Sea City Museum July 5th

Along with other Mayors and Chairmen from around Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, I was invited to experience the Sea City Museum in Southampton.

Comparative size of Titanic

Opened in April to mark the centenary of the sinking of RMS Titanic, the museum features much information about the ship and those who sailed on her on that fateful voyage.

There are many unique items on display, such as passports and paybooks and the beautiful certificate from the Liverpool Shipwreck & Humane Society awarded to Dr Frank McGee for his work helping the survivors.

Picture of staircase

Amongst other exhibits is a large model of RMS Queen Mary,many smaller ship models and a vast amount of Titanic toys, glassware, china and various other things.

There is a well stocked shop and a cafe for when visitors need a rest, which is probably well used as the museum needs quite some time to view properly.

We were then invited to the Mayor’s parlour for a welcome drink and a scone.

BGCC July 5th

This morning saw the presentation of the awards for the Big Green Commuter Challenge, or BGCC for short.

Covering Havant, Portsmouth, Fareham and Gosport, the Challenge is to convince company and council employees to alter the way in which they travel to work in order to reduce carbon emissions and cut down on miles travelled to work by car.

Special Award to Natalie Gidney

Amongst those presenting the awards were the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, Frank Jonas, the Mayor of Gosport, Richard “Dixie” Dickson and myself.

The introductions were conducted by Andy Silvester, the Chairman of SignPOST Travel Forum. Natalie Gidney, of Tri-Synergy Ltd., gave a brief overview of the BGCC website and then the awards were announced by Amanda Morris, from Portsmouth City Council, and these were presented by the various donors.

I gave the final awards to winners of the Special Effort category, and the morning’s event then drew to a close.