The new Mayor to make any announcements
Minutes:
The Mayor thanked the Council for electing him as Mayor of Melton Borough for the 2019/20 Council Year and said it was a great honour and he was extremely grateful to Councillors Bains and Chandler for their kind words. He said
(a) when he started writing this speech, he was going to say that it was 26 years ago that he last put on the chain at a Mayormaking ceremony and that was half a lifetime ago however now looking at the youngest Councillor, he had to correct himself and say it was far more than a whole life time ago. A lot of things had changed in those last 25 years including new Council Offices;
(b) asked that the Council accept that he did not twitter or tweet, nor do facebook, and he was probably unintentionally always being politically incorrect and needed all the help he could get;
(c) it was for these reasons that he realised that there were several Members saying to themselves, ‘why do we have a Mayor,’ and could the Council find something better to spend its limited resources on. It took imagination to move away from this poverty mindset and he questioned the role of being a Borough Councillor as coming to a meeting, reading reports and making decisions, plus a bit of ward work, and was that all that was involved? Or were Councillors here to be part of the community, to celebrate and acknowledge the great successes in the Borough, to communicate with neighbours and be ambassadors for the Borough. Acknowledge the great contribution that our armed forces made to our lives especially the connection with the Defence Animal Training Regiment. He said they all lived in the most amazing Borough which was one of the largest in area and smallest in population and to not be embarrassed by the fact but to celebrate it and enjoy life, all would get far more achieved if this approach was taken;
(d) anyone could look at a balance sheet and say times were tough financially and therefore they must not be seen to be enjoying life. He urged the Council to look beyond that balance sheet and notice an asset under the heading Officers. It was this valuable asset that the Council must encourage, treasure, nurture and manage;
(e) they were a new Council with a new way of working including new Councillors and even more new members of staff and he wanted all to meet on an informal basis and get to put faces to those who they only knew by e-mail addresses – he had had an idea for a barbecue or social evening for Members, officers and families where they could meet informally but he wanted to be the facilitator and the event would only be a success if it was supported by both sides. To start the ball rolling he hoped to meet some officers soon to discuss this idea and if any Member had any other thoughts that might encourage Councillors and Officers to work more as a team and make working for the Council more fun please let him know as he believed that the team MBC working together was the way forward;
(f) his other announcements were that his charity would be Rainbows Children’s Hospice. 26 years ago himself, his wife and Sarah Evans, his PA at the time, had a presentation from a lady called Gail Moore whose daughter had a life limiting disease. She told us of her experience and how there were no facilities in the East Midlands for children or parents who were in this situation. She showed sketches of the building that she envisaged. It was his charity then and at the time the Mayoress did a parachute jump for the cause. The Hospice was now about to celebrate its 25th Birthday. Over the period since that meeting and seeing those drawings it had grown, with the help of generous charitable giving, to an organisation which currently had 420 young people on its books and 90 of these were over 18. These were children who 25 years ago would not have been expected to reach 18 but due to care and modern treatment were able to live life - a life that because of the support of facilities and staff at Rainbows was lived to the fullest possible. Remember also that the care was not just for those 420 but with siblings, parents, grandparents and extended family, there were many thousands affected and helped by what happened at Rainbows. They were also supporting 400 families who had been bereaved. Anyone who had been involved in charity fundraising would acknowledge that raising money for a capital project was far easier than that of raising funds for running costs. Rainbows now cost £6.2 million a year to run. If you considered a year’s worth of running costs out of that year only the first three weeks of January were covered by our Government through NHS England the other 49 weeks of the year had to be found elsewhere. Those of us who either have children or know some well, would realise the work they do was so important to vulnerable families at what was a really traumatic time for parents and which should be their happiest;
(g) he had had only had one week to get his mind around this coming year and he was extremely grateful to Sarah Evans, with whom he had worked closely for the last 32 years, when they joined this Council at the same time and would miss when she leaves. Thankfully she had advised Catherine Richards and Helen Ainge who had helped him enormously. He intended to have a Civic Service on Sunday 22 September which would be held at St. Bartholomew’s Church, Sproxton and a Mayoral Carol Service would be held on Thursday 5 December;
(h) he had one great regret for which he apologised in advance. He firstly referred to 25 years ago when he was last Mayor of Melton and that the proudest moment was, as he felt it was for all Mayors, the laying of the wreath on behalf of the whole Borough at the Remembrance Day Service. He was sorry to say that he and his wife had a long standing engagement abroad on that day for the coming November and he was very grateful to Councillor Faulkner who would be standing in for him;
(i) his aim over the coming year was to have fun and he would need help to achieve this, there would always be those who say things can’t be done - they would probably say the Council couldn’t afford it. What does not cost a penny were friendships, smiles and laughter, and that was to be encouraged.