Lunch, speaker Helen Barnet

TOWN MANAGER TALKS TO ROTARY

Since she took up her post as Henley Town Manager on September 1 last year, Helen Barnett has aimed to make contact with all the businesses and organisations in the town.

At Henley Rotary Club’s lunchtime meeting last week at the Red Lion Hotel, she enthusiastically set out her vision for making Henley “the best town in the wold to live, run a business, work, play and visit by 2030.”

She started by signalling her own connection with Rotary, with her late father having been a member of Ascot Rotary Club, and repeated her previous statements that she has always wanted to work in Henley.

Mrs Barnett’s career had been with Conde Nast Publications, Kingfisher and, most significantly, 10 years as head of the marketing team for the Bracknell regeneration project, during which time she started the Pride of Bracknell awards and was also involved in the Bracknell in Bloom, as well as chairing a Shopmobility committee.

After briefly working freelance for the Bracknell and Wokingham College, she joined the marketing team at Shiplake College, which enabled her to get to know the Henley area well. Her son, William Legg, plays cricket for Henley Cricket Club (he was the joint winner of the Henley Standard’s John Searby Trophy in 2015) and her daughter is at Gillotts School.

Her position now as Henley Town Manager (not as her three predecessors have been called, the Henley Town Centre Manager), is full-time (again different from the previous part-time appointments). Funded jointly by S.O.D.C. and the Henley Town /Council, she has been working in partnership with the Town Clerk and the Mayor. In addition to her daytime commitments, she has been avidly organising and attending meetings in the evenings, stressing that the remit of the job has no end.

Amongst the many projects she has been working on are the improvement of all literature issued by the council, as well as its website; a tourism week; improved signage; revitalising the ‘town team’ into smaller groups; a reconsideration of the provision of wi-fi to the town centre; new parking machines to take the new £1 coins; and a review of all the tourist accommodation possibilities in the town. She revealed the surprising information that there were 81 ‘air bnb’ locations registered on the internet.

One of the more immediate initiatives was the “Great Henley Spring Clean,” the community litter pick which took place last Saturday, and she appealed for helpers to take part in this.

After a number of questions, the vote of thanks was proposed by John Luker.

Earlier, the meeting had heard about the various forthcoming events, the charity auction at Henley Golf Club on March 14, the District Conference at Bournemouth on March 24-26, the jazz night at the Christ Church Centre on April 1 and the visit to the link club, Naestved, in Denmark, at the end of May.