Last week I attended a valuable meeting of the Wyre Forest Youth Strategy Group. This group is committed to promoting the interests of young people in our community. To demonstrate this commitment results have to be seen soon, thus the members hope, among other aims, to facilitate rapid progress in the development of skateboard facilities.

Friday saw the annual World's Biggest Coffee Morning in aid of Macmillan cancer relief. I visited two of the many local events, one at Cookley Village, Playing Fields Association and the other at St Mary's CE First School. Both were well supported and highly successful.

I went to a meeting of Wyre Forest Parent's Action Group and heard of their concerns about the limited holiday relief accommodation for their family members and about the shortage of staff at the vital day centre at The Elms. There I opened their Flower Show organised by Thrive, The Elms and Greenfingers of Stourport. I was impressed by the quality of the exhibits that ranged from unusual specimen vegetables to scarecrows, cakes, preserves, and flowers and included items of woodwork all skilfully produced and presented.

Wyre Forest Business Club held a networking event at the Ramada Hotel where members and visitors presented to each other details of their businesses and the services or products they offer. I found it interesting and I believe invaluable to the participants. The Business Club is to be congratulated for organising an event that is going to be copied in other areas by the visitors.

Sunday saw the second annual 5K fun run and 10K competitive event at Stourport Sports Club to raise funds for Bramble's Trust based in Bewdley. Of course Bramble the Bear was there to the delight of the large numbers of families taking part in the fun run. Teams were local and from far afield and the weather was ideal making it a superb day out with healthy exercise for many. The prizewinners ran fantastic times, the winning lady covering 10 kilometres in around 35 minutes!

Chiltern Railways launched the first phase of their direct service to Marylebone on Monday. I was pleased that I had to go to London that day and could sample the service so welcome because of my exasperation with both Virgin and Central Trains. The journey was comfortable in clean, quiet modern coaches and above all arrived in London six minutes early and returned to Kidderminster exactly on time! I am receiving many complaints about the service that we receive from Central Trains and so I hope Chiltern will consider putting in bids for more of our local services.

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