In May 2023 I was honoured to be elected by the Council to serve as the 479th Mayor of the City and District of St Albans. My partner, Annie, became the Mayoress.
It’s a ceremonial rather than executive Mayoralty. So, yes, I did occasionally appear in bright red robes and was offered use of a rather dated bicorn hat - think Nelson! The gold chain appeared on special occasions. For day to day events, I wore the unostentatious working chain. We were greatly aided by our Deputy Mayor, Josie, and her husband Consort, Rhys, whose children, Seren and Dylan, played an important part with our intergenerational mayoral team.
The City and District comprises St Albans, Harpenden and a number of villages. Mayors usually have themes for their year in office more often than not linked to a local charity.
We chose intergenerational initiatives linking my experience as a teacher for the first half of my career and Annie’s as a Care Policy expert and social worker for older people, as a way to address the increasing levels of loneliness and isolation since the pandemic. Our chosen charity was the St Albans Fund for the Future. It makes multi year grants to groups working with vulnerable and isolated groups and we added an Intergenerational line within the grants criteria.
With a history approaching 500 years, the Mayoralty is strongly embedded in our local community. Whilst our Mayor has neither executive authority nor budget the role offers a potentially influential platform.
Our starting point was to work informally with a friend and expert in Intergenerational practice and invite representatives from organisations across our City and District who we thought would be interested in our theme to tell us what they were already doing that links the generations.
We produced a booklet outlining our aims with the theme 'All Ages Together: connecting our communities to tackle loneliness and isolation.' The booklet, also disseminated online, provided some simple non-prescriptive guiding principles for effective intergenerational connections and activities: inclusivity, choice, respect, creative, togetherness and mutual learning. Essentially, we were setting out a case and a challenge to community groups to understand the scope and power of intergenerational activities, and initiate new projects they wouldn’t otherwise have considered. We also set out to showcase what we found during the year at a Mayor’s Community Gala to celebrate our community and absorbed our discoveries.
What did we do? Some organisations, already underway with their own intergenerational activities, invited us to visit them. But we also proactively reached out. We wrote to every school and care home offering to visit to spread the word. Our intention was to highlight and appreciate their efforts. Some examples:
We heard that Skyswood Primary School already had an intergenerational Sunday planned. We attended, enjoyed the exuberant fun filled atmosphere, joined in a host of activities and met 4 year old pupils and, Mim, a 105 year old local resident and all ages in between.
Care homes welcomed us with open arms, not used to Mayors inviting themselves. These visits were very special. We learned that some had established pre pandemic links with local schools and nurseries and now felt encouraged to renew those connections. The Orchard was one, where towards the end of our year, art students from nearby Samuel Ryder Academy visited and painted residents' portraits chatting as they worked. Thanks to sponsorship support from a local business and the inspirational enthusiasm of the Anna Chaplaincy, one of whom acted as a broker (our stand out champion!) linking the school and care home, and producing a lovely booklet of portraits.
Leanna's Wish is a vibrant community group in the Sopwell area of St Albans. Every week they hold community coffee mornings for all ages as well as organising activity afternoons for local young people who would otherwise be at a loose end.
At the 300+ engagements we attended there were an enormous number of speaking slots! We never missed an opportunity to promote our theme and offer encouragement to a host of organisations including Talking Newspapers, St Albans Chamber of Commerce, Wheathampstead Community Group, London Colney Local History Group, Harpenden Intergenerational Choir, Redbourn in Bloom and many others.
The Mayor’s Civic Service in our Cathedral was designed around the theme. In February the Mayor's Pride Annual Awards included one that recognised a commitment to intergenerational activities. Our Community Gala, on a perfect Summer’s evening, attended by over 200 guests, was a resounding success! We used performance, exhibitions and a film in a specially decorated room reflecting the vibrancy, colour and inclusivity of our theme.
At a time when public funding is so tightly constrained and negativity not far from the surface, an active Mayoralty can play a crucial part in strengthening community bonds and, crucially, offering invaluable recognition and appreciation both to voluntary groups and to the public and private sectors. We found that having a specific vision which struck a chord, was easy to understand and essentially positive, helped give our Mayoralty a purpose and direction. It was an extremely enriching and rewarding year for us both.
Anthony Rowlands and Annie Stevenson