Minutes:
The Mayor gave her acceptance speech.
1. Welcome and Thanks
The Mayor began by welcoming her distinguished guests, family, friends, colleagues and fellow councillors to the Civic Centre and thanking them for being there that evening.
The Mayor said that she was proud and honoured to stand as elected Mayor of Enfield and first citizen of the borough. She pledged to represent with great pride, conviction and dedication the great, vibrant and diverse borough of Enfield. She felt that her fellow councillors had bestowed a great privilege and responsibility upon her and she expressed her sincere thanks and appreciation to everyone for placing their trust in her.
The Mayor said that she took the responsibility and trust shown in her very seriously. She was committed to serving the people of the borough of Enfield to the best of her abilities with enthusiasm, compassion and devotion to the community. She thanked everyone individually and collectively for enabling her to take the Mayoral Office for a year.
The Mayor thanked her entire family, her good/kind husband Ian, her children David and Joanne and her grandchildren who were there on the night, Isla, Tom and John. She sent good wishes to her grandson Laurie who was sitting his first GCSE on the following day at the age of 15 and congratulated him for achieving a black belt in Karate a few weeks ago. If he ever should decide to enter public life, these nimble skills, with their focus on self-defence, would undoubtedly be of great use to him.
The Mayor thanked her other friends and family members for their tireless support and understanding over the last 7 years, in her political role as a councillor, a cabinet member for 3 years and as deputy mayor last year. She thanked her close friend Joan Ryan and her number two son Adrian who had been most helpful. She was also delighted to welcome daughter number two, Zoe, and her mother Helen.
The Mayor said that she had appointed her hard working husband Ian as her consort, together with her lovely daughter Jo, who worked for Capel Manor and was the mother of three in Enfield.
The Mayor thanked Asmat Hussain, Assistant Director of Legal and Governance Services, and wished her every success in her new role in Tower Hamlets. She said that she would miss her and wished her good luck in her future role. She welcomed and thanked Jayne Middleton-Albooye and the officers Kathy Constantinou, Koulla Panaretou and Nicola Lowther, in the Mayor’s Office, and Democratic Services for their invaluable help and support during her year as deputy mayor and said a big thank you also to Shaun Rogan (Head of Strategy, Partnerships, Engagement and Consultation) for his help on Enfield Cares.
2. History
The Mayor said that as a young girl born in Wigan, she had been a rugby league fan and had regularly attended games in the stadium, in the middle of the town with famous players. The team had won cups every year with stars like Billy Boston. In 1966 she became a football fan because England won the World Cup. She said that she remembered every game, up to the magic final.
The Mayor still supported her local football club Wigan Athletic (who won the FA cup in 2013, then fell out of the premiership). But her number one football team was now Enfield Town who did so well this season only to be pipped in the play-offs by Dulwich Hamlet. She loved live football and was impressed with Enfield having the first club in England owned and run by fans and supporters. The saving of the club by supporters was led by an old Unison friend of hers, David Bryant who was still a board member.
The Mayor said that she had come a long way since first coming to London from Wigan in 1968. She had met her lovely husband and married him in 1970. Moved to Edmonton in 1975 where their children attended local primary schools. They were both at Churchbury Primary School then Joanne went to Edmonton County and David to Chase Boys. This was a spring board from which they both, following time at university, achieved successful careers. David at Reading and Joanne at Liverpool.
Following her further education at Enfield and Barnet Colleges, she started from the mid 1980’s, her career in the NHS working at North Middlesex Hospital running the Enfield/Haringey Nurse Bank before moving on to Enfield and Haringey Public Health Authority, where she was lead officer. She then moved into the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Strategic Health Authority where she was manager and support at Board level. At the start of her NHS career, she became a NALGO/Unison trade union representative, followed later by branch secretary. She thanked Pete Sutton, there on the evening, for his help and support in the Union. Towards the end of her career, she worked as a full time Unison negotiating officer with the NHS during a time of re-organisation. She represented members through a long time of change and hoped that she had helped them in those transitional years. She said that she was still passionate about and cared about the NHS and would visit Enfield hospitals and health centres as part of her new role.
In 2007 she became a magistrate in North East London and a Childline counsellor.
Experiencing these issues led to her in 2010 to becoming a councillor in Enfield where she still enjoyed talking and listening, representing and supporting Enfield people, especially in the Highway ward which she represented. She said that it was so rewarding being able to represent local people and make some contribution to making their lives easier. She hoped that this would carry forward into her year as the borough’s Mayor.
3. Enfield Cares – The Mayor’s Charity
The Mayor said that coming from a background that was strongly linked to delivering public services, supporting community wellbeing, including the NHS and trade unions, she had decided that her theme for the new civic year would be “Enfield Cares”. She believed that her term as Mayor presented a great opportunity to raise the profile of and celebrate the role of care and caring in the Enfield community in all its forms. It would also allow members to make it clear to all residents that they were not alone: that whether caring or being in receipt of support that they were valued and that Enfield was a place that cares for and about them.
She hoped that over the course of the next 12 months that they could ensure that through Enfield Cares they could increase the level of local understanding on a range of issues that could often go unsung or that people were unaware of. She said that it was her intention to make Enfield Cares a broad and inclusive approach that would include a diverse range of topics and activities and that these could include:
· Recognising and celebrating the contribution made by carers in Enfield both old and young.
· Looking at the role of community based support schemes to those facing the challenge of handling mental illness.
· Highlighting the work of local groups which helped people to live independently or assist those who could no longer do so.
· Raising awareness of the outreach and assistance available to young people who face bullying, to those dealing with domestic violence or living in the shadow of hate crime.
· Working with community groups in all their diversity to encourage even higher levels of volunteering in caring activities.
The Mayor hoped that as well as raising awareness and celebrating the achievement of those who had made her proud to live in Enfield that they could raise funds during the year that could be passed back into the community. This would give some support to activities and services that are vital to many residents and she hoped that she could contribute to making them sustainable into the future.
The Mayor believed that the issues that underpinned Enfield Cares as a theme were real and pressing. To give an example, this week was mental health awareness week. The mental health foundation had said that 10% of children and young people had mental health problems and that mental health problems were the leading cause of sickness and absence in the UK. This often invisible problem was one that the Mayor believed the Council had a duty to help highlight and to try and find a positive contribution to solving.
It was widely acknowledged that the challenge to society of helping those with mental illness was one of the great issues of our times. She hoped that Enfield Cares could play a role in helping people find a voice in that debate and that barriers could be broken down, however small to ensure that Enfield was a place that had great empathy with those facing challenge in their lives.
She believed that a successful year of diverse activities and awareness raising in the borough could show that Enfield Cares and that we all had a stake in trying to ensure that everyone had the best possible quality of life in the borough. She believed that when most vulnerable people were supported, understood and given help and care by the community everybody wins.
As well as the wonderful array of local community groups, she would also be seeking to work with a range of local and national charities to help get the message across to a wider audience. She believed that by working with those who were on the front line in giving support to individuals and families it would be possible to make the next 12 months a year of positive change. She was sure that it would be possible to make people proud to care, inspire them to help others and ensure that much needed recognition could be given to those in Enfield who gave so much to their families and to their local communities and in doing so made Enfield such a terrific place to live.
The Mayor asked members to please watch this space as the programme for the year was developed and to think what they might be able to do to make it a success. She wanted to hear from them.
Finally, the Mayor vowed to serve the London Borough of Enfield as its Mayor to the best of her ability and promised to support and encourage all the agencies and voluntary sector organisations that worked tirelessly to provide excellent services to those who needed it most in our fine borough. She thanked everyone again for their valued support, said please enjoy the evening ahead and toasted them all with huge thanks and immense gratitude.