Brad Ford Bears cost £7.99 each + posting & packing and all profits will go to the Lord Mayor’s Appeal.
To buy your Brad Ford Bear please contact Alexis in the Lord Mayor’s Appeal Office on 01274 434965 or send a message to us
Yorkshire Brass & Voices at Bradford Cathedral
Saturday 17th February.
My very good friend Sandra Howard (yes, Sandra remains a good friend despite the fact that her rescue Greyhound ate her Brad Ford Bear!) organised a wonderful concert with Steeton Male Voice Choir, who looked very resplendent in their red jackets with white rose button holes and the United Co-operative Yorkshire Brass Band, the programme was very varied with everything from Mike Batt to Strauss, West Side Story to The Lord’s Prayer.
There were 200 people in the audience, as I was sat in my favourite spot on the Lady Mayoress’ knee I had an excellent view and ringing in my ears from the wonderful noise of the band by the end of the night. No Concert is complete with out Interval Refreshments and the Cathedral Ladies did us proud.
The evening raised over £600 which was brilliant and the Lord Mayor would like to thank Len Wilson and everyone at Steeton Male Voice Choir, The United Co-operative Yorkshire Brass Band, Bradford Cathedral, the Dean Dr David Ison and Sandra & Jon Howard for making this possible.
Five a Side Football Tournament, Richard Dunn Sports Centre
Saturday 3rd March.
This was a brilliant event and heaps of fun. The Lord Mayor’s Appeal had never held an event like this before but Gareth who works in Emergency Planning was so enthusiastic and made it sound so exciting that we thought we would give it a go and we are so glad we did especially as Gareth did all the hard work! 
16 teams were signed up to take part and came from across the Council and local businesses, there was a wide range of ages and abilities and we even managed to get the Lord Mayor to pull on his football kit, take off the Chain and take part, I promised not to say too much about how well he played but his team, which Gareth was also playing in did get knocked out in the first round! The Lord Mayor’s two granddaughters were very impressed by their Granddad’s performance anyway. 
It was very exciting as the competition progressed, I wanted the team from Gordons LLP to do well because they had been very kind in sponsoring the event and providing the trophies and the team from Chino Thai because I love their food and they kept me well supplied with Fortune Cookies throughout the day!
After two tense and fiercely contested semi finals,
I sat down with the Lord Mayor (now back in his suit) and the Lady Mayoress to watch a very exciting final. The eventual and very well deserved winners were Pensions Unlimited.
After everyone had got changed we all rendezvoused in the Bar for a much needed glass of orange and a more importantly food, I was very hungry by then as it had been a long day, just imagine how hungry I would have been if I had played too.
My role was posing for photos with the teams and helping the Lord Mayor & Lady Mayoress to present the trophies along with Paul Young from Gordons. Gareth had organised a Raffle with some fantastic prizes and this and the teams entry fees mean that as well as having lots of fun we raised around £600 for the Lord Mayor’s charities. The best news is that Gordons are interested in hosting the event again next year, so it looks like Gareth is going to be kept busy! 
Thanks to Gareth, Gordons LLP, Richard Dunn Sports Centre, the Referees, Bactive, Chino Thai, all the teams who took part and the many companies who donated prizes.
International Women’s Day Lunch, City Hall
Thursday 8th March
This was one of those days where it proves that it doesn’t matter how much you plan ahead there are some things you just can’t control. This is the 3rd year we have celebrated International Women’s Day with a lunch here in City Hall and the previous two lunches had been very successful and gone very smoothly. This year the event was attended by 80 guests, mostly but not all women and the speaker was to be Ann Cryer MP for Keighley. As this was International Women’s Day the Lady Mayoress and not the Lord Mayor was hosting the event and the Lady Mayoress was supposed to be giving a speech and stealing the limelight for once. Ann Cryer had happily agreed to attend but had said all along that her attendance might have to be cancelled at short notice if she got called back to the House of Commons for any reason. The day before the Commons were voting on the Reform to the House of Lords and Alexis and I sat glued to the TV during the evening and breathed a huge sigh of relief when everything was got through without any problems, knowing that this would mean Ann would be able to catch her early morning train back to Bradford.
If only things were so easy, at 8.30am the phone in the Office rang and it was Ann Cryer who was stuck on a train at Kings Cross and not likely to be going anywhere for some time thanks to a train hitting overhead lines near Peterborough. Ann who was very disappointed said it seemed unlikely that she would make the lunch; this threw Alexis in to a frenzy. Thankfully after several calls between the Appeal Office, Ann and Ann’s Office in Keighley, Mark, Ann’s assistant very kindly agreed to come and give a speech about Ann’s work and Women in Parliament. Alexis breathed a second huge sigh of relief in 24 hours, it was a little unusual to be having a man address so many ladies about International Women’s Day but at least the show was back on the road.
And then the Lord Mayor’s Officers came in said that the Lady Mayoress was poorly! Once again the men saved the day, the Lord Mayor agreed to read the Lady Mayoress Speech for her before going on to another engagement. I have never heard so much noise in the Reception Rooms, I couldn’t hear myself think for the chattering of all those women! The Lady Mayoress proved what a trooper she is by turning up despite being full of cold and in danger of losing her voice. The Lord Mayor spoke before lunch and it was agreed that Mark would speak after lunch in the hope that Ann whose train was now moving might manage to make it to Bradford before the end of the lunch.
After coffee Mark gave a wonderful speech both witty and thought provoking about, Ann, her work especially her work on the issue of forced marriages and about women in Parliament and just as he was reaching the high point of his speech, the door opened very quietly and Ann tried to slide into the back of the Banqueting Hall unnoticed, it didn’t work someone saw her and soon all 80 women were clapping and applauding this amazing lady. We quickly got Ann a coffee and as soon as she had got her breath back she was up on her feet and enlightening us all with her stories about her time in politics. It really was fascinating. And to round off what had been an excellent day after all the ups and downs, the Lady Mayoress bolstered by all the good wishes stood up right at the end and said a few words. Our thanks to Ann Cryer MP for Keighley, Mark Taylor and Cath Rowen, Bradford Women’s Business Group and Soroptimist International Clubs in Bradford and Bingley.
National Association of Civic Officer (NACO) Conference, City Hall, Bradford
15th and 16th March
NACO is the National Association for people who work with Civic Heads it was formed to promote best practice in civic offices, improve the professional services to Mayors and Chairmen, improve training for civic staff, to establish a network for the exchange and information of ideas about civic ceremonial and other issues and promote knowledge of civic life at a national and local level. The Civic Office here in Bradford is well represented within the Association as several of the staff are members and both the Civic Affairs Manager and our Diary Secretary are on the Executive Committee and that year Bradford was chosen to host the annual conference. As the delegates came from across the country this was a brilliant opportunity to show off Bradford in a very positive way.
I attended workshops with Alexis, some of which were very informative, one was very amusing and one so boring that I nodded off! I think that we all learnt something and it was great to be able to talk to other people doing the same job in other parts of the country, to listen to their stories and to pick up a few ideas, for example our Diary Secretary attended an IT workshop and is now convinced that an electronic diary would make his life so much easier and save on mountains of paper.
I went to listen to a talk by the Guild of English Butlers and have picked up some tips which I will be practising on guests to the Lord Mayor’s Rooms.
The two keynote speakers were the Assistant Private Secretary to Her Majesty the Queen and Dennis Brennan, Head of the Ceremonial Secretariat at the Cabinet Office who explained the Honours System; both were fascinating and gave us an insight into the workings of both the Royal Household and the Cabinet Office and a glimpse inside the Prime Ministers Office.
Brad Ford Bears were on sale and staff from Civic Offices were snapping them up to take back to their own Mayors and Lord Mayors so look out for more pictures of Brads around the country soon. A group of 10 Brads have gone to Rossendale so this little Yorkshire Bear is busy infiltrating Lancashire now.
The climax of the Conference was a Gala Dinner held at Salts Mill. Those of us who go to Saltaire frequently tend to take it for granted and forget what a wonderful and unique place it is so it was lovely to see it through the eyes of others for a change. We drank our Champagne surrounded by the works of Bradford’s own David Hockney, listened to the championship winning Black Dyke Band and ate a sumptuous dinner in the Salts Dinner. The band went down a storm and got a standing ovation and Paul Millward, NACO’s Chair was for once speechless and almost moved to tears. All in all the event was a huge success for NACO and for Bradford.
Sponsored Abseil of Central Library
Saturday 17th March
For me the highlight of the past month came on Saturday 17th March with the Sponsored Abseil of Central Library. I had been looking forward to this for ages, which is more than could be said for the Lord Mayor who as well all know is scared of heights. But even I was beginning to have 
second thoughts when I woke up on Saturday morning and saw the weather, all week it had been beautiful warm and sunny and on Saturday it was cold, wet and very windy and the forecast suggested that it might even snow later! It was of course also St Patrick’s Day and we had a group of Irish Musicians and Dancers booked to entertain people in Centenary Square but the conditions were so bad that it would not have been safe for them to perform there so they came across to the Library too and played in the warmth of the Library’s Café.
This is the 4th Annual Abseil, it was first held in 2003 for the Outward Bound Association and Nell Bank Centre and was organised by a group of Event Management students from Leeds Metropolitan University and their tutor Councillor David Ward when the then Lord Mayor, Allan Hillary took part. Since then the two intervening Lord Mayors have not braved the descent, but of course our Lord Mayor was determined to conquer his fears. Some of the students who have now graduated, including PC Karl Dunbar, have continued to organise the event to raise money for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal and for the National Missing Person’s Helpline in memory of one of their friend and fellow student David Plunkett who died tragically a few weeks after organising the very first abseil.
There were around 80 people signed up to take part, and they came from all across the City, some very young and some not quite so! This year for the first time we had two ladies who having got to the top felt unable to face the descent (in fact one had gone over the edge and came back up). But we are delighted to be able to report that both of these ladies came back later in the day determined to have another go and successfully made it to the bottom, we think that these two were exceptionally brave.
When it was our time to go up I suddenly didn’t feel so brave, my knees went to jelly, my tummy started to churn and I began to wish that Nora (one of our volunteers) had not let me eat quite so many Custard Creams! 
The Lord Mayor was very quiet so I think he was feeling much the same. We went to get kitted up, the Lord Mayor stepped into his harness and pulled the straps so tight that it is a wonder that he did not cut off the circulation in his legs, he also had to wear a safety helmet, but because there were not any to fit small bears I had to go down in my Tricorn Hat and Robes, to be honest it was so cold at the top that I was glad of the Robes, everyone else was wearing a T shirt with the Charity details on kindly supplied by our friends at Bactive and they were all shivering. Looking out across the City from so high up was wonderful and our very own City Hall was the perfect backdrop. Everyone has said that the worst bit was actually swinging out over the edge and they were right it was very, very scary, the Lord Mayor held on tight to me and I could feel his heart pounding. 
To make matters worse we had to wait ages at the top whilst the 
photographers from the Telegraph and Argus and the Yorkshire Post took photos of us, of course when we got a big piece on page 3 on Monday we knew it had been worthwhile. I left the actual mechanics of the descent to the Lord Mayor whilst I just sat back and admired the view. The Lord Mayor did brilliantly and we were soon at the bottom, there was quite a crowd of people who all clapped and cheered, the lady Mayoress teased us by saying that she had been too busy talking and had missed us so we would have to go do it again!
We went inside for the Lord Mayor to get out of his gear and I convinced Nora that I needed more Custard Cream and cups of Tea after been so brave. To commemorate our daring the Lady Mayoress presented the Lord Mayor and me with a certificate
All in all it was a great day and we hope that the event will raise around £4,000.00 which will be divided between the Lord Mayor’s Appeal and the National Missing Persons Helpline. We would like to thank the following people for making this possible, PC Karl Dunbar and friends for organising and running the event, Steve Wilkinson and colleagues from Adventure Development for running the lines, Jane Heap and everyone at Bradford Central Library for letting us use their building and for their support, everyone who was brave enough to take part, Bactive, HSS Hire Group, Sinead Engel and Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann and Anne and Michael Plunkett.
