St. Michael's and All Angels Academy and strife at the Mayor Making

Yesterday I attended a consultation on the proposed transformation of Archbishop Michael Ramsay C of E Secondary School to an Academy which will be renamed back to it's original name St.Michael's and All Angels, matching the name of the adjacent Church.
The name has been a bit controversial as there is already a St. Michael's Academy but I can confirm that in the Hall where the meeting was held there was a plaque on the wall with the original name so it makes absolute sense to go back to that title.
The meeting was well attended with residents reps, community services and arts providers, church representatives, Community Wardens and the Police . My main point was to keep the consultation process alive throughout the redevelopment and beyong as AMR did not handle this part particularly well during their work in developing a "Communiversity".
It is a really exciting project and we also have the Sacred Heart RC School redevelopment and transfer into an Academy to deal with.
The sponsors are ARK and Toc H charities and I actually visited Talbot House "Toc H" during a visit to World war 1 sites in Eiper (Ypes) Belgium a few years ago.
The story of Toc H can be accessed through the following link: The Story of Toc H
The link below gives more info on the proposal to create the new Academy:
St. Michael's and All Angels Church of England Academy Camberwell


The Mayor Making was a bit farcical with the outgoing Mayor turning up over half an hour late for the Ceremony. There were a large amount of demonstrators outside and we of course nominated Tayo Situ for Mayor as opposed to Bob Skelly. There was even a pathetic attempt to change the order of business and have the Mayor Making ahead of the Honorary Alderman, presumably in the vain attempt to stop us leaving but sense prevailed and the original order was reinstated.Although one Lib Dem did abstain the other Lib Dems who suggested that they may vote for Tayo or abstain were "whipped" back into line and they won the vote by the odd vote! At that point we really had no alternative but to walk out as we could not be hypocritical about the decision and sit there politely so we left and joined the protesters where Tayo and peter spoke to the crowd.
Our protests wil not end there and it will be a difficult year in the Council Chamber!!!