The what's on page on our website is updated all the time so do check there for things to do and see.

24 February: Snowdrop Day

Gatton Park, Rocky Lane, Reigate, RH2 0TW

The park and gardens are open to view the snopdrops.

Time: 12pm-4pm. Cost: adults £4, children free

2 March: Tattenhams Market

The United Church of St Mark, St Marks Road, Epsom Downs, KT18 5RD

Tattenhams Indoor Market held the first Saturday of the month 10am - 2pm. Featuring stalls selling greetings cards, jewellery, gifts, homecraft items and lots more. Free entrance and refreshments available. 

3 March: Gatton gardens and park open

Gatton Park, Rocky Lane, Reigate, RH2 0TW

Bird hide open, free guided tours and free activities for children. Geocaching trail for families.

Time: 1pm-5pm Cost: adults £4, children free. 2 for 1 offer on entry for members of the Surrey Hills Society.

3 March: RSPB Epsom and Ewell visit to Pagham Harbour

Departing from Meadway for a trip to the south coast to a reserve with a variety of habitats.

Time: 8am

Contact: sue.e.osborne@btinternet.com or visit the RSPB Epsom website.

8 March: Birdwatching in Southern Europe - an illustrated talk by Terry Bond 

All Saints Church Hall, Fulford Road, West Ewell, Epsom

Time: 7.45pm - 10pm

Cost: £4 for non members, £3 for RSPB members, free for local group members.

Contact: sue.e.osborne@btinternet.com or visit the RSPB Epsom website  

9 March: Working with Children Careers Fair

Leatherhead Leisure Centre, Guildford Road, Leatherhead, KT22 9BL

Are you interested in working with children or already working with children and wish to further your career? Visit the free event to explore lots of career or voluntary opportunities and out about apprenticeships.

Time: 10am-4pm

Further details visit the Surrey County Council website.

16 March: Redhill, Reigate and Horley NCT Spring Walk

Reigate Hill and Colley Hill. Meet at the car park at the top of Reigate Hill and Wray Lane.

Bring your bump, buggy, baby or bundle in a sling for a leisurely stroll. Mums, dads, older children and grandparents all welcome.

Time: 10am - 12pm

Contact info: Parentsupport@redhillnct.org.uk 

17 March: RSPB Epsom and Ewell visit to Rainham Marshes

Departing from Meadway for a trip to the Essex reserve to see flocks of lapwing and golden plover.

Time: 8am

Contact: janetegilbert@btinternet.com or visit the RSPB Epsom website.

20 March: Talk by John Negus 'Out and about, Britain's natural wonders'

Bourne Hall, Spring Street, Ewell, KT17 1UF

Time: 8pm-10pm

Cost: £2 members, £3 visitors to include refreshments and raffle

Further details visit the Ewell Horticultural Association website

23 March: Surrey Choral Festival perform Mozart Magic

The Harlequin Theatre, Redhill

Singers' Workshop 10am - 6pm

Gala Concert 7.30pm

Further details visit the Reigate and Redhill Choral Society website

24 March: Redhill, Reigate and Horley NCT Annual Easter Egg Hunt

The Hawthorns School, Bletchingley, RH1 4QJ

Time: 2pm - 4pm. Cost: £2 per child to include a craft activity

Further info contact rrh-nct-events@hotmail.co.uk

In our effort to deliver our promise to provide better for less, we have made substantial savings of over £1.3 million in our annual budget without compromising the services that we provide. In fact, in the last 5 years we have saved almost £11.5 million.

Over 85% of the savings come from doing things better, differently or just more efficiently.

We have reduced the size of our management team from sixteen to six over the past two years, reduced our staff headcount, frozen staff pay and invested in technology to improve efficiency.

Over the past year we introduced a new recycling and refuse collection service to houses across the borough to make it easier for residents to recycle, refurbished the Harlequin Theatre in Redhill and continued to invest in the regeneration of our town centres in Horley and Redhill and communities in Merstham and Preston.

Investing in our parks, businesses and leisure centres

Our budget agreed last week (14 February 2013) has been designed to enable us to protect and continue to invest in the services residents deserve.

We are supporting more people into work through our Young Workers scheme. We will be helping the local economy to grow through encouraging new business investment and the work we are doing to support small and medium sized businesses to succeed. We are putting more effort into helping older people remain independent and enjoy a good quality of life for as long as possible.

We are investing £6.3 million in new leisure and community facilities in Preston, supporting healthy living and active lifestyles, as well as wider community benefits. The development will also provide job opportunities in a key regeneration area. Subject to planning permission, construction should start this year and be ready to open in 2014. 

We are lucky to have such a wealth of parks and open spaces in our borough and we continue to work hard to keep them clean and green so you can enjoy them. Memorial Park in Redhill is to get a £1.4 million facelift to improve it for everyone that lives in, works in and visits the town.

We know the economic downturn is hitting our residents’ pockets, so our Corporate Plan focuses on supporting those residents that need it most. Our budget includes additional funding to support residents facing housing difficulties.

We are also working to build on the community spirit demonstrated so well in 2012 and increase volunteering across the borough. 

Planning for the future - more savings

Looking to the future, we have set ourselves an ambitious target to save £2.7 million over the next four years. We have already started to identify how we can do this through changing how and where we work to reduce office accommodation costs and improve our services to you.

We will continue to make the investment needed to make these savings while striving to protect services.

As part of its Olympic and Paralympic legacy, GLL (Better), the council’s not-for-profit leisure operator, is offering a discounted membership scheme for disabled residents for just £19.95 per month.

The Better inclusive offer

The Better health and fitness inclusive membership enables cardholders to enjoy significantly discounted memberships with an extensive range of benefits:

• Access to more than 100 GLL centres allowing use of leisure centres outside of the borough
• Access to centres at anytime
• Inclusive access to the gym, swimming, group exercise classes and a fitness induction
• Carers are also given free access to the centre
• Up to 30% off non member prices for any activities.

Who’s eligible?

To be eligible, customers must be over 16 years old and meet one of the following criteria: severe disablement allowance; mobility allowance; disability living allowance; industrial injuries disablement benefit; disablement benefit; attendance allowance; employment and support allowance. The monthly membership will cost just £19.95 per month.

Next steps

If this sounds like something that you’d be interested in, you can go and speak to a customer services assistant at Banstead, Horley or Donyngs Leisure Centre or visit concessionary membership (Better website).

This Easter we will be collecting recycling and refuse as usual. There will be no changes to collection days so please put your recycling and refuse out on the days you normally would.

Get creative

Over Christmas, we encouraged residents to get creative by rethinking their rubbish over the festive period. This Easter, why not continue to rethink your rubbish and transform unwanted items into Easter delights?

Don’t discard old or unused tinfoil. Children can get crafty with this easy idea for tinfoil eggs – green, decorative and a healthy alternative! 

1. Cut out egg shapes from old cereal packets or boxes and wrap them in tin foil.
2. Then get decorating using whatever comes to hand – coloured tissue paper, gems, glitter, ribbon.
3. Thread string through the tops of each egg and make Easter bunting.
4. Deck the house with your lovely homemade decorations.

Go green and healthy this year by making your very own Easter eggs. 

1. Hard boil some free range eggs the night before.
2. Use felt tip pens to decorate each egg.
3. Place around the house or garden in preparation for the Easter egg hunt! 

That’s just a couple of ideas to keep you going! Why not send your crafty creations to communications@reigate-banstead.gov.uk and we will display then on our Flickr page for others to see and try?  

Recycle it Right

There’s a huge variety of items that can now be recycled using your new recycling and refuse service.

• mixed recycling bin: clean plastic bottles/pots/tubs/trays, empty supermarket bags, clean cans/tins, aerosols, clean glass bottles and jars, clean foil, tetra paks/cartons
• recycling box: paper and card
• food waste: cooked and uncooked food.

Please make sure:

• mixed recycling must be clean and placed loose into the bin
• no black bin bags in any recycling containers
• and paper/card must go in the black box and not the mixed recycling bin.

If in doubt before you recycle, check on our website what goes in each of your recycling containers. 

The second series of the Food Inspectors fly on the wall documentary was recently aired on BBC1 and once again the spotlight was on one of Reigate and Banstead’s Environmental Health Officers.

Russell Jenner, who has a whopping 33 years experience working in environmental health, featured in three episodes which showed him visiting and revisiting a number of food businesses that were due for routine inspections.

Enforcing robust systems

“In Banstead," Russell says "I found one take away where there wasn’t a hard and fast food hygiene system in place. Staff were not aware of the proper process – for example they were washing their hands in the food washing basin and the fridge temperature exceeded the legal maximum.

“However, when I returned, they had rolled out a raft of changes. There is now a much more robust system in place, staff were following correct procedure and the fridge was at the correct temperature. It was much more promising and a full refit has been promised early in 2013.

Safer food, better business

“Another business I revisited was in Horley. I gave them a food hygiene rating of one on my first visit because there was no food safety management system in place, no sanitiser spray, surfaces were greasy and the fridge was dirty. However, I was very pleased when I returned. The manager had put 'Safer Food Better Business' procedure in place as his management system (a template provided by the Food Standards Agency).

"You could see the difference in the staff. On my first visit, they had their heads down; they knew that things weren’t right. When we came this time, they were smiling and happy to show us around.”

Look before you book

“When you are eating out at a local restaurant, pub or hotel," says Russell, "don't just check out the menu, check out the food hygiene rating as well. It gives us all quite a lot of power to encourage better hygiene standards to be maintained. In addition to the green stickers displayed on the premises, you can also go to the Reigate and Banstead area page on the Food Standards Agency website to check out ratings before you book.

Star for a Night is an annual variety extravaganza showcasing the abundance of talent we have in the borough. The event calls on all young entertainers - singers, dancers, actors and comedians - to audition for a chance to be in the final show.

The auditions take place on Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 March at The Harlequin Theatre in Redhill. To take part, you just need to be aged between 11-18 and live or go to school in the borough.

No experience is necessary, only enthusiasm and commitment required!

The big show

The big event will take place on Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 April at The Harlequin Theatre – with dance numbers, drama sketches, singing and so much more! For those participating, there’ll  be the chance to win a year scholarship to local performing arts school, So You Wanna Be.

To get involved, email Sue Sergeant, our Leisure Development Officer or visit Star for a Night on our website.

This July, there’s a fantastic opportunity to take part in an overnight fundraising event at Priory Park in Reigate and raise money for Cancer Research UK. Relay for Life aims to bring you and your community together to unite against cancer, as well as giving you the chance to have some fun.

Cancer never sleeps

Relay for Life sees teams take it in turn to walk about the track in the park for up to 24 hours to remind us all that ‘cancer never sleeps’.

The teams can be made up of anyone who wants to take part - parents, volunteers, school pupils, youth group members – everyone is welcome, no matter how old or young and no matter how fit (or otherwise). 

A date for your diary

Relay for Life is on Saturday 13 July 2013, beginning at 12pm. If you are interested in being part of a relay team and getting involved then visit the Relay for Life website or contact Laura Senekal (Relay For Life Reigate Events Chair) on 07914 418619 or email laura@relayforlifereigate.org.

The Surrey Against Domestic Abuse partnership is made up of domestic abuse outreach services, NHS representatives, the county council, Reigate & Banstead Borough Council and other councils across Surrey. The partnership works to raise awareness about domestic abuse and its impact on sufferers, friends, families and children.

New website launched

A new website was launched last month to make that goal easier. Now, www.surreyagainstda.info, provides a wealth of information:

• details of support services across Surrey
• accounts from former domestic abuse sufferers
• fact and figures about domestic abuse
• information about how you can help.

The biggest victims can often be the smallest

The partnership recently launched a campaign to highlight the effect an abuse relationship can have on children. In fact, research suggests that children are either in the same or next room in 90% of domestic abuse cases in family homes. This can lead to detrimental effects on children and cause nightmares, depression and anxiety.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse call East Surrey Domestic Abuse Services on 01737 771350 for confidential help and support, call the yourSanctuary Surrey 24 hour helpline on 01483 776822 or visit www.surreyagainstda.info.