Esther McVey recently made her first visit to the Wilmslow Guild to hear first-hand, from Principal Paul Riordan, about the breadth of adult education opportunities available within the town and at the Guild’s outreach centres in the wider area.

The Guild opened on Bourne Street in 1926 and has been evolving to meet the changing needs of the community ever since, whether that is by offering Contemporary Dance or Life Coaching alongside a huge range of other courses and one-off lectures. Esther was particularly interested to hear, in her role at Secretary of State in the Department for Work and Pensions, about the course run on all aspects of planning for retirement and the range of ‘free’ wellbeing courses offered on behalf of Cheshire East, across Cheshire. She also visited their extensive costume store and saw the costumes used by the Guild Players and hired out to support company funds.

Esther commented ‘On the day I visited, there was an enormous variety of activities of offer and I sat in on an art lecture, a Bridge group and a needlework class. There was also a Tai-Chi class in progress but I didn’t dwell too long there for fear of breaking their concentration! The Guild is a brilliant resource to have in Wilmslow and I was fascinated by the broad range of interests catered for, whether as one-off lectures or course. Some of the work being created in the Art Group highlighted what talented people we have in Wilmslow!’

As Paul Riordan, Principal commented ‘Now in its 92nd year Wilmslow Guild continues to provide liberal lifelong learning. We are very proud to support our community by offering opportunities to improve participants' quality of life through learning new skills and promoting social engagement.'