On Saturday 17th October George Freeman (Founder of The Norfolk Way and Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the new Mid Norfolk constituency) undertook the fourth leg of his 130 mile bicycle tour around the boundary of the new constituency to promote rural community volunteering.

Norfolk has a great tradition of community self help and volunteering. But too often we lose out on the funding which goes to the big cities. Project Rainbow in Watton is a great example of people voluntarily making a huge difference to their community. They need our support.

George is riding the 130m bike ride in 5 stages, each one promoting a different theme of The Norfolk Way campaign (previous stages promoted the EDP's Shop Here scheme, Post Offices and Pubs.) The tour comprised 25 miles from Litcham to Watton:

• Litcham:seen off by Mike Fuller, owner of The Village Butcher, top local butcher selling all seasonal local produce.
  • A thriving village with Post Office, butcher, pub humming with activity as people bought weekend provisions.

• Necton - Met Frank Woodward, Chairman of Necton Parish Chairman, Jane Harding, Chairman Lt Dunham Parish council) and the landlord Dave at the Windmill pub
  • Heard about serious local issues: day centres, need for a roundabout on A47, village flooding, and anger at the costs of government "consultations".

• N Pickenham - Met landlord Mike, Councillor Jill Ball and Wil Smith, young entrepreneur founder of  TTSR Ground Maintenance, and visited the American War Memorial.
  • Heard how the village has lost its Post Office, but a resilient pub (good Sunday lunches), and local councillor fighting to protect services.
  • Met Wil Smith - an inspiring example of a young Norfolk entrepreneur building a business from Pickenham

• Ashill - visited Ashill Community Centre and youth club, meeting manager Joice.
  • Looked around Ashill's fantastically well equipped community centre with catering, entertainment and sports facilities, and the great youth club helping to provide some amusement for youngsters, and heard how hard it is to raise funds to maintain this facility many villages would love to have.

• Watton - visited The Surge community centre and met:
  • Carla Keen, Fran Leveridge, and Harriet from award winning Watton dance troupe Dance Unleashed,
  • Fiona Southward, founder, Bev Page, George Boulter from Ecobugs (young environmental voluntary group of students at Wayland High School addressing waste, litter, recycling and environmental issues - keeping the school clean from litter & promoting pollution awareness),
  • Tony Abel, Paul and Marion Adcock, Julian Horn, Cllr Claire Bowes and Jan Godfrey (Wayland Partnership)
  • PS Ogbourne and PCSO Joe Jermy.