Slough's GREAT! Defined by us, who are you defined by?

I have a strong belief that you are what you believe, you do what you believe therefore you achieve what you believe.. that belief is often defined or shaped by others good or bad as well as your own life experiences and circumstances.......

The relevance of who defines your existence is more important now than at any time in the history of mankind for obvious technological, political, social and environmental reasons...ok maybe not so obvious but it is the pace of change of all of this stuff and our ability to absorb, assess, decide, act and preserve our own self respect self esteem and sense of perspective at the same time.

I have used Slough as an example in my heading because it is a place I have grown up in for the last 54 years. I was inspired to write this today as I went for my daily walk, jog and sprint in Upton Court Park (picture above). A beautiful country park that occupies a huge space just to the South East of Slough town centre. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day and in the distance on the horizon I could see the magnificent and historic Windsor castle.

The shades of green of the freshly cut grass and the different shapes and sizes of the trees and the hedgerow punctuated here and there by newly budded multi-coloured flowers and a slightly fresh breeze gave me a completely natural and free legal high...purest of oxygen I guess.

It also happened to be my daughters 21st birthday and she was at University finishing off her dissertation and thinking of her filled me with a sense of pride in her progress and achievement adding to a feeling of well being and appreciation.

Then I guess this humility came over me of how lucky was I that I had been blessed enough to have been in a place called Slough....ok get to the point I hear you saying. OK the point is that whilst I felt so great about this place called Slough my mood was tempered by knowing that there were all these people out there who really didn't know Slough like I know Slough. Many of those people formed opinions indeed passed opinions on Slough and they only had a second hand or many times removed opinion of Slough in the main. Of course some of those had used Slough as a stepping stone to their own success. Many had moved on to leafier and more substantial surrounds of Windsor or Maidenhead, or Gerrards Cross and the Chalfonts. Good for them I thought, great for them.

Yes Slough might not be the same place it was 50 years ago or even 30 years ago or even 10. But which place is the same, yes old friends have gone to be replaced by new young diverse communities from all over the World who bring their physical and intellectual talents of much needed skills. Global businesses investing in products and services to make our lives better, healthier, convenient. generating the wealth that will pay the taxes that will sustain me and mine well into our longer much longer God willing nonworking years. Yet there will always be a cheap headline that will seek to define the Slough that I love and that has been so kind and generous to me and many I have known over the years from the Irish, Welsh, Pakistani,Indian English, Scottish, West Indies, Polish indeed the World over most of whom have realised their dreams of a better future.

So I was inspired to start my campaign to say Slough's GREAT because I want to define Slough by what I know of its wealth and riches that has come out of the struggles of overcoming poverty, hard work, innovation and its competitive spirit so more people can appreciate what is so great about the much unloved often maligned place that is SLOUGH. 

Some facts and figures for Slough;

• Slough's GCSE performance  is the 6th best in the UK
• Slough is the UK's most diverse population outside London
• Slough Trading Estate is the largest in Europe in single ownership
• Slough is ranked 2nd outside London for the largest number of businesses employing over 250 employees
• Slough has more global headquarters than Scotland, Ireland and Wales together
• Slough was ranked no 1 for new start up businesses outside London last year
• Slough has the largest datacentre cluster in the World outside Silicon Valley
• 10 minutes from the Worlds busiest airport Heathrow

In Mid July this year we will launch our #SloughsGREAT campaign with a massive twitter storm to remind people that we will define Slough not others. 

So if you ever worry about what others say about you...don't  WORRY any more take back control and define YOURSELF so that others respect you for what you know you really ARE.