(a) To elect the Mayor of the Borough for the Municipal Year 2022-23
(b) The Mayor to make the Declaration of Acceptance of Office.
Minutes:
The retiring Mayor, Councillor ITE Harvey, welcomed all members and guests to the Annual Meeting of the Council and invited Father S. King to say a word of prayer.
The Mayor gave a thank you speech as follows:
“It was a great honour to be elected Mayor one year ago tonight, and it has been a real privilege for the Mayoress and I to have represented Spelthorne over the last year. We have attended events in Borough, further afield in Surrey, and visited our twin town of Melun, France last October. We have sought to be ambassadors for the borough.
There is no doubt that my Mayoral year has been very much of two halves. The first half was made much more difficult by the remnants of COVID with many reluctant to host or attend events, ongoing restrictions, last minute cancellations, and even my own pre-Christmas church service being postponed at short notice. The highlight of the autumn was undoubtedly our civic trip to Melun in France during which I was made a ‘Chevalier du Brie de Melun’ – basically a ‘big cheese’! I understand previous mayors have enjoyed similar honour, if one can put it that way. I know my predecessor Cllr Barnard is also a ‘big cheese’.
We have cut ribbons and opened buildings, an outside gym, a river jetty, planted trees, attended various church services, receptions and other events and consumed quite a number of glasses of Prosecco.
My postponed Mayor’s church service took place in late February and the reception afterwards was at London Irish Rugby Club in Sunbury, and visitor Mayors were very impressed with the facilities.
We have hosted a fantastic ABBA tribute night in March and two other Surrey mayors have separately told me that it was the best event of their mayoral year.
Also in March, Jaguar Land Rover in Sunbury very kindly hosted a very successful business reception for us where over 60 attended, and well-known hotelier and philanthropist Surinder Arora was the main speaker.
The Spring Blossom Mayor’s Charity Ball was held a month ago at the newly refurbished Holiday Inn Shepperton. Turnout was excellent and appeared to be enjoyed by all. The dance floor was still full at twenty past midnight. Many businesses that I had previously worked with while Leader were generous, and as well as covering the significant cost of the live entertainment and disco, contributed prizes which together with private raffle prize donations enabled us to raise many thousands.
The final fundraising event we hosted was the Mayoress’ Ladies Film and Fizz Afternoon, which I was banned from attending, two weeks ago in the Korda Theatre at Shepperton Studios. They enjoyed viewing the latest version of West Side Story and obviously more Prosecco. Shepperton Studios kindly paid for everything, so all ticket sales as well as the inevitable raffle went direct to our charity fund.
When deciding on our charities, the Mayoress and I wanted to make a real difference to those young people in our borough experiencing significant challenges and crisis in their mental health, so we chose two charities whose focus is on bringing direct help to those particular needy young people. It is a terrible fact that modern day pressures on young people are having a very significant and rapidly growing impact on their mental health and their life prospects, some finding no reason for hope and tragically some do not make it to adulthood.
We chose east2west and Ashford Youth Centre.
East2west currently provide counselling support in each of our borough’s six secondary schools.
The significant donation is being allocated to boost their service offering with additional peripatetic counselling provision which will deliver 220 counselling sessions for specialist therapeutic intervention and will be made available whilst a young person is awaiting CAMHS support. This will hopefully cover the demand for this service for between one and a half and two years across our secondary schools.
The donation will also be supporting and growing their ‘Emerge’ project at St. Peter’s Hospital where volunteers support our teenagers presenting and or admitted with self-harm and suicidal ideation.
Ashford Youth & Community Centre have pledged to use their donation:
· To pay for counselling sessions for individual, to run parent conferences on mental health first aid to equip parent with the basics of managing emerging mental health challenges with their sons and daughters.
· To deliver bespoke mental health courses for members of the community working with young people directly – youth workers, school LSA’s, sports coaches so they can react and support young people.
· And to develop and deliver a peer education mental health first aid course training for young people to support their peers which we hope can be rolled out across the borough.
I was also able to make more modest donations to the cadet sections of each branch of our armed forces as well as a boxing academy who also do great work with our young people, especially those more marginalised.
In total, I awarded £34,000 at the Mayor’s Charity Giving Evening last Friday. In the circumstances, I was delighted to have achieved this sum.
I now need to thank those who have helped and supported me this year. Firstly, I wish to thank our Chief Executive Daniel and his Executive Office team, Jennifer, Dawn and Julia for their support and guidance. Also I am grateful for the support of my Mayor’s Chaplain, Father Andrew Downes, who is unfortunately unable to be here tonight. I would like to thank Councillors Brar and Rybinski who have helped to make our mayoral term so fulfilling.
I would also like to thank Tracey Carter for her invaluable efforts with promoting our events to businesses and the wider community and via the Spelthorne Business Forum.
Thank you also to those Councillors who have supported me in attending our events this year.
However, the greatest appreciation and thanks goes to the two ladies who have influenced my life so much over the last few months. I refer of course to Sheila, my Mayoral Manager, who I have already mentioned, and also to my wife Helen, the Mayoress.
Sheila has worked tirelessly, and without Sheila my Mayoral year simply would not have been the success it has been. I know that one day in particular, or perhaps more accurately, one night, in the run-up to the Ball, she was busy e-mailing at 3.30 in the morning. Helen has worked closely with Sheila, bringing her years of corporate business and marketing skills to the role. Collectively they have delivered what I genuinely believe to have been the best Mayoral events programme across Surrey this year. Without you both it simply would not have happened. Thank you.
Fellow members, thank you for allowing me to be your Mayor for the last year and I wish my successor the very best.”
It was moved by Councillor Beardsmore and seconded by Councillor Nichols that Councillor Sue Doran be appointed Mayor for the Municipal Year 2022-2023.
Resolved that Councillor Sue Doran be appointed Mayor for the Municipal Year 2022-2023.
A short adjournment took place to hand over the robes and badge of Office to the new Mayor.
Councillor Sue Doran made the Declaration of Acceptance of Office as Mayor of the Borough of Spelthorne and took the Chair. She presented Councillor Ian Harvey with his past Mayor’s badge.
[Councillor S.M. Doran, The Mayor, in the chair.]
The Mayor invited the retiring Mayoress, Councillor Helen Harvey, to present her consort with the Mayor’s consort badge. The Mayor then invited her consort, Councillor John Doran, to present Councillor Helen Harvey with the past Mayoress’s badge.