Catching up with my team, constituents and local groups - my first week of the Parliamentary recess

The House of Commons is in recess this week and I'm taking a couple of days off, before an all-day meeting with my staff team on Wednesday. It's a huge privilege representing our city in Parliament, but I couldn't do it without my great staff team. As well as all my Parliamentary work, I get around 300 letters, emails and phone calls every day, and rely on Tom, Andrea, Jason and Anna to help me deal with it all. I've focussed most of my staff budget on my Sheffield office, with only Andrea working with me in London. When Parliament's session, there's never time for us all to meet, so the recess provides a chance to get together to review our work, plan for the year ahead and make sure we're continuing to do our best for everyone in Sheffield Central.

It' also the last chance for all of us to get together to say thank you to the other key member of our team over the last year, our apprentice Secretary, Rebecca. She's played a really important role in the Sheffield office since joining us last summer and I'm delighted that we've been able support her, with Sheffield College, in developing the skills to go on to permanent employment.  Rebecca will be with us until 10 August, but we're rounding off the team day with a meal to celebrate her success.

Thursday and Friday is time for meeting with constituents and local organisations, as well as one of my regular 'open surgeries'. On Friday evening, I'll be reporting back to the monthly meeting of Sheffield Central Labour Party, where Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury is the guest speaker - if you'd like to join the discussion, get in touch and I'll send you the details. We're starting the meeting early at 6.45pm, so we can all get back in time to watch the Olympics opening ceremony on TV.

Looking ahead to next week, I'm doing a sponsored walk with Tory MP Guy Opperman to raise funds for the excellent local charity Headway Sheffield. If you're wondering what has brought me together with a Hexham Conservative or, even better, if you'd like to sponsor me see my Just Giving page here.