THE new Mayor of Redditch has extended an invitation to residents across the entire borough to join her for tea and cake at the Town Hall.
Councillor Juliet Brunner’s ‘Equality Tea Party’ is to mark the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the Peoples Act of 1918 when some women finally won the vote.
However both men and women and all ages are invited to the party on June 16 from 11am to 1pm.
“It will be a bring and share event and if they can bring cakes that would be wonderful and I’ll be baking some myself,” said Coun Brunner, who received her chain of office on Monday evening.
“I was very mindful on Monday that, a century ago, I would not have been able to sit on a dais at the Town Hall, not only as a woman but as a politician or a mayor, so I decided it would be fitting to hold an Equality Tea Party,” she said.
The Mayor is a keen baker and is hoping to once again join Coun Joe Baker in hosting a ‘Great Redditch Bake Off’ later in the year.
Also in the pipeline in an ‘Equalities Party’ in Arrow Valley Park later in June.
The Mayor said she is also keen to make people feel proud of their town.
“I want to see a sense of civic pride in our town and its achievements and I would also like to see The Mercian Regiment parade through the town, our Mercian Square, to mark 100 years of the Armistice,” she said.
She has also broken with tradition by having not one but several consorts, including her daughter Arlene as well as her husband Mark.
Her chosen charities for the year are the Royal British Legion, the Sandycroft Centre in Mount Pleasant and Bowel Cancer UK.
“My dad died of bowel cancer and it’s a horrible, horrible disease. If we could find a cure it would be utterly fantastic.”
Coun Brunner is the former leader of the borough’s Conservative Group surprisingly ousted after leading them to victory in the local elections earlier this month.
A mother of three who received her early education in Australia, she is a great lover of the colour pink, and hers should prove a flamboyant term of office.
Anyone can contact the Mayor via email at [email protected], by phone on 07990 733054, or by writing to Councillor Juliet Brunner, Mayor of Redditch, c/o Town Hall, Walter Stranz Square, Redditch, B98 8AH.
