For their year of office, the Mayor of Bury chooses a small number of charities which they intend to support during their year of office. This year, the Mayor Cllr Dorothy Gunther and her Consort Michael Gunther, have adopted Bury Hospice, Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Bleakholt Animal Sanctuary as the main beneficiaries of the Mayoral Charity Appeal. Throughout the mayoral year fundraising events are held and all the proceeds from these occasions will be donated to the charitable causes. I hope that everyone will agree that they are three very worthy causes, and are very appropriate for Freemasons to support.
As with every good cause that is provided with financial support by the ELMC, there is an ambition to have some publicity given to the ELMC in recognition of the donation. Often, this is can be done by putting a sign on the item to say, for example, donated by the ELMC. It is far more difficult to provide recognition in respect of the Mayoral Charity Appeal, but there is to be an alternative. The main entrance to the Town Hall is to be re-vamped, and the photo shows an artist’s impression of the south wall of the main entrance as guests ascend the main staircase. Each year, there will be “shields” put on the ribbons showing the charities for that year, together with people and organisations which are the major donors for each year. The ELMC will be one of the major donors and the ELMC shield will be on permanent display on one of the “ribbons” on the right side of the display.
District Charity Steward Steve Clark met up with the Mayor, Cllr Gunther, in her parlour at the Town Hall to be able to hand over a cheque for £1,000 from the ELMC which will go towards her fund raising this year.