Members of the Farnham Visitor Forum recently held a meeting at the newly refurbished Frensham Pond Hotel where the Chairman, Andrew Lodge, welcomed the Mayor of Farnham, Cllr Pat Frost and the Mayor of Waverley, Cllr Mike Band, and Iain Steele of the Farnham Chamber of Commerce. Adrian Dos Santos, the Operations Manager at the Frensham Pond Hotel gave a brief introduction and explained how the hotel had undergone a £3million refurbishment programme with the next stage to be the refurbished conference centre. They are currently rated as 3 stars but are soon to be re-assessed in the hope of achieving 4 stars.
Robin Crawford had prepared a short piece summarizing the history of the Forum. The Farnham Visitors Council (now known as the Farnham Visitors Forum) was formed in the 1980s as an initiative led by Sir Ray Tindle to help promote Farnham to visitors. FTC produces a wide range of excellent promotional literature and organises events throughout the year which are very successful. Meetings are now held at the Council Offices and at visitor-end destinations. The main reason behind the FVC changing to become the FVF was to enable the group to get access to funding for projects.
The Tourist Information Centre was based in the Farnham Town Council offices but has now closed, as there are so many other sources of information available elsewhere and online. However there is information available at the Town Council Offices as a top-up to what can be found elsewhere. The Mayor of Waverley, Mike Band, was supportive of driving the local economy and to that end Waverley now has an officer, Jane Todd, to sign post people to access funding.
The Farnham Pottery had a fantastic fayre on 4th December with a great turnout.
Heritage Open Days was the most successful yet in 2015. Focussed on Farnham’s architecture. The numbers were up and postcodes were analysed of visitors to the Castle. The Forum noted that the Rural Life Centre had won the Queens Award for Voluntary Service – a tremendous accolade
Both Mayors thanked the Farnham Visitor Forum for what it does to help promote visitors to Farnham and events.
