Past Mayor

The 808th Mayor of Winchester was Cllr Chris Pines.

He has served as a councillor at Winchester City Council since May 1980 as member for the town ward of St John & All Saints. In that time he has served on most committees including Licensing, Scrutiny Panels as well on as the Town Forum.

His childhood and teenage years were spent in Richmond, Stubbington and Gosport, either climbing trees (Richmond Park) or mucking about on the beach (Hill Head) - and both activities left him with a life-long interest in natural history. After school in Fareham, Chris attended King Alfred's College, Winchester, training as a primary teacher. Chris taught locally, mostly in Alresford and Winnall, taking early retirement in 2004.

Chris said: "I knew it was time to retire when, one September, the new intake of four-year-olds came to look around - one of them detached himslef from his minder, climbed on my lap and announced to the world that 'Mr Pines taught my mum, and my gran'."

In his spare time, Chris has supported a number of local groups. Currently he works with Winnall & Highcliffe Community forums, is a member of Winnall Primary School governors, a member of Henry Smith Charity, (both St Johns & St Andrews), advises Highcliffe and Winnall Tenants Associations and chairs Winnall Rock School.

Chris is very proud of being able to serve his local communities and counts several initiatives among his successes, including:

• a report into state of all City play areas in the '80s led to massive increase in funding for, and improvement of play facilities in City;
• helping lead Highcliffe Play scheme in the '70s which lead to City funded play schemes on estates
• in the early '90s he campaigned for several years over charging fees to visit city's museums - the free principle is now accepted with resulting large increase in visitors
• his 2004 initiative on communities led to Neighbourhood Wardens service on estates;
• his 2002 Winnall/ Highcliffe initiative on play areas where young people voted for skateboard and play equipment now accepted practice (and largely vandal free because they can claim ownership of areas)

Each year the Mayor helps a group of local charities by raising money for them. This year Chris has chosen Age Concern, Winchester - which assists the elderly in a number of ways; Friends of the Family - a small group supporting parents and their young children; Youth Options - working with young people mainly in the rural areas of the Winchester district - and Young Carers - supporting young people who are responsible for the care of a parent or relative.
Informayion about each of the above charities can be found through links on the right hand side of this page.

Denise Baker, Chris's Mayoress during the year, is chairing a committee of supporters who will be running a number of charity events. These will be advertised in the City's Events Calendar.