I had the great pleasure of meeting up with our Kent Life reader panel last month, the second occasion we’ve got together as a group - and what a great evening it proved to be. Despite the M20 in chaos, thanks to striking French lorry drivers and diversions in all directions, they battled through and we all had a really productive and fun time.

It was a useful exercise for the team, to look back at what we’ve achieved in the past 12 months and realise that, yes, we did listen and act upon our panellists’ suggestions a year ago, and were ready to learn more from our eagle-eyed readers.

The one request that unified the table was – more news about Kent’s charities, please! Your wish is my command: turn to page 159, let me know what you think and, even more importantly, get involved!

But my favourite comment of the evening had to be: “I buy Kent Life to plan my days out,” and for an editor, it really doesn’t get much better than that. Getting you out and about is very much our aim this month – the school holidays are upon us, and as well as entertaining the kids, we’ve got lots of great ideas for us grown ups, too.

How about trying your hand at archery, Spanish cookery classes or even tandem sky diving? All here on your doorstep in Kent. And we also have one of the south east’s greatest inland water treasures in the shape of mighty Bewl reservoir, where you can do everything from fishing and sailing to walking, cycling and even scuba diving.

Elsewhere in the magazine, we celebrate the award-winning National Collection of lavender at Downderry Nursery, who scooped Gold at Chelsea this year (see also our Diary section for more lavender events in Kent), and we tackle the global issue of a potentially bee-less world. And that doesn’t just mean no more honey for tea, Einstein famously said that if the honey bee became extinct, then so would mankind. We get the low-down from our Kent beekeepers.