Hebden Royd Mayor's Blog: Mayor's Civic Dinner

21st April 2012

Amy and I had our Civic dinner on 21st April

We were delighted with over 70 guests at our annual civic dinner in support of the Mayor's charity

Amy and I before the dinner

We were honoured also at the Dignatary guests including

Major Stan and Kay Hardy representing the Lieutenancy office of West Yorkshire
MEP for Yorkshire and Humber Rebecca Taylor.
Mayor of Calderdale, Nader Fekri
Mayor and consort of Ripponden, Cllr Brian and Geraldine Carter
Chair and consort of Blackshaw Head, Cllr Dorothy Sutcliffe with Cllr Beaching
Chair of Wadsworth, Cllr Mavis Ring

Entertainment

Our entertainment was form Vegas Elvis – AKA – Craig and Julie Simcock

to say they got the guests 'rocking' was an understatement - see the link below

View 2 Mayors and our very own Rev Canon entertaining the audience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnndNiQ7RLk

Great Mayoral moves

During my speech I thanked Rebekah Cox for doing a fab job in organising the event and also also to Jackie Robinson for the superb catering

In my speech I gave some highlights of our year

Year Highlights

· Opened the MYT Gala with Black l Lace and Eric Pollard – lead the conga round the field in Mytholmroyd – that was definitely a unque experience and probably will never be repeated

· Opened the arts festival with the Worlds strongest lady Betty Brawn – she was definitely not to be messed with

· Vintage car rally

· Starting fireworks in Hebden Bridge

· Naming a bridge in Warstein 'Hebden Bridge' - - Many of you know I speak German so my speech was in german – when the press were interviewing me – I exclaimed proud I was that when I was a student in Germany in 1989, my favourite Beer was coincidentally Warsteiner Pils – and now I am standing on a bridge in Warstein drinking the stuff with the Mayor of Warstein – I said ‘ Es gibt ein Gott im Himmel’ – they printed the full quote the next day –

· Other events included Christmas lights and the first lighting of lights in MYT for years and fabulous local carol services

· Yorkshire day, with all the Mayors of Yorkshire region

· Opened newly refurbished Cragg Park

· Represented the Council at the war memorials – this was very moving and an enormous honour

· 14 school assemblies – we have 2 on Monday – one at Calder high and our first ever school twinning skype meeting between Hebden Royd Primary and Johannes Grundschiule in Warstein. Rebekah Taylor or MEP and David Parry form our international group have kindly agreed to help with that. Over in Warstein along with the children will be the Mayor of Warstein Manfred Goedde and other Councillors for Stadtrat Warstein. I am absolutely elated over this event

· All in all I thing we have done over a 100 things – the whole year has been truly amazing and a real privilege

Past Mayors

In my Speech I also gave a presentation to past Mayors. Past Mayors have not been honoured in the past and felt that in my year I had to put right that wrong.

I have long admired the work of past mayors. In the past 6 years in Council I have experienced at first hand the first of all Betty Ward – Betty sadly is no longer with us and Harry her husband is on holiday I will be presented something to Harry on 5^th May. After Betty came John Beacroft Mitchel, then Nader, then Susan Press, then of course Robin Dixon. It was during these time I really stated to appreciate what a hard job this was.

Going back to my experience again in May last year when I was taking over from Robin. I reflected on his year in my speech and what a great job he and Catherine did. During the speech I went to great lengths to congratulate him on the fabulous job and it realy came home the enormous amount of work that had been done eg Bridge 500 celebrations. I then simply shook his hand patted him on the back and off he trotted.... This felt wrong to be honest

Therefore as the months went on I decided I had to put right that wrong and past Mayors needed a symbol / token that can be shown to the grandchildren etc. So as part of events tonight I would like to present our past Mayors with a token of appreciation from us all for the enormous efforts that have been put into our community.

Past Mayors honoured during the evening were:

Janet McConachie 1983-1984

William Morris 1987 to 1988

Vera Badrick 1989 to 1990

Robert Ward 1992 to 1993

David Parry 1995 to 1996

Leslie Siddall 1996 to 1997

Paul Monahan 2000 to 2001

Cllr Christine Bampton-Smith 2002 to 2003

Leone Murty 2003 to 2004

Revd Cllr James Allison 2004 to 2005

Cllr Nader Fekri 2007 to 2008