I had the great pleasure to be involved in two prize-giving occasions on Saturday, the 1st July. One involved the Children's book festival at Ross library, where I handed out awards for the Art competition for Key Stage 1 ages and the Book Review for Key Stage 2 ages. The other was for a woman's football event at Ross Sports Centre.

While it was good to help reward those who won, my thoughts inevitably turned to those who had not and how were they feeling. Now, I have no problem with rewarding meritorious work, actions or achievement and indeed humans are generally a competitive bunch. For how else would we have come down from the trees, stood tall on the savannah and got to where we are today. (Some of you may be ambivalent about how good that has been for the planet, but that is a debate for another day.

No, it got me thinking about the concept of fairness to all generally. For example, the organisers in the case of the Children's competition, ensured all entries were displayed in the library, so there was a nice form of recognition there. Even then, if it does not happen already, we could go further and think about giving every entrant a certificate, for the standard was amazing. In the case of the woman's football tournament, both finalists received a trophy, which I applaud. But perhaps others too could have got a certificate for participating.

You may wonder why any of this matters. Well, in a world where division and tensions are all too obvious, building a Community on fairness has its merits. In such a community where people are being treated fair, everyone works better together, seeks common solutions to problems, cares for one another, feels safe, has fun and gets along. Fairness does not mean that everybody gets what they want. Rather it simply means that everybody involved has an equal opportunity to benefit and see and fell that is the case.

Certainly, I believe we as a Council do try to act with fairness in taking the decisions we do and in prioritising the way we spend your money. The wider Community in Ross displayed these traits very much during the pandemic and I do believe we do try and help each other here. Hopefully, we will continue to do so for the benefit of all in Ross.