The winners of a competition for youngsters to design the Mayor of Wolverhampton's official Christmas card have been announced. Four-year-old Eliza Hallam, a pupil at St Anthony's RC School, was declared the winner with her colourful, hand-printed Father Christmas stating "I'm going to my favourite place next... Wolverhampton". She won a pack of 20 cards featuring her own design, along with a family ticket for a ride on the Severn Valley Railway.

Offenders doing Community Payback put in more than 1,200 hours for this year's Safer 6 campaign, clearing more than 33 tonnes of waste across Sandwell's six towns. The offenders, who are supervised by Staffordshire and West Midlands Community Rehabilitation Company, cleared 33.6 tonnes of waste – including collecting rubbish and tidying up overgrown bushes and paths – from 14 sites over 1,242 hours.

As December finally arrives, postbags up and down the country will be straining under the weight of millions of Christmas cards and parcels. With that in mind, sight loss charity RNIB is calling on the nation to save their used stamps to help raise vital funds. The charity wants everyone to help it deliver first class support services by donating their used stamps to support the two million people in the UK living with sight loss, including more than 166,000 people in the West Midlands.

HRH The Princess Royal attended a special event hosted by national deafblind charity, Sense. The event, held at Birmingham’s Opus Restaurant  marked the charity’s 60^th anniversary and announced the upcoming construction of a new community centre in Selly Oak that will provide specialist care to people with sensory impairments, and also serve the wider community.

A new fund to support Restorative Justice projects in the West Midlands is being launched by the police and crime commissioner. Grants totalling £375,000 will be available to organisations who work with victims, enabling them, if they want to face their offender, to explain how the crime has affected them. Restorative Justice (RJ) also gives ex-offenders the opportunity to make amends for their crimes and repair the harm they have done – by apologising, returning stolen money, or undertaking community service.

New research from THINK! shows that while half the population (51%) would not consider consuming any alcoholic drinks before driving, a shocking one in ten people would consider having two or more drinks before they get behind the wheel.  This increases to one in five among men aged 18-34 (19%). The government has launched a new campaign to tackle drink driving, targeting those who do not recognise that even a small number of drinks before driving can be deadly.