Following a very successful hosting programme for the long-established Japanese exchange, we would like to express our thanks to the following for their invaluable support: Mayor Maggie Ray and her husband Martin, St John Ambulance, the Sir John Colfox School, the Bridport Quakers, Bridport Youth Centre, Bridport Team Rector Andrew Evans and the Reverend Janis Moore.

We would also like to thank the Bridport News for its rather excellent and very generous coverage of the exchange.

It has been an interesting and encouraging feature of this particular exchange that we have already had a number of enquiries from young people about joining the next 2015-16 programme.

We will be maintaining this impetus by beginning recruitment for the next programme approximately a year earlier than usual.

We would therefore encourage anyone interested, who will be at least 15 years old by January, 2015, to contact us as soon as possible.

Places are limited.

A programme such as this, bringing people together from diverse parts of the world, and creating friendships that in many cases are lifelong, of course generates many special memories.

One that is worth mentioning, we think, is encapsulated in the reaction of the Japanese leader, Yuki Washizu, to the Torchlight Procession.

To hear her describe the Torchlight as ‘amazing…very moving….I have never seen anything like this’, was really quite something.

The exchange, now approaching its 17th year, is only made possible by the efforts of those who are involved in it.

This entails an extensive programme of fundraising.

Last Saturday we packed bags at the Co-op, who are always willing to support local voluntary organisations.

Thanks to the generosity of their customers, a further £322 was raised.

We finish this year off with James Lathey doing a sponsored parachute jump, a stall at the Christmas festival, and a mad dash into the sea (and out again as soon as possible) on Boxing Day. Can’t wait.

Arthur Woodgate BYPAT chairman and exchange organiser James Lathey 2013-14 exchange group leader