A very warm welcome to everyone across the borough.

As the temperature falls and we settle into winter, it’s crucial we look after our health. From regular exercise to booking your flu jab, there are simple steps you can take to keep yourself, and those you care about, as healthy as possible throughout the winter.

To help, we have launched the Five Ways to Winter Wellness campaign, providing tips and advice on how to stay well, as well as a timetable of activities across the winter months to keep you moving.

These activities include workshops on nutrition, energy efficiency talks, wellness walks, craft sessions and much more. All activities are free and will be in multiple locations across the borough. As one of my colleagues told me, here in Bracknell Forest we are lucky to have many indoor and outdoor assets that can help during the winter. You can read more on our website.

We have also opened welcoming community winter hubs across the borough this winter, to provide a warm, safe and sociable space to those who need it. These include several libraries, as well as the community hub in Time Square.

Visitors are welcome to enjoy a range of activities and resources. You can find your closest community winter hub, and explore the connected community activities offered, by visiting our winter hubs website.

This is also Safeguarding Adults Week. There are themes for most weeks, and almost all days, across the year, and we try to highlight as many as we can as a council, because it is important to our residents.

The week is an opportunity for organisations like ours to come together to raise awareness of important safeguarding issues. The aim is to start vital conversations and share best practice, so we can all be better together. Safeguarding will become an even higher priority area in the next few months and we do not take it lightly.

Finally, I should mention the men’s football World Cup taking place in Qatar. By the time you’ve read this, England will have played their first match. The diverse nature of this borough means there are many teams being supported by our residents this year. Sport has an amazing ability to unite us all in victory and defeat, we saw that with the recent FA Cup tie between Bracknell Town and Ipswich. I hope that, for all the controversy around it, people get enjoyment out of supporting their team, even if, and I say this an England fan, it can feel unnecessarily stressful sometimes.

I wish you all a very happy week ahead.