One of the benefits of being a councillor is that you are invited to all sorts of events, which brings home to you how rich our community life is.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Remembering Together event in Coronation Park to mark the completion of the Covid-19 memorial labyrinths. It was a very poignant evening.

The labyrinths are a fitting way to remember those who lost their lives due to Covid. If you haven’t yet done so, I would encourage you to visit the one closest to you or all of them if you get the opportunity.

They can be found in Kilmacolm’s Birkmyre Park, Coronation Park in Port Glasgow, Wellpark in Greenock, Gourock Park, and adjacent to Wemyss Bay Community Centre.

Congratulations to all those involved in creating the labyrinths.

Then last week I attended the Inverclyde & District Boys’ Brigade Queen’s Badge presentation ceremony in Greenock Town Hall.

The Queen’s Badge is the highest award that can be gained by a member of the BB.

Congratulations to all the young men who gained their badges. It was particularly good to hear about the voluntary work they did in the community to help them achieve their badge.

On Friday night, I was at the Waterfront Cinema for the Rig Arts Film School screening night, where guests were able to watch eight short films made by young people in Inverclyde over the last three years.

The work of the cast and crews was fantastic, and it was great to see so many familiar locations in Inverclyde feature in the films.

Rig Arts do so much good work in our community.

The night also brought home how important having a local cinema is.

The council owns the cinema building and leases it to West Coast Cinemas. We built it in the early 1990s following the closure of the last commercial cinema in the area.

It is vital that we support the cinema operators, who do a great job.

Tomorrow night I will be accompanying Provost McKenzie to a Mass at St Mirren’s Cathedral in Paisley to mark the visit of the Apostolic Nuncio to the Diocese of Paisley.

It is always a great honour to represent the council on such occasions.

After a year of trying, we finally got a Scottish Government minister to visit Inverclyde yesterday to hear about the economic and social challenges we are facing and our need for financial support.

Renfrewshire MSP Tom Arthur, minister for employment and investment, was here for an hour and a half. We took him on a tour of key sites, including Kelburn Business Park, Clune Park, Inchgreen, Greenock Town Centre and Ocean Terminal.

The minister will be joining the Inverclyde Task Force, and we hope he will use his influence in Government to support our endeavours.