Gild of Freemen of the City of York

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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