FOR Mike Hodge, his time as Mayor of Farnham is almost over, with the handing over of the chains due to take place at the annual council meeting on May 10.

During his time as mayor, Mike has has attended hundreds of local events and meetings but attention has now turned to his final charity project, the Otter Wey Trail.

Towards the end of each mayor’s year, they have the opportunity to organise one final fundraiser for their chosen charities.

Mike chose to support the Woodlarks Centre, a care home and activity centre providing valuable support to people with disabilities, and Brightwells Gostrey Community Centre, which offers a wide variety of services and activities for older people, during his mayoral year.

The trail is being led by artist Jo Aylwin of Bloomin’ Arts and invited schoolchildren, art groups, voluntary organisations and businesses to sponsor, design and paint the one metre tall model otters.

Completed otters have been collected this week and will make their way to the trail on May 1.

The mayor said: “I really wanted to raise money in a way for the charities that was constructive to a lot of people, not just asking people for money or having gala dinners or whatever it is we normally do.

“I wanted to do something that really involved the whole community and this just seemed to touch the right nerve because this is a true community project.

“Hopefully we’ll finish with a really nice auction at the castle and make a lot of money for the charities, which is ultimately what we wanted to do.”

For more information on the Otter Wey Trail, go to www.theotterwey.org.uk.

The mayor will also be leading one of the three Otter Wey Trail walks as part of this year’s Farnham Walking Festival. His 3.7 mile walk will take place on Sunday, May 27.

Mike was involved in last year’s festival and completed the Pilgrims Way walk from Farnham to Guildford, a distance of around 12 miles, which he described as “a brilliant day out”.

He said: “I am a very keen walker, I don’t walk as often I should do but I absolutely love walking.

“You had all these people doing all these walks during the festival and it’s great for people’s health, the feeling of well-being, and they’re getting good exercise.”

Mike added that the 2018 festival has had a “huge amount of interest and it’ll just get better and better”.

His highlights from the past year included Farnham’s first Gin Festival, which he described as “a resounding success”, and he felt “very proud of Farnham for Farnham in Bloom” as an award was won at both South East in Bloom and at Britain in Bloom. Although a more “sombre affair”, Remembrance Sunday stood out to Mike as the way Farnham marks the day “is just wonderful and it brings the community really closely together”. He added that he was “really touched” that around 18 local schools were represented at the school service as “it’s passing on all that memory to younger people”.

At the end of his mayoral year, Mike plans to go on holiday for a week on his BMW touring motorbike with a friend to “have a break”, before getting “back to normal life”.

“Ordinary life” for Mike means continuing as both a borough and town councillor, something that he takes “very seriously”. He also plans to re-join the tourism and events working group.

He said: “I really find representing my residents in my ward in North Farnham a very rewarding thing to do and hopefully a constructive thing to do, so that’s what I’ll continue to do and try to do it better.

“In your first four years as a councillor it’s a learning process, and it’s only when you get towards the end you feel as though you’re actually starting to achieve something and so you want to go on and get re-elected and be more effective basically.”

Motorcycling has been a hobby of Mike’s since he was a teenager and he now owns a collection of eight bikes, including a Harley-Davidson, a couple of BSA’s, a Kawasaki, a Matchless and more.

He said: “I’ve never really lost my interest in motorcycles. I like to work with my hands as well so restoring them is great fun.

“I love going out on them and riding them in the countryside, that’s great fun.”

Another love of Mike’s is beekeeping and so this year he plans to “pay more attention to them” after leaving them alone last year. He collects the honey and gives it out to friends and family.

When asked about his time as Mayor of Farnham, Mike said: “It’s been a real adventure actually. I’ve been a member of Farnham community for many, many years and never really had my eyes open to the real community, you know really what goes on in Farnham and it’s all good stuff.

“There’s so many really incredible community groups that work very, very hard, very silently for their community and it’s just brilliant.”