Cllr Barry Phelps offers some advice based on his experiences as Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea from 2004-5.
Life is an ego trip and there is no better trip than being Mayor of your community. English Mayors, with a few exceptions, are ceremonial and so like Her Majesty the Queen, but unlike the Prime Minister, you enjoy the flattery without the brickbats. While Mayor you can do no wrong with Council Standing Orders always starting "The decision of the Mayor shall be final". I enjoyed the added distinction of being Mayor of one of the only three Royal Boroughs in England. (We have an abundance of Lord Mayors, no less than 23, so they lack rarity value.)
As the ceremonial head of your community you need to act the part. Your residents and business community expect you to look like the Mayor, sound like a Mayor and behave like a Mayor. They do not want you to turn up to their event, if a man, in casual clothes and no tie nor, if a woman, looking as if you have just rushed to them from the school-run via the supermarket. They want their Mayor to turn up in a morning-coat or in a stylish but conventional dress, offsetting the Mayoral gold chain to best effect. A modest degree of pomposity goes down well. Arrival in a large black saloon car with liveried chauffeur-cum-Macebearer completes residents' enjoyment of your presence. Dressing up gives people a photograph with you which they can treasure. Nobody will treasure a photograph of themselves with some bearded-weirdy Mayor wearing jeans, sandals and a "Ban-The-Bomb" T-shirt with the chain-of-office.
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