'Resilience' is the key theme for the new Mayor of Warwick as her mayoral year gets underway.

Cllr Jackie D'Arcy was confirmed Mayor of Warwick at Warwick Town Council's annual meeting on 22 May 2025 and has already hit the ground running, attending a number of community and civic events.

In explaining the importance of her theme of resilience, she told Nub News: "The people of Warwick have come through many challenges over the last few years, not just Covid, but economic and personal challenges, and have demonstrated resilience time and time again.

"As a former teacher, I have also experienced how young people struggle with resilience and the ability to bounce back after setbacks and adapt to the challenges they face on a day-to-day basis and learn from those setbacks."

She explained that it was for these reasons she wishes to support charities, organisations and associations which foster resilience and enable individuals, groups and communities to flourish and grow.

Having grown up in South London of Irish ancestry, Cllr D'Arcy moved to Warwickshire in her mid-20s, teaching sociology, politics and criminology at what is now Warwickshire College Group.

Warwick is now "very much" Cllr D'Arcy's home and she has praised the "strong community spirit" and "cohesiveness" in the local community. Speaking on what makes Warwick so special, the new mayor continued: "Warwick has quite a remarkable history and a vibrancy which makes it special.

"I think that history makes the county town unique, but so do the people of Warwick because Warwick is a very diverse community."

Cllr D'Arcy has spent the last year as deputy to the previous Mayor of Warwick, Cllr Dave Skinner, and said she has already enjoyed meeting various groups and individuals in the town as well as taking a huge amount of pride in representing the town. But now stepping up to be Warwick's first citizen, Cllr D'Arcy said it was an "honour and a privilege.

"If you'd spoken to me 10 years ago and said, one day you're going to be Mayor of Warwick, I suppose I would have said 'no, I don't think so'!", the new mayor continued. "So it is an absolute honour and privilege.

"In the short snapshot of time that I am mayor, it is important to be visible and also to take up and champion the causes that support and foster resilience."

She continued: "I think the mayor should be visible, whether they're in chains or robes or not, but they should be visible.

"The mayor should increase awareness and knowledge of what wonderful organisations and associations we have in Warwick to support the citizens of Warwick." To find out more about the Mayor of Warwick, head to the Warwick Town Council website here.