Newport Community Library Celebrate Their First Birthday With a New Partnership!

Transcript

00:00Well, I'm Councillor Ian Perry, currently the Mayor of Newport, and what we're doing

00:05here is celebrating our first anniversary.

00:07It's still a transition, but it's great because 18 months ago when Telford and Reikin came

00:13and said their finances were not very good and they didn't want to do it, I looked at

00:17the clerk and I went, nah, it's not happening.

00:21And basically, it's brilliant to see just where we've come from that, you know, to see

00:27here, not just everyone else eating the cake while we're talking sort of thing, but everyone

00:32just sort of joining together and I was talking to one of the other councillors while we were

00:38getting ready for this and saying frankly how easy my job's been.

00:42Because all the councillors have worked together and all the staff and everyone and we've all,

00:47it's almost given us a focal point.

00:49It's the first year exactly and now we're going to year two and hopefully, it might

00:54not be me, but we'll be sitting here in five years having a fifth anniversary and a tenth

00:57anniversary and all these sort of things and everybody that's here today, if we have a

01:02hundredth anniversary of this thing, none of us will be here then, but we'll still know

01:07that we were part of what's happened and it's only a small part, each and every one of us

01:12has been.

01:13But it's just great to sort of see it thrive and to, you know, to watch how it's changed.

01:19But as I say, it's made my job so much easier because everyone's on the same sort of page

01:24Church Aston and Edgmond have graciously got their residents to pay towards it as well

01:32and we want it to be more than just Newport, it's a Newport community and the community

01:38isn't just the centre of Newport, it's everywhere else in the area and we want it, and yes I

01:45understand some people don't use the library, I don't use it that much, but their children,

01:49their grandchildren, everybody else and you come in for a blue badge or you have your

01:54grandchildren in doing a bouncing rhyme or whatever it is, it's for everybody and, you

02:02know, just because you don't particularly use it, it's the benefit of the community

02:05as a whole, not just the individual.