Cllr Yvonne Spence: My Mayoral Year

Today we were joined online by two fellow Rotarians, Yvonne Spence of the Rotary Club of Chelmsford Rivermead and Angela Dickman, one of our Past Presidents who is now a member of the Rotary Club of Maldon.

Yvonne spoke to us about her year as Mayor of Chelmsford (2018-19).

She explained that each year’s Mayor is selected at an informal Council meeting the previous February to give the new Mayor time to prepare. The formal election, which is a foregone conclusion, takes place in May. The incoming Mayor goes to the Civic Centre in a hired car and takes his or her usual seat in the Council Chamber. When the formal election has been held the proceedings are suspended while the outgoing and incoming Mayors retire to the Mayor’s Office, where the outgoing Mayor hands over the Mayoral regalia to the incoming Mayor. They then return to the Council Chamber, where the new Mayor, wearing the regalia, takes the Chair. In due course the Mayor returns home in the Mayor’s official car.

During her year as Mayor Yvonne attended some 500 events in her official capacity, usually accompanied by her husband John. She also went to our twinned town of Backnang in Germany, which unlike Chelmsford has an Executive Mayor. During her year as Mayor Yvonne worked to improve our links with our two twinned towns and persuaded some of our local schools to link with schools there.

She recalled one early journey in the Mayor’s car. At one point children, seeing the car with the City flag flying on it, started waving. The driver said to her “I think you’re supposed to wave back.”

Indeed, from what Yvonne said the Mayor often has to rely on advice from the Mayor’s driver, who continues in that role from year to year (and in Chelmsford also acts as mace bearer). He can make mistakes, though. Just before Christmas Yvonne attended a number of carol services. The driver told her that the church they were visiting one morning always served good food but they were only given cheese and biscuits. On the way to the next engagement the Mayoral party stopped at a McDonald’s for something more substantial!

As Mayor of Chelmsford Yvonne received an invitation to a Royal Garden Party. Since she and John had already attended a Garden Party, on this occasion she passed the invitation on to her Deputy. 2018 was the hundredth anniversary of women being given the vote in the UK. When Yvonne realised this she was pleased that she had appointed another woman as her Deputy.

2018 was also, of course, the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War. As usual a service was held on Remembrance Day at the war memorial outside the Civic Centre. Since it was not possible for a large number of people to gather at the memorial, there was then a civic procession to the top of the High Street where clergy from the Cathedral led another service in front of the Shire Hall.

One of the highlights of Yvonne’s year was a visit to Broomfield Hospital to see some of the New Year babies. She went on the 2nd January, by which time all but two of the mothers had returned home with their babies. The staff member showing Yvonne round got permission from the two remaining mothers before showing Yvonne into their rooms. As she went into one room the mother said “I remember you! You were one of my teachers!”