The Westminster Group Foundation is organising a Charity Christmas Light Trail to raise funds for charity and those in need this festive season.

The event is scheduled to take place within the extensive grounds at Westminster House near Banbury, Oxfordshire, OX17 2BS and will run over 4 nights from Thursday 12th – Sunday 15th December between 6pm – 9pm each evening.

The Light Trail will be festive fun for all the family and will involve thousands of lights plus festive music and there will also be a children’s quiz with prizes as well as food and drink stalls.

There are hard standings and paths for some of the routes but there will also be grass areas and so suitable footwear is required and sadly the trail is not suitable for wheelchairs or the infirm.

The event is being run as part of Westminster’s ESG programme to support the community and to assist those in need. There is no set fee for admission but £5 per head is recommended. Hundreds of visitors are expected, and all proceeds will go to the Rotary Club of Banbury and other charities for distribution.

Well behaved dogs on leads welcome.

Donations welcome and can be made here – https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/V2LQYMZKDGS28

For further information please contact the Westminster Group Foundation:

Telephone: +44 (0)1295 756 300

Email: info@wg-foundation.org

The Westminster Group Foundation and Oxford United Football Club partnered together in February to provide one school in Sierra Leone with 15 OUFC football shirts and prepared a quiz for local schools to compete in for the shirts.

17 entries were received from 4 different schools, and the winner came from Bullom Ahmadiyya, Muslim Junior Secondary School in the Masoila area of Lungi.

Oxford United Football Club were made aware of the winner and included the story in their match programme on the 29^th of February. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were only recently able to send the programme to Sierra Leone.

When it did arrive in November, Neil Fowler, the Aviation Security Manager at Westminster Aviation Security Services, presented the programme to the school alongside the headmaster, Umar P Bangura, during their morning outdoor assembly.

Mr Bangura thanked both Westminster and Oxford United on behalf of the school for the quiz, the football shirts and now the inclusion in the match programme. The children were visibly excited by the inclusion, as they all cheered when the programme was handed over.

Westminster have had a presence in Sierra Leone since 2012 and will continue to provide support in whatever way they can throughout this pandemic and beyond.

Westminster Foundation recently made a donation to the Sierra Leone Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary to assist with education support programmes in schools.

Sierra Leone’s chimpanzee population is rapidly declining and facing a serious risk of extinction, over the past 24 years the chimpanzee population has drastically reduced by more than 80% as a result of poaching (despite this being illegal), loss of habitat and habitat fragmentation due to human activities.

The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary is working on many fronts to prevent the extinction, they do this by awareness education programmes in schools, producing and circulating posters with the chimpanzee’s new status as Sierra Leone’s national animal and that it is illegal to eat bushmeat

The Tacugama team target is to protect as much as possible the chimpanzee population in Sierra Leone and the rest of the biodiversity. But despite their efforts, baby orphan chimps keep arriving at the Sanctuary, unfortunately changes in attitude to the wildlife will not happen overnight.