I thought it would be interesting for residents to read how the process works for electing a Mayor or Mayoress in Haslemere.
Here is an explanation sent by the Town Clerk, Lisa O’Sullivan, to all Haslemere town councillors.
From: “Lisa O’Sullivan” <town.clerk@haslemeretc.org>
Date: 14 May 2019 at 10:17:26 am BST
To: All Town Councillors
Cc: <deputy.clerk@haslemeretc.org>, <admin@haslemeretc.org>
Subject: Thursday night’s meeting – process
Good morning,
I had a couple of questions last night after the meeting about the process for the election of Mayor on Thursday. Apologies, that is something I could have covered last night for those of you not familiar with how it works.
Thursday’s meeting is known as ‘Mayor Making’. It is a standard Council meeting, open to the public, with the exception that in May, the first order of business is to elect the Mayor for the coming civic year.
Process as follows:
Incumbent Mayor opens the meeting. First items on the Agenda are election of Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
Incumbent Mayor asks for nominations for Mayor.
Each nomination must have a proposer and seconder.
Traditionally the proposer spends a couple of minutes describing why they think that their nominee is the person for the job. The seconder is not required to say anything other than seconding the nomination.
At this stage a councillor may ask a question of the nominee or proposer.
The incumbent Mayor will then ask if there are any other nominations. If there are, this process continues until there are no further nominations.
If there is more than one nomination, the incumbent Mayor will ask for a show of hands for each candidate in the order that they were nominated. The new Mayor will be elected by a simple majority of those present and voting.
Once elected the outgoing Mayor places chain on the New Mayor. The new Mayor takes Mayor’s seat and is required to make the Declaration of Acceptance of Office followed by a short thank you speech.
There is a short presentation where the outgoing Mayor and Mayoress / consort are thanked for their service.
The new Mayoress / consort is presented with their badge.
Mayor then presides over the election of deputy Mayor – nomination and voting process as for Mayor.
Meeting continues as usual.
There will be a short drinks reception in the Council Chamber after the meeting ends to which you are all invited.
Any questions please get in touch.
Kind regards,
Lisa
Lisa O’Sullivan
Town Clerk
Haslemere Town Council