TAVISTOCK?S newly elected mayor has promised to make the next 12 months as exciting and productive as possible. ?I?m excited about being mayor ? and I hope to make it an exciting year for everybody else in Tavistock because we deserve it!? she said. The chain of office was handed over at the town council?s annual meeting last week to Cllr Caroline Keane by outgoing mayor Jenny Metcalf. Cllr Keane praised the hard work carried out by Cllr Metcalf in her year as mayor and said the council needed to build on that. ?We need to move Tavistock forward. We have the food festival, Tavistock Sings. We have a lot to be proud of ? but there is no time to rest on our laurels. There is much more we can do. We have a very viable community,? said Cllr Keane. In an interview with the Times she recognised some of her critics saw her as ?way out? because she is an artist. ?But I think we all create and I think we can create change if we want to. It needn?t be threatening or intimidating. Positive progress is a better name than change, I think. ?I cannot make change and I cannot make things stay the same ? but I hope I can influence what happens because people need to be involved in all these processes.? She felt there were other ways members could work as a council more effectively where each person felt valued for their particular contribution. ?Everyone is resistant to change and Tavistock is no different. But maybe by daring to take risks people can make change.? She believes the present success Tavistock is enjoying opens possibilities for even bigger and better things. ?The town is on the edge of creating the difference and is able to be bold. As it is we have the accolade of Best Market Town ? so we can afford to do things. ?It is important that everybody is working together for the good of the community. The surrounding villages need to be supporting Tavistock and we need to support the villages. And it is only by dialogue that we know how to do that.? With tourism as the main income she feels it is important the town finds a way to increase tourism in a way that is not detrimental to what the area is about. Cllr Keane believes it is important that the council work as a team and to enable positive change when that is possible. ?I don?t think there is anything wrong with Tavistock. It is a matter of being careful to maximise what we do best which, in the case of Tavistock Town Council, is the pannier market and the town hall ? which are both doing great guns. ?It is a question of keeping things fresh, and, in order to do that, we need to introduce new ideas ? without new ideas things get stale.? ?Maybe I should hold a town workshop for all business partners and the public. They could come up with ideas they would like to see happen ? and which would contribute to Tavistock being even better than the Best Market Town!?
