feature: Meet the Mayor
28 May 2008
The new Mayor of Haringey for 2008/9 is Cllr Alan Dobbie. We spoke to him as he started off on his Mayoral year.
It’s second time round for Cllr Dobbie, who served as Mayor in 1995/6 at the tender age of 29, one of the youngest mayors in Haringey’s history.
The year is a constant round of more than 300 visits, openings, prize-givings, ceremonial occasions and fund-raising.
“I am really looking forward to it. It’s a huge honour – and I know what I’m letting myself in for!” says Cllr Dobbie. “I want to celebrate all that’s good about Haringey, east and west, north and south, and I want everyone in the borough to share in the year with me.”
For Cllr Dobbie that means residents but also organisations, businesses bringing jobs and investment to the borough and Haringey institutions such as his beloved Tottenham Hotspur.
“I want to have a fun year, but with a serious side to it as well,” he adds.
He will be raising money during his term of office for the local branch of the charity Different Strokes, which works particularly with younger stroke survivors.
Different Strokes organises regular activities at Wood Green library and White Hart Lane sports centre, offering help and advice as well as health improvement sessions and social events.
Cllr Dobbie also plans to highlight new work on strokes at North Middlesex hospital, where he works as a medical secretary, and possibly organise a conference for politicians, experts, service providers and stroke survivors.
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Cllr Dobbie’s family has lived in Haringey for more than 100 years, and he has lived in Noel Park all his life.
He was born in 1966 in the house that used to belong to Gracie Fields, gifted by her to the NHS, and attended Noel Park school, where his mother went and his grandmother worked as a dinner lady, and Stationers’ Company School. He was first elected to the council in 1990.
His interests include classical and 1940’s music and Egyptology, and he is also a member of the ‘Doctor Who’ fan club.
|back to topContact the mayor
You can contact the Mayor’s Office on 020 8489 2962, fax 020 8881 5218 or email mayors.office@haringey.gov.uk, or write to The Mayor’s Parlour, Civic Centre, High Road, Wood Green, N22 8LE.
Any resident who would like to help with the mayor’s special fund is welcome to get in touch at the same address.
For more information see the Different Strokes website (external link) or call 020 8340 4359.
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