Nigel Morrell writes:
“Friday 3rd November 2017 was a remarkable day for the whole of our In Bloom Team at Southport!!.
After some really great performances in the It`s Your Neighbourhood Awards, earlier in the week had laid the foundations, the main Awards Day took us to new heights. The day started well, when Rochdale Town Centre retained it`s Silver Gilt Award. We then went on to achieve a Silver Gilt for Castleton Station as new entrants in the Railway Station category; Paul and the Jubilee Park Team attained a Silver Gilt as new entrants in the Parks section. The Flying Horse were Gold Award winners, once again, in the Small Accommodation category. This was followed by a Gold and a category win for Nick and the Team at Spring Hill Hospice and a Gold and a category win for Zen Internet. We were then very pleased when ,for the first time, we retained our Gold Award in the Small City category.
Just when we thought we had had a really good day,along came the “icing on the cake” in the form of our nomination by North West In Bloom to go forward to the National In Bloom Competition, a very surprising and notable first for Rochdale, which takes our Team and our Town to a new level in this prestige competition. This represents an awesome achievement for our whole Team, volunteers, Officers, sponsors and all the Elected Members(particularly our Council Leader, Councillor Farnell) and we can all be justifiably delighted with our success.
The success of Rochdale In Bloom is great, in itself, and, as part of a collection of In Bloom groups representing all parts of our Borough we have really put Our Town on the map.
Heywood In Bloom were spectacularly successful yesterday, their table groaning under the weight of their Awards, Pennines improved their tally to some considerable degree an our new Group in Middleton gained a Silver Medal in their first entry into the competition. An all round brilliant effort which reflects the renaissance of Rochdale.
The Mayor had a very busy day as the most frequent Worshipful visitor to the podium and we thank him for his stamina.
The Rochdale In Bloom Team faces it`s greatest challenge in the near future as we raised our game and enter the national stage.
For the time being, I am content to pause and absorb our massive shared achievement, which reflects our consistent fantastic efforts.
Enjoy the weekend and we will celebrate on Thursday.
Kind Regards,
Nigel”