Mayor of High Wycombe, Cllr Mohammed Hanif, wishes the town's residents a Merry Christmas as he looks back at his first six months in the ceremonial role:

I cannot express in words how delighted and honoured I am to be the mayor of this beautiful town. It has been an exciting, interesting and challenging journey over the last six months of my mayoralty. I have met so many different people, who make things happen through their resourcefulness and dedications. The voluntary sector has been an eye-opener and a learning experience for me.

I had the opportunities to take part in civic events, visit schools to hand out achievement awards and assess technology projects, opening of new businesses and visit numerous other community events. I was greatly honoured to launch the Poppy Appeal and lead the Remembrance Parade. These events reminds us of the bravery and sacrifices made by our war heroes for the freedom of our future generations.

On top of that I took part in fundraising events for my two charities, Rennie Grove Hospice Care and One Can Hope. I am very fortunate to have very dedicated colleagues in my appeal committee. They have so far held events such as, Awaaz Radio charity appeal, family fun-day, bowling evening, quiz night, street collection, curry nights, charity car wash session at fire station, Castlefield School carol sessions at Asda and Marks & Spencer and Festival of Carols at All Saints Church. They plan to hold Burns night, football tournament, volleyball tournament, karaoke evening, and mayor’s ball, to name a few, in the coming months. To date we have collected just under £6,000 and I am very grateful to my appeal committee for their hard work and dedication with fund raising events.

Mayor’s office was contacted by William Blackden a resident whose great, great, great grandfather was the Mayor of High Wycombe in 1697-8. The family were down-sizing and wanted to donate the portrait of Benjamin Blackden to the Parlour.

We received the portrait which is now on display in the Parlour. I invited the last 10 year’s mayors to make this a special event and I’m very proud that it happened during my mayoral year.

I feel that we live in a very diverse society and we have much to learn from others cultures. So I chose to work towards the theme of ‘One Community’ improvement of social cohesion and understanding within the town of High Wycombe.

Marking the 30th anniversary of High Wycombe’s twinning with Kelkheim was an important event in my calendar. After some research I realised that the twinning movement, however, really took off in the late 1940s with the strong support of civic leaders and communities in the ardent belief that such links had a major role to play in a peaceful Europe bound by ties of friendship. During the end of August this year it was great to visit Kelkheim and share the happy town twinning memories from the last 30 years. The colleagues there were very friendly and accommodating and I’m very grateful for their kindness.

Both Mayoress and I are grateful to my chaplain Hugh Ellis and the rest of the team at All Saints. Our Festival of Carols at All Saints was very successful and thanks to the over 150 performers who made that possible. They had all given their time voluntarily for the love of music and to make the Festival of Carols so special. This year’s performance had participants of all ages and they really pushed themselves to get the best out of them. We raised just over £1,800 of which we will share with the church and my two charities.

I saw a gap between the mayoral office and young members of the community. So I decided to engage with them through schools and as a result I held ‘junior mayor for a day’ event on November 24 where four children from different primary schools took part. This initiative was so successful that I have decided to conduct another three sessions before my mayoralty ends in May 2016. The support I received from schools, parents and office has been tremendous. This will be my legacy and I hope it will continue in the coming years.

I have taken another initiative of inviting twenty voluntary organisations to the Mayors Parlour to thank them for their efforts and services to the local community. This event will be held on 22nd January at 5.30 pm.

I have so far attended over 200 engagements. I have kept my feet on the ground, avoided unnecessary controversies and tried to maintain the integrity of the mayoral office. I am looking forward to my next five months with great enthusiasm and anticipation.

I want to thank Town Clerk, Mayor’s Secretary for their help and Bucks Free Press for publicising my engagements.

As the Mayor of High Wycombe I want to take this opportunity to send my warmest seasonal greeting to all the residents of High Wycombe.