I am quite used to writing a Christmas message in my current capacity of Leader of Woodley Town Council and in the past as leader of Wokingham Borough Council.
I normally sit down in front of my laptop and the creative juices flow freely with the festive greeting completed relatively quickly.
This year is fundamentally different. The world is different. The UK is different. Our local area is different. We are all personally different in one way or another.
So I stopped and tried to define what was different and was there anything, anything at all, that was not different? The year started with a huge amount of optimism and then in March the dreaded Covid-19 virus hit and turned everyone’s world upside down and inside out.
This virus and its “tentacles” has reached out and touched practically every single resident in one form or another. Workers were put on furlough, worse still many soon found out they no longer had a job as their employees got hit financially.
Holidays were cancelled and trips to see love ones banned or severely restricted. The health of many residents took a “broadside” from the virus with many losing their battle for life.
As I continued to think through my question I continually found a tragedy around every corner and started thinking the answer to my original question, is anything not different, moving rapidly to be “no”.
As some of you might know I manage 200 Covid-19 road co-ordinators or volunteers in Woodley who act as a single point of contact. A message from one of them highlighted the delight of a resident that they were there.
Another message told me how the volunteer had picked up a prescription for another resident. Being quite active on Facebook I suddenly started seeing more and more posts from incredibly caring residents of Woodley detailing their acts of extreme generosity.
As more and more stories of self-sacrificing emerged I started to see another side to the story.
As time went by and I read more and more fantastic stories I suddenly realised I had my answer.
The one thing that has definitely not changed during the past year is peoples capacity for caring and self-sacrifice. Their generosity knows no bounds.
It is something that has always been there and what makes our area a fantastic place to live and work.
I hope that your celebrations over this Christmas period, whatever they may be, are successful and set you up for a New Year with less surprises.
