THIS is traditionally a quiet time for engagements because of the timing within the local authority timetable.

After having the Annual Parish Meeting at the end of one council year the last two weeks have seen the beginning of a new year and it starts with the Annual Town meeting.

This is the formal town council meeting which is held every year in which the mayor and chairs of committees are elected by the 15 members of the council. This meeting’s agenda contains mostly “housekeeping” items and is usually fairly short (if you ever fancied coming to a meeting to see what we do this is the one as it generally isn’t too long!).

I was very pleased to have been reelected as Mayor of Chard and also that the rest of the committee chairs stayed the same. This year I am supporting five charities that are all based within Chard and any money I raise during my year as Mayor will be divided equally between the charities and given to them at the Annual Parish Meeting at the end of April next year.

My charities this year will be: Chard Museum, Chard and Crewkerne After Stroke Group, Chard Carers Support Group, Chard Area Youth Committee and Chard Town Team. This is quite a wide ranging group of organisations and I am hoping that everyone will find a cause within this group that they feel they can support.

They are all working within the town to better our community and need our help.

My only engagement was one at St Mary’s Church on Sunday as an honorary member of Chard Rotary Club (an honour bestowed on the incumbent mayor). The service was a “songs of praise”

throughout the church’s year and we enjoyed it very much. It did seem strange to be singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing in June but as the Rev Sue explained, this hymn was written before the Victorians got their hands on Christmas and wrote many of the carols we now consider to be part of Christmas.