Have You Registered To Vote? | Electrol Commission

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Please click the video to the right to watch this important voter registration awareness video by the Electoral Commission.

Click the video to the right to watch.

Register to vote here or if you are already registered to vote please share this link with your friends and family who might not be registered yet.

When you vote, you decide who represents you and makes decisions on your behalf. This can effect a whole range of issues – from roads and recycling in your area, to workers rights and climate change.

Everyone in the UK has a local council, an MP who sits in the UK Parliament, and members of the European Parliament who represent you in Europe. You you may also be represented by devolved bodies, like those that represent Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Register to vote

Does your opinion really matter in politics?

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The Conti 4×4 Trophy Competition | Off-Road Driving

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Please click the video to the right to watch

The Conti 4×4 Trophy is an off-road driving challenge through the rocky Atlas Mountains and into the Sahara desert.

Hover the mouse over or click the video to the right to watch full screen.

This is a three part competition designed like an exhilarating knockout rally, including a virtual rally stage, with prizes to be won on the way to the grand finale in Morocco.

Stage one:  You and a nominated co-driver play as a team to earn miles in a virtual rally. The top 28 teams who earn the most miles will go through to Stage 2, the Qualifier Event at the Land Rover Experience, 23 June 2012.

Stage two:  An exclusive opportunity to visit the Land Rover Experience at Gaydon.  Test yourself on one of the world’s most challenging off-road courses. The results here will determine who makes it through to Morocco.

Stage three:  Morrocon off-road challenge driving Hummers 1,000s of miles through the rocky Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert, navigating sands, gorges and rivers. Recover with 4-star Morrocan hospitality by night.

Register your team now

Olympic Torch Route Through Stroud and Cirencester

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The Olympic Torch will be passing through Stroud and Cirencester on Wednesday 23 May – Day 5 of the UK Olympic torch relay- during the Bristol to Cheltenham leg of the Olympic flame’s journey to the London Olympic Games.

The times and street route for the Olympic Torch journey around the UK is now available. The Olympic flame relay starts in Land’s End on 19 May.

8,000 people will carry the flame as part of the London 2012 Olympic torch relay, on a journey taking 70 days. The London Olympic organisers, led by Lord Coe, have designed the route to bring the Olympic Games flame within 10 miles of 95% of the UK population.

Details of the route and time for the last two days before reaching the Olympic Park to light the cauldron at the opening ceremony on 27 July are still to be released.

You can find full details of when and where the Olympic torch will be anywhere in the UK by selecting the appropriate journey PDF from the list provided here.

The dates, times and street route for the Stroud and Cirencester (Cotswold’s) leg  are shown below:

Carrying the Olympic flame through Stroud, Gloucestershire

The Olympic flame street-by-street route for Stroud and Cirencester.

Details of the torchbearers, who will each carry the flame for approximately 300 metres, will be released separately.

 
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Have You Ever Been to a Support Group Meeting?

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Looking in from the outside, support groups can conjure the image of people sitting in circles in dimply lit, dusty village halls, discussing their problems each week.

Inside these support groups, people can find warmth and support from others who understand their problems and have their own personal experiences to share. By providing information, sharing experiences, listening to and discussing problems, offering sympathy and understanding to other support group members, people can find new strength and support to help them overcome, cope with and manage their personal issues.

Is their a stigma around joining a support group? Well in my experience I think there is and this is often the biggest reason people needing support don’t receive the help they deserve. The success of online support groups is evidence of this influence.

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Become a Stroud District Foodbank Partner

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Could you become a Stroud District Foodbank partner?

Could your organisation support the Stroud District Foodbank?

Stroud District Foodbank is currently seeking partnerships with groups who can provide food and finance, with professionals who can refer clients, and with organisations that can provide long term support for the Foodbank’s users.

As a newly established Foodbank, the Stroud District branch is looking to build local partnerships to meet existing  demand  and to ensure that referrers cover every inch of the Stroud District so that everyone who needs the Foodbank does find out about them.

This is a great opportunity to be involved and improve your organisations Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) profile.

Please contact the Stroud District Foodbank for more details about partnering or visit the Stroud District Foodbank website to find out more about their services.

Stroud District Foodbank – UK Food Banks

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I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Will Mansell of the Stroud District Foodbank - part of a UK-wide network of over 100 Foodbanks.

 

Stroud District Foodbank needs your support

Backed by local support and a national infrastructure, Foodbanks provide emergency food to people in crisis. All food given out is donated by individuals, schools, churches, businesses and other local organisations. 

Listening to Will explain how foodbanks work and how foodbanks help individuals and families in that critical gap between crisis and longer term support I was inspired to see  his passion for supporting people in need – what could be more rewarding than knowing you can help a baby who would otherwise go hungry?

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Fixing the web – one site at a time

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Fixtheweb.net

Fixtheweb has been helping make the internet more accessible one website at a time.

This is one of my favourite community projects and I especially like how it combines the resources of volunteers, website owners and web developers.

Web accessibility (such as access for disabled and older people) is not a legal requirement, and as a result many web developers and website owners have been slow to make their sites accessible.  For those who do strive to make their online services available to the largest number of people the obstacle of additional cost can be a real problem to overcome.

Good, modern coding standards (when done right) help accessibility issues but many sites, new and old, still slip up.

One of the most common reasons we have encountered is a simple lack of knowledge. How exactly do you know if your website is accessible?

This is how Fixtheweb can help?

Shrinktheweb helps draw attention to accessibilty issues, providing a quick and simple solution to make it easy for people facing accessibility issues to report problems with the websites they visit.

Once reported volunteers do the work of contacting the website owners and signposting them to support, sharing the burden. this provides crucial information to web owners about their sites. Everybody wins… Steven fry even called it “Pure genius!”

You can find out more about getting involved or report a website here

Visit Fixtheweb

 

 

The need for collaborative health care

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A King’s Fund report has been released, saying people with conditions such as diabetes or heart disease are more likely to have mental health problems. People with these long-term conditions are 50-75% more likely to suffer mental health problems with each person costing up to 45% more to treat.

The mental health conditions they refer to in the report include depression, anxiety and dementia. Around a third of people in England have a long-term mental health condition (higher in the over 60s) and are the most frequent users of healthcare services, according to the Department of Health.

A third of people suffer with mental health problems.

11% of the NHS's secondary healthcare budget is spent on mental health services

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