🎉 Happy New Year From The Knot 🎉
Plus New Years Honours for Stoke and Staffs residents, Royal Stoke goes smoke-free, new art exhibition for Bethesda Gardens, and food waste collections are coming…
Good News 🎉
🏋️♀️Join a Gym, Pay Nothing ‘Til March If you fancy hitting the gym but have been put off by high joining costs, then here’s a bit of good news. You can join any Active Stoke Leisure Centre – Fenton Manor Sports Complex, Dimensions Leisure Centre, Wallace Sport And Education Centre – and get free access to gyms, pools, classes with no joining fee and no payments until March 2026. Sign up here and use the promo code: pay0march.
🎖️🎖️THE KNOT’S PEOPLE OF THE WEEK – MBE Recipients 🎖️🎖️
Eleven Stoke and Staffs residents have been recognised on the New Years Honours List, with four receiving an MBE, including local nurse Gill Boast (pictured below) who played a key role in developing the General Practice Nursing Foundation School. The three other MBE recipients were Kerry Davis for services to Association Football and diversity in sport; Dr. Paul Kevin Hegarty for service to the hospitality sector, and Dr Catherine Louise Taylor-Weetman for services to dentistry. Those receiving Medallists of the Order of the British Empire (BEM) include Susan Jane Bohanan, Charles Frederick Hodges, Joan Catherine Fairley and Philip Charles for services to the community; Russell David Clark for services to Higher Education, and Richard Graham Hill for services to charity. University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM)’s chief nurse was awarded an OBE for nursing leadership, inclusion and patient care.
🏥 Royal Stoke Becomes Smoke-Free from April. Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the UK. To protect the health of patients and staff, University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM) will become smoke-free across all sites, including Royal Stoke University Hospital and County Hospital in Stafford from 01/04. This means smoking will not be permitted anywhere on Trust grounds, including car parks and outdoor areas. Want to quit? A 12-week programme starts this January at Fenton Manor Sports Complex on 20/01 at 6.30pm or 21/01 at 10.30am; sign up here.
🖼️ New Art Exhibition at Bethesda. A new outdoor exhibition by local artist Charles William Brown will take over Bethesda Gardens as The National Gallery’s Art on Your Doorstep exhibition comes to an end. A miner and celebrated local artist of the Potteries, Brown’s evocative paintings capture the region’s industrial and urban life, depicting miners at work, pottery decorators, lively streets, as well as cosy domestic scenes and scenes of natural beauty. The exhibition changeover will happen on 07/01, so if you want to see paintings by Van Gogh, Monet and Caravaggio, there’s still time…
🥗 Food Waste Collections are Coming! Wish you didn’t have to put your leftover food scraps into the bin? Stoke-on-Trent City Council is introducing a new food waste service that will be recycled into energy to power our homes. Residents can register their interest in this service here.
🪗 Master the Accordion for Free! Want to start 2026 with a new hobby in music? The North Staffs Accordion Club is offering free use of a squeezebox for three months to anyone wanting to try the instrument. Alongside the loan, it has tuition classes that run twice a month, which are also free. Reading music and being able to play the piano are big advantages, but not prerequisites.
Squeezingly good: North Staffs Accordion Club members Viv and Sue
🥨 A word from Helen, editor/writer at The Knot
When I was growing up, everyone seemed to make New Year’s resolutions. I remember writing mine in marker pen, alongside dozens of others, on a long strip of paper pinned to the wall at a neighbour’s New Year’s Eve party. This year, though, I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s truly committed to one — beyond a vague intention to shift a few pounds once the last box of mince pies has disappeared (or is that just me?).
In some ways, I’m glad that New Year’s resolutions seem to have fallen out of fashion. Too often we set ourselves goals that are unrealistic or unsustainable: dropping a dress size in a month, giving up drinking altogether, cutting out sugar, or committing to a punishing exercise regime. More often than not, those good intentions are abandoned before January is out. Perhaps it’s better to focus on gentler, more achievable lifestyle shifts instead.
Rather than halving your phone time, try reading in bed for the last half hour and leaving your phone in another room. Instead of aiming for the gym four or five times a week, commit to moving for 15 or 20 minutes a day. And while cutting out sugar completely might sound admirable, why not go sugar-free a couple of days a week, or save sweet treats for the weekend? These smaller changes are far more likely to stick. And if you want to get fit but hate the gym, there are plenty of cool alternatives – try padel, sign up for a hip hop class at Urban Vibez or go bouldering at Awesome Walls.
There’s no denying that 2025 was a turbulent year politically and economically. But looking back over the past 12 months, there’s also been plenty to celebrate in Stoke — from the city’s centenary celebrations to local hero Lemmy being honoured with his striking new statue in Burslem. What were your favourite moments of 2025? Let us know in the comments!
Really Good News 🎉 Your favourite news from the last week
Adam Peaty Got Married: You were keen to see pics of our local hero on honeymoon…
Get Your Christmas Tree Collected for Charity: It’s for Dougie Mac; sign up here
New Year, New Job: There’s a free jobs fair on bet365 on 13/02; get your ticket
Weekly Weather (Stoke-on-Trent)
Mon ☀️ 0° (6°) Tue ❄️ 2° (0°) Wed ❄️ 2° (-1°) Thu ❄️ 3 (2°) Fri ❄️ 3° (2°)
Sat ❄️ 4° (3°) Sun 🌧️ 6° (3°).
Sunrise 05/01 ☀️08:21 Sunset 05/01 🌅 16:07