept – monies to be spent by the parish council. Penny is proud that Stone has the lowest precept in the district. Can object to planning applications with sound reason for objecting but cannot stop the application.

Above all parish councillors must be open and transparent – particularly as with MPs declaring all gifts and gratuities above £25.

There are three district councillors covering a huge geographical area (from Cambridge in the North to the county boundary in the South and the River Severn in the West to roughly the M5 in the East.

Penny is on the Stroud District Council audit and standards committee as well as the community services and licencing committee.