As an ex-serviceman myself I am delighted and honoured to be the Armed Forces Champion for Suffolk County Council.
My role is to act as a point of contact for serving personnel, veterans, and their families, helping to ensure their needs are considered in services and policies provided by the council.
This council takes its responsibility to the armed forces extremely seriously. Earlier this year we achieved the Bronze Award through the Ministry of Defence's Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme.
This recognises the council’s commitment to supporting the Armed Forces community and upholding the Armed Forces Covenant.
As part of this commitment, Suffolk County Council provides up to two weeks paid leave each year for employees who are reservists to attend their annual training commitments.
We will also support employees who volunteer with cadet organisations and contribute to the wider Armed Forces community, and work to ensure members of the Armed Forces community are not disadvantaged through our recruitment and selection processes.
This has seen us introduce a new interview scheme where candidates can tell us whether they are part of the Armed Forces community and would like to be considered under the scheme.
If they meet the essential criteria for a vacancy they will be offered an interview.
Steps such as this all add up. The Bronze Award is an important milestone and we are already exploring the next steps towards achieving Silver status.
Suffolk has a strong military tradition of which it can be proud, with close links to the armed forces.
We have Army bases at Wattisham and Woodbridge, the air force at RAF Honington, with reservist centres also.
That close link with the community was on display in September when we saw the Grenadier Guards parade through the streets of Newmarket after being awarded the Freedom of Newmarket by Newmarket Town Council.
This was a hugely proud moment for the town and everyone who was there.
But that link to our communities is never more evident than when we gather to pay tribute on Remembrance Sunday at war memorials in our villages and towns, which this year will be on Sunday November 8.
The names on those memorials are more than just inscriptions, they were people, just like you and I, who left their homes and families to fight against tyranny and were never to return.
On many of those memorials you will see the words ‘Lest we Forget’. Those three words are hugely important, all the more so as time moves on.
The First World War is now gone from living memory, and the Second World War nearly the same, but there are many servicemen and women from more recent conflicts, such as Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan, who need and deserve our support, either now or in the future.
I hope that you will join me in supporting the Poppy Appeal, this year and in subsequent years, to help and show our gratitude to the men and women who serve, and have served, this country.
