North Norfolk District Council’s Chairman has invited Norfolk Wildlife Trust to be his Charity of the Year, with money raised supporting conservation grazing and family learning. Dr Clive Stockton has a personal life-long association with nature and wished to support a charity that specifically works to conserve the fragile habitats of Norfolk and raise awareness of the importance of wildlife. Funds raised by NNDC will be used in two key areas of NWT’s work across Norfolk: to support conservation grazing with rare native breeds and to extend engagement with young children in Sure Start centres. Conservation grazing with native breed cattle, sheep and ponies protects important areas for wildlife. Without regular grazing, many of our rare and fragile habitats and the species they support would be at risk of being…

A bestselling children’s author is backing a charity’s campaign that encourages children to get reading this summer holiday. All 39 East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) shops across the region are offering one free book per child for each week of the school holidays. The campaign has already been well received, with plenty of positive comments from shoppers. Nicola Emerick, an EACH shop manager in Ipswich, said she was “loving how happy people are to get a free book”. Lisa Thompson, from Suffolk, known for writing such novels as The Goldfish Boy, The Light Jar and The Day I Was Erased, was recently telling stories at Treefest, an annual mini-festival for families supported by EACH, staff and volunteers at The Treehouse, the charity’s hospice in Ipswich, and was impressed at the…

On Sunday 8 September hundreds of hardy walkers will take on either a 24 mile or 24 kilometre coastal walk along the North Norfolk Coast in aid of the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA), with both routes finishing at Holkham Hall. The ‘Four for 24’ group is made up of four Norfolk nurses who have all had experience working at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital: Louise Langham-Hill, Natasha Pickett, Clare Johnson, and Bev Macfarlane (in the picture from left to right) . This team know first-hand how important the air ambulance is in getting seriously ill or injured patients to them as quickly as possible and are taking on the 24 kilometre walking challenge to support the charity’s mission to expand their service to fly 24 hours a day.…

There were great shell-abrations in Sheringham this morning as East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH) declared its 40th shop of-fish-ially open. Mermaid Merchelle and Pirate Pete from Elite Productions’ A Mermazing Pirate Adventure, the show on at Sheringham Little Theatre this afternoon, cut the ribbon at the Station Road outlet. Customers then made waves as they flooded through the doors, spending £555 in the first hour. Naomi Munro, Shop Manager, said: “It was just mermazing scenes here for the ribbon-cutting and I think we’ve done a great job of really sea-zing the day. We couldn’t have fished for much more, that’s for shore. “The initial support from customers has been s’whale and we hope it won’t drift away going forward. The porpoise of this shop is to help bring in money…