Pay It
Book It
Find It
Report It
Apply For It
Say It
Mayoral Blog
Councillor John B. Sullivan JP, GNSM, LTCL
Welcome to the official Blog of the Civic Mayor of Tameside
A Blog (or a Weblog) is an online journal/diary which is frequently updated with the author's thoughts and comments, and is intended for the general public to view.
Well, I can’t believe this is my final Blog of the year.
The past 12 months have flown by so very quickly but it really has been a wonderful time.
Francoise and I have loved every minute of our year in office and it has been a real pleasure and a privilege to be your Civic Mayor and Mayoress.
Our final week has been both busy and extremely rewarding and we have attended many super events and met many wonderful people.
On Monday, the day started with the launch of Foster Care Fortnight outside the Town Hall in Ashton. A campaign is held each year to raise the profile of fostering and to highlight the need for more foster families. I was delighted to be able to join the Council’s Fostering Team in a bid to find more people who can provide a safe and happy home for the children of our Borough.
From here, I headed over to Salford Quays 
to join the other Civic Heads of Greater Manchester for a fascinating visit to MediacityUK at the invitation of the Mayor of Salford . Together, we were able to walk down the street into the site to see the BBC buildings on the Quays.
Later, I visited Haughton Thornley Medical Practice in Hyde where I was welcomed by Dr Hannan and treated to a comprehensive and extremely interesting tour of the practice. This is a very forward thinking surgery and I was incredibly impressed by the practices and procedures in place, including the facility for patients to check their personal health records and book their own Doctor’s appointments on line.
I then travelled over to Droylsden for a cheque presentation and photocall at The Curry Club on Ashton Road. You may have read in the local press how the owner of this restaurant, Mr Mizan Rahman, generously gave 50% of two nights takings to help young fundraiser, Abbie Moore. Eight year old Abbie was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia last summer, this brave little girl has now set about raising money for children’s cancer charities to help other children like her. It was an honour for me to meet Abbie and her family and I was pleased to be able to acknowledge the kindness of Mr Rahman and his staff.
In the evening, Francoise and I welcomed representatives from the Greater Manchester Army Cadet Force to the Mayor’s Parlour. I was first made aware of the good work of the ACF at a reception I attended a few months ago. I wanted the opportunity to meet with the people in charge of the cadet units here in Tameside and to offer my thanks for their time and commitment to the young people of our Borough.
On Tuesday evening, Francoise and I were delighted to be able to assist with the presentation of Awards to Adult Learners from Ashton Sixth Form College and on Wednesday afternoon, I had a super visit to Manor Green Primary School in Denton. The visit had been arranged for me to listen to the school’s brass band and also to officially open a new outdoor classroom or amphitheatre. The band was brilliant and it was so good to see and hear the children and even some of their teachers, who are also learning to play instruments, enjoying their music. The new amphitheatre will provide the children of Manor Green with a wonderful new outdoor learning area and a superb new stage for drama and musical performances at this very creative and extremely talented school.
In the evening, Francoise and I were invited to attend a ‘Pride of Tameside’ Celebration Evening at Ashton Town Hall with the Principal, staff and students of Tameside College . ‘The Pride of Tameside’ is a new marketing campaign undertaken by the college to celebrate the success of its students and to challenge some of the negative views voiced about young people.
I’m sure you will have seen ‘The Pride of Tameside’ huge billboards, newspaper advertisements and posters on our local buses. All the young people who were selected to take part in the campaign had achieved something very special and the event at Ashton Town Hall was to enable these students to come together, with their family, friends and employers to celebrate this wonderful success.
I am extremely proud to say that the campaign was actually born as a result of something I said in a speech at an awards ceremony last year. At the time I was presenting awards to college students and I referred to the young people as ‘the Pride of Tameside’. The Principal, Mr Peter Ryder thought this would be the perfect theme for what has now turned out to be a very successful campaign.
On Thursday, I invited Mr Rahman from The Curry Club to join me in the Mayor’s Parlour for a sandwich at lunchtime as a small thank you for the kindness he has shown to Abbie Moore.
Later, I visited Sportcity in Manchester for a Cheerleading Festival hosted by Tameside School Sport Partnership and Tameside Sports Service. Boy what a lively event that was! It was absolutely terrific and great to see so many young people so full of energy and enthusiasm for a sport which is rapidly rising in popularity.
On Friday evening, Francoise and I were pleased to be able to welcome to the Mayor’s Parlour representatives of the Freemasons of Ashton, Mossley and Audenshaw. You may recall, I attended a cheque presentation ceremony with the Freemasons in April and was delighted and very surprised to receive a cheque for £750 for my Mayoral Charity Appeal Fund. As a small token of my appreciation, I invited the group to the Town Hall for a visit to the Mayor’s Parlour and tour of the Council Chamber.
On Saturday evening, we attended a superb end of season concert by Manchester Camerata at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and on Sunday, Whit Sunday, we joined the annual Walks of Witness in both Dukinfield and Stalybridge. The weather was beautiful and both events were very well attended. It was particularly nice to see so many young people and family groups enjoying these traditional events.
Also, on Sunday lunchtime, we were able to call in at a Lancashire Day at the Armoury in Ashton at the invitation of the Old Comrades of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment Association (Ashton Branch). The event had been organised as a fundraiser for Mountain Rescue and included Lancashire Hot Pot and Black Pudding.
My final engagement of the year was a Citizenship Ceremony at Dukinfield Town Hall on Monday afternoon.
And now, as the year draws to a close, I would like to thank everybody for their friendship, kindness and support over the last 12 months. It has been a wonderful year and Francoise and I have many, many happy memories to treasure.
We wish our new Mayor, Councillor Jean Brazil and her husband, Sydney well for the year ahead. Together with their Deputies, Councillor Dawson Lane and Councillor Jackie Lane, they will make a superb Mayoral team and will do a terrific job and Francoise and I wish them all every happiness and success.
Thanks again everyone.
With every good wish
Hello again.
Well the weeks are certainly flying by now, in fact as I write this blog, I only have one more full week in office. What a frightening thought, where has the year gone?
On a more positive note, it has been a fabulous 12 months and, as I think everybody knows, Francoise and I have had a wonderful year.
This past week has once again been a very varied and incredibly rewarding time.
Engagements began on Monday afternoon when we were invited to a luncheon at Sedgley Park Police Training Centre . The event was hosted by the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, Mr Peter Fahy as a thank you to the Civic Heads of Greater Manchester for our support during the year. It was particularly nice to be sat with Chief Superintendent Zoe Hamilton, Divisional Commander for Tameside.
Later, Francoise and I welcomed the owner and staff from the Pagliacci Restaurant in Hyde to Ashton Town Hall. It was good to be able to celebrate the success of this local business and to thank people who have looked after us so many times in the past.
On Tuesday afternoon, I was delighted to receive volunteers from Tameside Hospital to the Mayor’s Parlour. It was lovely to have this opportunity to thank the team for their hard work and for their precious gift of time. There are actually 324 volunteers working at our local hospital so regrettably it wasn’t possible to invite them all in but it was nice even to reach just a small number of people and to thank them for their efforts.
The same evening, Francoise and I attended a thank you event for Marie Curie Cancer Care volunteers at Dukinfield Town Hall. We had a super evening and it was lovely to be able to meet the volunteers and to learn more about the charity. Marie Curie has 6 nurses working in and around Tameside throughout the year. The charity obviously relies heavily on its army of volunteers who help to fund these wonderful nurses specialising in end of life care. During this year’s Great Daffodil Appeal , Marie Curie had 40 local volunteers collecting at 8 Tameside supermarkets and together they managed to raise an incredible £3,500, this amount of money will fund approximately 175 hours nursing care. In addition, 237 volunteers looked after the collection envelopes door-to-door in our local neighbourhoods and raised £2992.32 just in Tameside alone.
On Wednesday afternoon, I welcomed staff from Peak Valley Housing to the Mayor’s Parlour. Once again, it was my way of saying thank you to a dedicated team who do a great job for the residents of Hattersley.
Later, Francoise and I attended an Adult Learner’s Presentation Evening at Tameside College . I have worked quite closely with the college over the last year and it is always a pleasure to support their events and to acknowledge and celebrate the success of the students.
On Thursday afternoon, I quickly popped in at a BBQ with the management and staff of Mono Pumps in Audenshaw to help celebrate this very successful local company’s 75th anniversary and to offer my congratulations and good wishes. I was very interested to learn that 75% of the workforce at Mono actually started as apprentices.
From here I headed over to Tameside Radio where I spent a very enjoyable couple of hours with Presenter Wayne Kay on his afternoon show.
In the evening, Francoise and I were pleased to be able to welcome our friends from the Denton Town Twinning Association to the Mayor’s Parlour. For those of you who are regular followers of my blog, you will know that Francoise and I have had the pleasure of accompanying the twinning association on a couple of visits to Montigny-le-Bretonneux during the year. The committee works incredibly hard to promote and to develop their already well-established and highly successful twinning links with Montigny and have recently co-ordinated several very positive student exchange visits.
There were no Mayoral engagements on Friday so it was nice to be able to catch up a little bit on work at home.
On Saturday evening, we were invited to a gathering at the Ram Mandir Hindu Temple in Ashton. It was a lovely evening and we were treated to some wonderful cultural performances by the children and other devotees of the temple. Francoise and I were looked after extremely well and everybody went out of their way to make us feel very welcome.
On Sunday evening, we attended a glorious concert by the Hallé Choir , this being the final event in this year’s Tameside Music Festival. The choir performed in the beautiful setting of Albion Church in Ashton and it really was a magnificent way to end yet another very successful concert series.
And that brings the week to an end.
Thank you for joining me. I hope to see you again next time.
Kind regards
Hello everyone,
Well as I’m sure you can appreciate, the elections have certainly taken over most the last week.
Mayoral engagements have been slightly quieter as a result but it has still been an enjoyable week.
There were no engagements on Bank Holiday Monday but on Tuesday, I was pleased to host two receptions in the Town Hall. The first, on Tuesday afternoon was for old comrades from The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment Association (Ashton-under-Lyne Branch). I met representatives of the association at a recent cake sale I attended in aid of the Help for Heroes charity. It was a pleasure to be able to welcome the group to the Town Hall and to show them round the Mayor’s Parlour and Council Chamber.
On Tuesday evening, Francoise and I welcomed members of Ashton-under-Lyne Golf Club to the Town Hall. For a number of years now, the club has very kindly hosted a charity golf tournament to help raise funds for the Mayor’s Charity. This year’s event is scheduled to take place on the 16th May and I wanted to take the opportunity to show my appreciation for the club’s continued and very generous support.
On Wednesday, Francoise was invited to attend the annual Women of the North Luncheon at the Stirk House Hotel near Clitheroe. It isn’t very often that the Mayoress attends engagements without the Mayor but she was delighted to go along to this annual fundraising event and to lend her support.
Of course it was both the local and general elections on Thursday 6th May and there were no Mayoral engagements on this day, which was perhaps as well, as from Wednesday I’d began to suffer quite severely from a tummy bug which seems to be doing the rounds.
On Friday, although still feeling queasy, I attended a graduation ceremony at Broadoak Community Centre in Ashton at the invitation of ADS (Addiction Dependency Solutions). This is the second ADS graduation ceremony I have attended for students who have completed a 16 week training course with a view to becoming support workers for people suffering from alcohol and drug addiction. Many of the graduates are themselves ex-alcohol and drug users and it really is wonderful to see just how well they have managed to turn their lives around.
On Saturday morning, Francoise and I visited Portland Basin in Ashton to wave off volunteers from the East Manchester Community Boat Project as they set sail on the narrowboat ‘Community Spirit’ for a journey which will take them to Yorkshire and then over the tops to Liverpool. The trip will take them several weeks to complete and the team are not expected to return until early July.
The project began in 1994 and since then has gone from strength providing an educational and fun based activity for children and adults who may be disabled or disadvantaged. Many thousands of people, from all walks of life, have had the opportunity to experience something very special and completely different. The project is a registered charity and is committed to providing access to ‘Community Spirit’ free of charge, the project therefore relies heavily on the hard work of its volunteers, on fundraising, sponsorship, grants and donations.
Francoise and I were pleased to learn more about the project and to be able to offer our good wishes as this exciting journey got under way.
From Portland Basin, we travelled over to Astley Sports College in Dukinfield to visit ‘Railroad 2010’, a model rail and transport show organised by the Tame Valley Scouts. The very first Railroad show was held in 1983. This event is now held annually to raise funds to enable the scouts to take part in international events and expeditions. Scouts (aged 10½ to 14) and Explorer Scouts (aged 14 to 18) are encouraged to take part in the planning and running of the show to help them gain experience and build confidence. It was a fantastic show and it was great to be able to meet the young people involved.
Later, we were pleased to attend an afternoon tea at the Victoria Park Community Association to help mark the group’s golden anniversary year. We had a lovely afternoon meeting chatting to the members and I must say, the home-made cakes looked absolutely delicious, although still feeling some residual queasiness I didn’t feel it wise chance my luck with them!
To end the week, on Sunday afternoon, we attended a superb concert as part of the 2010 Tameside Music Festival, as the world famous Black Dyke Band made a much welcome return to Dukinfield Town Hall and once again performed an inspiring programme of great brass band classics. It was wonderful to see the Town Hall full to capacity and to see everybody enjoying the music of what is undoubtedly one of the very best bands in the world.
And that brings another Mayoral week to a close.
Thank you for joining me.
I hope to see you again soon.
Kind regards.
Twitter
Facebook
