Mayor of Worcester Blog

Last Sunday the Mayoress and I attended the Tewkesbury Town Council Civic Service in the beautiful Tewkesbury Abbey that dates back from the 1100s. The service took the form of a choral evensong and featured music with local connections to the town and county. The service was for Joanne Raywood, who is the Tewkesbury Town mayor.

On Wednesday I welcomed a group of students from New College Worcester to the Parlour in the Guildhall. I spoke about my role of Mayor and gave the visually impaired students an opportunity to feel the splendid mayoral chain of office that I have the privilege to wear.

The following evening the Mayoress and I were invited by Lord Faulkner to the launch of the Worcester City Football Family and Friends Club. The last few years have been difficult for the club, but now they are back in the city at Claines Lane and I am sure will go from strength to strength. The club isn’t just the First Team who play in the Midland League, but also include many women, youth, and veterans’ teams that cover all ages and abilities.

Yesterday morning I visited the Old Fire Station on Copenhagen Street, which is soon to open as a new residential block. In July I saw the early stages of this conversion project, so it was fascinating to see some of the completed apartments.

In the evening the Mayoress and I were at The Art House on Castle Street for the Worcester Mela. We both wore Indian dress and enjoyed the delicious Asian food and entertainment that was on offer.

Today I will be attending the Young Enterprise Trade Fayre in High Street and this evening the Worcester Festival Choral Society’s performance of Bach’s St. John Passion in the Cathedral.

I suppose it was inevitable that sooner or later I would get a positive Covid Test. Thankfully my symptoms are relatively minor and are like a heavy cold, but it has meant I have had to curtail some of my plans for this week. I was disappointed I could not attend the Knife Angel launch event in Cathedral Square on Wednesday. I was due to accept a certificate that honoured the City Council’s work in combatting violence in our city.

The Knife Angel is an amazing eight-metre-high monument constructed out of knives handed to the police, that was produced by the artist Alfie Bradbury of the British Ironwork Centre in Oswestry, Shropshire. It is a fitting memorial to those you have lost their lives to knife crime. The statue’s presence is being used to discourage people from using the knife for violent and aggressive behaviour. There is an amnesty box at the base of the statue, where knives van be handed in and safely disposed of.

On Monday evening I did make the Twinning Association Annual Meeting. Former City Councillor and Mayor Liz Smith stepped down as Chair of the Association and I wish her replacement Rosemary Campbell every success. It was good to hear once again about future visits after the problems of the past two years. After the business of the meeting Dill Porter gave a fascinating presentation on our early football connection with Worcester, Massachusetts. One of my predecessors as mayor, Sir Arthur Carlton, was one of the early promoters of twinning arrangements that led to a series of matches held in the late 1920s between representative teams from our now twinned cities that alternated between here and the USA.

On Thursday I was pleased to arrange a street collection licence on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. If you are in the city centre on Saturday then look out for members of Worcester Vigornia Rotary Club with their collection buckets.

One of the main roles of the Mayor is to chair the full meeting of the City Council, and the February Council meeting that was held on Tuesday is one of the most important. This is the time of the year when the council’s budget is set, and many reports must be put to the vote. The budget had three amendments that also required separate votes. On top of that, the meeting included three separate motions from Councillors.

Ahead of the main meeting, an additional extraordinary meeting took place, at which the Council made the historic decision to recommend that all-out elections are held every four years, rather than the current model of one-third of councillors being elected each year. I felt exhausted by the end of a long but important night during which many votes were required.

My next visit into the city centre was for more fun reasons, to visit the Light Night Worcester event. Despite the terrible floods, the Arches Festivals team put on another great show that was once again well attended, with long queues to enter the various performances. When I arrived at the Guildhall, the Mayoress and I witnessed Luma the giant illuminated caterpillar, made by Air Giants, in the Lower Hall. Certainly, the queues outside were much longer than they were for Tuesday’s meeting!

Walking around town we saw the Neon Dogs by Deepa Mann-Kier, that featured on the front of the festival’s promotional leaflet, and the amazing Lips by Puppets with Guts in Cathedral Square. Across the road from there the trees outside the Cathedral were lit in red, and the walk through the garden led us to Submergence by Squidsoup in the Old Palace. Everyone was mesmerized by the lights constantly changing colour.

We saw the other performances was we walked to the Crowngate car park where the popular Silent Disco was taking place on the floors 5 and 6. The headphones gave the user the choice of three music channels that glowed in either blue, green or red. I went against my usual political preference opting for the green channel that played 1990s dance music, which worked well with the disco lights.

This week I had the rarity of no official mayoral engagements, which has given me the opportunity to plan for the weeks ahead. I am receiving invitations to events on a daily basis and my diary up to May, when my mayoral year ends, is filling up rapidly.

On Wednesday I had a meeting with Gill Preece, the mayor’s secretary, and Julie Micklewhite from Aspie and Bridget Stradden from the Stroke Association (my two mayoral charities) to discuss arrangements for a Charity Banquet which will be held on Friday 29th April at the Guildhall. This is going to be a fantastic evening with a Prosecco reception followed by a three-course meal, with a Charity auction and live entertainment. I hope we can sell out and raise plenty of funds for these charities that help so many people.

On Friday 25 March I am hosting a Charity concert that features Worcester Concert Brass “In Celebration” of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.  Tickets for this and the Banquet are available from The Mayor’s Office: civicoffice@worcester.gov.uk

On Wednesday evening I joined members of my Rotary Club to watch the film premiere of “Unlocking the Severn”. The film has been created by award-winning filmmaker Nina Constable and is presented by Monty Halls, successfully capturing the aims and successes of the project. Last October I attended opening by the Princess Royal of the new fish pass viewing gallery, that is a part of Unlocking the Severn Project at Diglis.

The story about the twaite Shad on the River Severn is an interesting one, and scientists have used trackers to monitor the fishes’ movements that will hopefully see them returning to their traditional spawning grounds on the upper Severn now that the series of fish passes have been constructed. There will be the opportunity for members of the public to visit the viewing gallery, the only one of its kind in the UK, in the Spring so I would strongly recommend going to their website at www.unlockingthesevern.co.uk/through-the-fish-window/