Minutes:
Mayor R Kingstone made the following announcement:-
“Thank you one and all for allowing me to be your mayor for the second time. And a big thank you to those members of the public who are present – we will have a little drink afterwards in the parlour. On a personal note I must admit that back in January I did not think I would be around today and if I were I would not be able to take on this honour you have bestowed upon me.
Over the last few months my return to near full health has only been possible due to the support of family and friends.
I must make special mention of Sam, Charlotte, William and the little fella, Martin. But of of course I cannot forget the huge debt I owe to the wife, Lisa who has agreed to take on the role of Mayoress again and continue to be the rock that I need to keep me on track.
Peter and Anne, you have been a wonderful gentle team who have gone out and represented our town with grace and dignity. You will be missed by many and have left a lasting legacy through the great work you have done with T4Tamworth.
Josh – as Mayor’s cadet you have served our town well. And you have been and indeed are a credit to the Sea cadets, your family and more importantly yourself. I hope you have enjoyed your year. What most of you may not know is that I have known Josh for several years and I have had the pleasure of teaching him at Rawlett. Young people are some of the most honest, rewarding and inspiring people to have the pleasure to work with and I am grateful everyday for my job as a teacher.
Jacob – you have a hard act to follow. But again I have had the pleasure of knowing you for many years as you too are a student at Rawlett. Knowing you as I do you are going to be brilliant and your mum and dad are rightly proud of you.
Rawlett is an amazing place to work. As a past Rawlett student and teacher at Rawlett I know this only too well. It always make be proud that our students go on to achieve so much. Just out of interest put your hand in the the air if you either go to, work at, have a relative at or are an ex-Rawlett pupil.
Ok. Let’s get down to business. I can promise you tonight that despite the vote, I will be everyone’s mayor regardless of who you are and what you think of me. I am here to serve you and to promote our fine town, it’s people and it’s businesses.
All 30 Tamworth councillors are good, decent people who have a common aim to ensure that Tamworth is the very best it can possible be for everyone. Councillors may disagree on how this should be achieved but not one of you here tonight is what we often hear from members of the public, that horrible phrase – self serving. It is such a shame that politicians at all levels have been tarred with the same brush.
Five years ago I stood here and I said that the main problem Tamworth suffers with was a lack of aspiration amongst our young people and troubled families. Today I still see that as our main problem.
I often talk about the time a few years back when, working with several councillors I dared to try to get education and aspiration through a scrutiny panel and because of an article that appeared in the Tamworth Herald about challenging our schools to do better I was called to task by the heads of our secondary schools. One of them dared to use the phrase “What do you expect? They come from Tamworth.” Hard to believe isn’t it? Yet this type of lack of faith in Tamworth and its people was and still is shown by many who are supposed to defend and nurture. Thankfully none of those head teachers are still in post and things are getting better.
So over the next 12 months I am going to try to help Tamworth and it’s people be even better than they are today. Many of you know I am a Freemason. Freemasons have many aims. One of which is quite clear – to make good men better. With this in mind I am going to make it my objective to try to motivate the people of Tamworth to make themselves and their town better through the use of this chain and this gown.
To begin with I’ve come up with three core aims for everyone of us:
1. Be proud of yourself and your achievements
2. Be proud of your community and neighbours
3. Be proud of your town
So I’ve decided now is the time to bring back the Be Tamworth badges that I awarded last time. This is where individuals can nominate their fellow citizens who have made a positive impact on their community. This could be individuals who organise social events for lonely residents, people who check on the elderly, residents who cut neighbours grass when they cut theirs, community groups – the list is endless.
The idea being that once awarded with their lapel badge they can go out and spread the word about how great Tamworth is. People will look at the badge and ask about it. It will be a conversation starter to enable people to say how proud they are.
To tie in with being proud I will set about making sure that every school in the town is presented with a flag pole and two flags – the cross of St George and the Union Flag. For too long both of these flags have been associated with negativity and we need to encourage our young people to be proud of who they are and the county they live in without fear. The hard right need to know that they do not hold the monopoly on being proud and our flags . Each flag pole kit costs around £35 and I will be asking local businesses to come forward to sponsor a kit. This will have the additional benefit of twining businesses with schools – another link with raising aspiration and bringing people together.
There will be a “Not a Selfie” competition. Social media is a great tool for communicating but for many it presents a false image and a very self centred inward looking view. How tiring it is to trawl through facebook, twitter and instagram seeing people obsessed with themselves shouting at out look at me! We need to work to stop people being inward looking and to take time to look around at the wonderful things there are to see. It is really concerning to see so many people doing the Emperor penguin walk. So I am opening up the Mayoral Facebook page, twitter account and instagram account and want people to post their images of what they see in and around Tamworth. They can be of anything. Some of the wonderful buildings we have, people at play, people at work anything – the more imaginative the better. Use the hashtag NOTASELFIE, SEEWHATISEE AND AMAZINGTAMWORTH. Every month I’ll award a prize to the best ones.
Yet again I’ll be hosting networking nights right here in the Town Hall. The idea is that as well as being able to thank many of the wonderful and diverse community, arts, heritage and many many other different types of groups for their contribution to life in Tamworth but they can, over a glass or two of wine and a bite to eat, get to know other groups and work together on joint projects.
Talking of this amazing building it is so under used and yet is incredibly important – so as much as I can I’ll be throwing the doors open and anyone who wants can come by for a cup of tea and a slice of cake. We need to celebrate our buildings and our people and I hope to do just that. The first of the open days is this Saturday between 11am and 2pm with many more to follow.
Ladies and gentlemen we need to be proud of ourselves and our town.
People are often accused of not putting their money where their mouth is. So here tonight I have five envelopes. Each of which contains a letter and a £10 note. These will be heading off to five local primary schools in the post tomorrow morning. I am challenging five primary schools every month to take this £10 and to use it to make money. The money can be used for cake mixture for a cake sale. To organise an event, to buy raffle tickets – it can be used for anything. The money raised will then be donated to a community group local to that school. I’ll be expecting my £10 back so I can pass it on to another school. But the surprise here is that the community group will not know about the fundraising. It must be kept a secret. Once the funds have been raised then I will take a group of students from the school on a surprise visit to the group to present the money. People helping people and also encouraging our young people to care even more about their local community.
We have a brilliant town filled with amazing sights, sounds, history, business and most important of all remarkable people. Many just need to believe in themselves and how truly amazing they are. I see it as my role as your mayor to help Tamworth be brilliant. I hope you all here tonight and everyone in Tamworth will join me in this aim.”
Councillor D Cook made the following announcement:-
“The reason for my announcement is to put in to Councillors minds my intention through the correct channels to nominate David Gilbert for Freeman of the Borough I hope to get a seconder through the correct channels.
For those of you who might not know who David Gilbert is, he is a resident of Tamworth who ten years ago was sleeping on a friends sofa believing his career was over through a change of thinking and attitude he reached the semi finals of the World snooker Championship this year and he is now ranked top ten in the World.
If that’s not achievement I don’t know what is.
So It will be my intention over the next few weeks to officially put that through the correct channels Mr Mayor. Thank you”