Twenty Years ago- May 2005 I was elected as the Mayor of Wolverhampton, and Mary my wife was elected as the Mayoress, at the Annual General Meeting of the City Council. I kept records of many of the events we attended and we kept a diary and recorded as much as we could for posterity.
Well Twenty Years is a good period time, my intention now is to once again set the events and the activity and take a look back in what was one of the finest and exciting years, we have both had. I hope you enjoy the look back in history.
THE MAKING OF A MAYOR
Well, first of all the ‘Mayor Making Ceremony’ itself was ground breaking. It was held in the Wulfrun Hall. We had insisted that we webcast this important event. It was the first web broadcast of a Mayor Making ceremony, in Wolverhampton. Indeed it was the first such event held in the West Midlands County. We got off to a very innovative start!
We now know that it was credited with a very good show of interest on the day, with more than 500 hits from across the UK and elsewhere. The capacity of the Wulfrun Hall is about 250, so to open this historic, democratic event to 500 extra citizens online meant that we allowed 750 people to see local history being made in action.
Wulfrunians in places like Australia and Canada logged on computers, and viewed the ceremony making the ‘Mayor Making’ the most watched event of its kind in the City’s long history of inaugurating Mayor’s.
At the time it was indeed a record breaking ceremony. We were informed that Officers and Members were very pleased with this particular innovation.
Both Local and Regional News covered the ceremony, I recorded these words at the time “I suppose the first impact of my year of office has been made. Media interest was firmly focussed on the fact that this City was to be the first Municipality here in the West Midlands County to broadcast such an event to the public in this way.”
Phil Bateman
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