Putting people first (From Bromsgrove Advertiser)

Putting people first

7:42am Sunday 11th May 2008

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Pete Lammas talks to Caroline Spencer, the new chairman of Bromsgrove District Council A TIRELESS and dependably worker with a strong desire to help improve the lives of those living in her local community, Caroline Spencer has added yet another role to her already busy public and personal life.

A district councillor who since 2003 has represented the Slideslow ward in Bromsgrove for the Conservatives, Caroline is the new chairman of Bromsgrove District Council.

“I’m very proud of my home town and feel privileged to be chosen as chairman and to be able to be an ambassador and represent Bromsgrove at various functions during the coming year."

Caroline Spencer, the new chairman of Bromsgrove District Council

Having served as vice-chairman for a year, Caroline was elevated to the prestigious role after a show of hands at last Wednesday's annual meeting of the local authority.

Bromsgrove born and bred, Caroline and her husband John, a retired former Garringtons (UEF) worker, are familiar and popular members of their local community in Aston Fields.

Caroline met her husband-to-be on the top deck of a Midland Red bus as a 14-year-old.

The couple have two daughters and three grandchildren.

Speaking from their delightful, immaculately maintained garden (Caroline's hobby) overlooking the lower part of the famous Lickey Incline, Caroline recalls that she was head girl at her school, Watt Close Secondary Modern.

Later she became a junior secretary in Birmingham and, encouraged by her father, attended night school in Bromsgrove to learn shorthand and typing, skills which have stood her in good stead.

Later she landed a secretarial job at Garringtons and worked her way up to become a director's secretary.

When she left to have her first child she became exasperated to discover that the two or three playgroups in Bromsgrove at that time had long waiting lists.

So, in 1969, she launched her own, St Godwald's, which is still flourishing today.

She has been actively involved with nearby St Godwald's church for many years as a chorister, churchwarden, PCC member, friends' secretary and as a diocesan and deanery synod representative.

Caroline is also organising secretary for the Mid-Worcestershire Conservative Association- a job which, because of her council duties, she now does part-time.

As election agent she has masterminded MP Peter Luff's three general election victories.

Caroline has been a member of Finstall Parish Council since its inception in the early 1990s and also had a spell on the district council's executive cabinet before becoming vice chairman of the council.

I put it to her that her involvement in politics, unlike some who see public life as a way to boost their power and inflate their egos, is a means to an end - that being to strive to improve the lives of those living around her.

"I agree," she says. "I'm very proud of my home town and feel privileged to be chosen as chairman and to be able to be an ambassador and represent Bromsgrove at various functions during the coming year.

"Politics obviously is an important part of my life, but so is serving my community - something I have always attempted to do. People come first," she added.

Typically she has chosen the Friends of the Princess of Wales Community Hospital as one of the charities she will support during her term as chairman.

"They do invaluable work providing comforts, equipment and other essentials not always provided by the NHS for patients' well-being," she said.

Her other choice is Marie Curie Cancer Care. The vital work undertaken by the 19 nurses who tend terminally ill patients throughout the county day and night was brought home to Caroline last year with the sad death of her good friend and fellow worshipper at St Godwald's Tony Shaw.

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