FORMER Mayor of Warrington Geoff Settle and the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace are renewing calls for the town to sign a “pledge to peace.”
Today Friday 29th March, Geoff will be visiting Oldham Civic Centre, with other peace builders renewing a call for Warrington to sign the ‘Pledge to Peace’.
Warrington is a town already renowned for peace building, as it is home to the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation, established in the aftermath of the Warrington Bombing of 1993 which killed 3 year old Johnathan Ball and 12 year old Tim Parry.
It follows a meeting in early 2017, when Geoff , former Mayor of Warrington, and Nick Taylor, CEO of the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation, met with a delegation from the Oldham Pledge to Peace Forum to sign Oldham’s Pledge to Peace.
The meeting included then Mayor and Mayoress Councillors Ur-Rehman and Toor and Council Peace Champion and Deputy Mayor Councillor Heffernan from Oldham, and took place at the iconic Peace Centre in Warrington.
Two years have passed, and Geoff Settle is again leading the call to make Warrington the UK’s second Pledge to Peace borough, a move supported by the Tim Parry and Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation, which carries out work to build peace through schools and communities across the UK. The Peace Foundation has long worked with Oldham communities as part of its counter extremism programme in the prevention of violent conflict.
Geoff will be meeting the Pledge to Peace Forum from Oldham on Friday, to learn what signing the pledge has meant for the town and to understand what it could mean for Warrington.
Nick Taylor said:“The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation has been working to promote peace in Oldham and is a proud signatory of the town’s pledge for peace. We were proud to facilitate the Mayors of Oldham and Warrington in meeting, and from that seeing Geoff Settle’s ambition for Warrington to make the same pledge. We fully support him in that ambition and hope his fact finding visit to Oldham is a great success.”
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We had a great afternoon at Oldham, seeing the Peace Garden, Diana Tribute, Town Hall ……
and brought back loads of ideas
The trip also brought back lots of Oldham memories for me – Gordon Brows Car being egged as he left a Labour Party rally in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, a wink from Lorraine Kelly, giving Gordon a copy of my company’s in house magazine VERTEXT, winning the 5km Corporate Challenge in Alexandre Park, watching my son play for Rylands in a RFL match.
This visit, seeing the Princess Diana Tribute for her peace work in mine detection, the fabulous peace garden, peace pole and gates, meeting once more Richard and Marie to amazing people who with Nick Taylor of the Peace Centre worked so hard on Peace Projects and promoting Oldham and the Peace Centre as places of Peace.
Magical day nearly ruined by Hashtag Prince George being locked in the Mayor’s Chamber which like Belfast City Hall is really big and plush. Belfast though wins not just for it’s size but the work that the Titanic Carpenters did in the Council Chamber – such wooden carving.