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Leckonby, Colin |
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Who Am I
I worked as an Instrument Engineer for many years on Instrument design and installation in the UK and abroad. This included working on Chemical Plants, Oil Refineries and many other areas requiring new or upgrading automatic plant controls.
After living in New Zealand in the 1960's where our daughter was born my wife and myself have had the travel bug and enjoy visiting foreign countries. With working abroad and foreign holidays I have now visited 55 countries and travelled around the world 4 times.
During my working life I studied with the Open University and gained a BA degree in Mathematics, Instrumentation and Control Engineering.
My wife was a Stockton Borough Councillor for 8 years, but now finds she is too busy working with the PCT on health matters. We have 2 children and 2 grandchildren to keep us busy.
Since retiring I have found more time for my hobby of competitive cycle racing and organisation. Being the President of Stockton Wheelers Cycling Club keeps me at the centre of the cycling world. I particularly enjoy working with children and young people and to further this Stockton Wheelers now run the British Cycling "go-Ride Scheme". We train young cyclists from as young as 4 years to be able to ride without stabilizers and in bike handling. The older group up to 16 years are trained in bike handling and safe riding on the open roads. This gives them all a good grounding to take part in League 2000 which is held on the go-kart track in South Bank. We have lost the use of the Claireville Stadium in Middlesbrough, but can still use the motor racing track at Croft.
Since reaching the age of 70 I now race in 'G' group of the League of Racing Cyclists and have won several races over the last few years in this group. The LVRC is for cyclists over the age of 40 and we regularly have over 80 cyclists racing. In 2007 I competed in the National Track Championships and won a 3rd place in the 500 metres sprint for the over 70's group.
As secretary and treasurer of the Low Grange Community Centre in Billingham it gives me great pleasure to help to run a successful centre for the local residents.
I worship at St. Luke's church in Billingham and am also a leader with the Church Lad's and Girls Brigade again working with children and young people. We have regular weekly meetings as well as taking the young ones away for weekends and the older ones to annual camp in the lake district.
Council Work
I was re-elected as a Liberal Democrat Councillor with two other colleagues for the Billingham North ward of Stockton Borough Council in 2007. We found that we were unable to work with the other Stockton Liberal Democrat Councillors and therefore resigned in July 2007 and joined the Billingham Independents Association. We feel that this has given us more freedom to work for the re-generation of Billingham Town Centre, re-furbishment of the Forum Sports Centre and development of John Whitehead Park. We work very closely with the Independent Councillors for Thornaby and Ingleby Barwick. Since we joined the BIA we have to cover more Stockton Council committee's but find this very varied and rewarding. We have regular meetings with the heads of the main council departments which keeps us up to date on progress within the council.
Ward Work.
Myself with Lynne Apedaile and Hilary Aggio have got used to our extended Billingham North Ward and find that we can share out the ward work between us. As Billingham Independent Association councillors we represent all residents of the Billingham North Ward nomatter who they are. We deliver regular "YOUR NEWSLETTER" across the ward to keep residents up to date with Stockton Council and local matters. Together we also hold regular ward surgeries to allow residents to come and talk to us in confidence about their problems or worries. We attend the local residents groups as we have a regular invitation and they keep us in touch with what is going on in the ward.
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