As part of my role as a local Member of Parliament, I often visit our local businesses and educational establishments. Earlier this month, I visited Hartpury College –one of the UK’s leading land-based and sports educational establishments based here in the Forest of Dean constituency – to speak to staff and students about issues facing them.
I was pleased to have the opportunity to speak to a group of Year 1 Public Service Students about the role of a Member of Parliament and our electoral process. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking to the students, who were knowledgeable and asked some very interesting questions.
Hartpury offers a great breadth of courses, services and activities to its students, and to support the local community. One great example of this was the fantastic “We Dare, We Care” event they held recently. This was a fundraiser for Gloucestershire Young Carers hosted by Hartpury College. The charity does important work in supporting more than 1,000 young carers in Gloucestershire and today they were inviting people to “Feel their Fear” and meet some of the College’s more eclectic insects and reptiles, including a scorpion, a python and lizards. I got the chance to meet some of them in advance!
I was grateful to the Hartpury College students who helped organise this event with Gloucestershire Young Carers. They are all following Animal Management courses and this type of event is useful as it gives them exposure to the kind of events they will be involved in once they are working in the industry.
I also had the pleasure of watching Hartpury RFC in their recent game against Doncaster. It was a challenging match for Hartpury with Doncaster playing well through the first half. However, Hartpury turned it around in the second half and secured victory in the dying minutes of the game. I would like to congratulate Hartpury RFC on their win and the good progress they are making in the RFU Championship after being promoted from National League 1 last year. I would also like to congratulate Hartpury’s Harry Randall for his superb performance throughout for which he was awarded 'Man of the Match'.