MASTER OF THE GILD - MR T. GIBSON
(GILD YEAR – AGM July 2008 - AGM June
2009)
Inaugural speech of Tom Gibson.
My Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor, fellow Freemen, ladies
and gentlemen.
First of all, may I offer my thanks to Colin for his sterling
work as Master in the past year. Every Master builds a path
for those that follow. I hope I can follow the path you have
laid Colin. You and Emma will certainly be a hard act to
follow.
Donna and I are looking forward with a mixture of awe and
excitement to the year ahead. It is both a great responsibility
and privilege becoming Master of this Gild and we are grateful
for the faith placed in us to represent our Gild both in
this fair City and elsewhere. We relish the challenge and
hope to greet as many of you as possible during this year's
events. We promise to try our best and so I hope we can build
on the successes of the last year and provide an equally
varied and lively events calendar.
My background includes working within my local community
to improve the lives of residents. The only fruitful way
work could progress was by listening to the residents and
working alongside them for their benefit. This holds
true for our Gild too. We are a large community with
a court which exists to serve the members and to enable the
activities of the Gild on behalf of the members. Therefore
I urge all members both to come forward with any ideas or
maybe help at an event or two. Both would be splendid!
To the court I say it is vital we listen to our members or
we shall soon lose our way as a Gild. As with any
community we have valued traditions and the freedom itself
is, after all, born within the traditions of this great
and noble City. The Gild is, however, constantly changing.
We must not opt for cheap short-term failed frenetic revolution,
but rather opt for that very English, well-considered,
gentle and discreet evolution of the type whose impact
often only becomes evident when looking back.
Whilst our roots are justly steeped in tradition, we must
remain relevant to the present day. We need to nurture this
subtle evolution to remain relevant in the future. To quote
a great American President, Franklin Roosevelt, “We
have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” That was
from his inauguration speech too! Fear will see us stagnate
so let us be Roosevelt-esque in our optimism and approach.
Let us nurture our traditions as they nurtured us and we
shall grow together and continue the progress of the gild,
court and members together in harmony.
As is traditional I have chosen a charity to support this
year. It is a special organisation to me and I have supported
it all my life. It was known as the National Children’s
Home and now it is called simply N.C.H. This is the charity
which was responsible for my adoption so I am very proud
to be supporting this charity this year. Their work is a
vital part of children's and family welfare in the whole
country and they have a number of projects in Yorkshire.
Our first event for this charity will be appropriately on
Yorkshire day, the first of August, when we shall be holding
a charity concert jointly with the Company of Cordwainer’s.
I encourage you all to come to what promises to be a fantastic
evening. Following that, please keep an eye on the press
during September when NCH have invited me to be a “Bod
in a Pod” for them, whatever that is!
Finally my heartfelt thanks to you all for attending tonight
and I hope we shall see you and also hear from you during
the year.
Thank You.
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