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> Photography and Filming in Council Meetings, The Local Audit and Accountability Bill
Simon Kirby
post Feb 14 2014, 01:53 PM
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QUOTE (blackdog @ Feb 14 2014, 01:31 PM) *
Working group meetings are not advertised on the website - any reason why not? Especially as these are where Joe Public can have the most involvement.

Or am I just incompetent at finding them?

You have no right of access to working groups or other meetings like the allotment stewards meetings, and in general you're not welcome. The council strictly control their public engagement and it has to be entirely on the council's terms with the council tightly controlling discussion and of course controlling the minutes so whatever happens the meeting appears to have said whatever the council wants it to have said.


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Ruwan Uduwerage-...
post Feb 14 2014, 07:21 PM
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QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ Feb 14 2014, 01:53 PM) *
You have no right of access to working groups or other meetings like the allotment stewards meetings, and in general you're not welcome. The council strictly control their public engagement and it has to be entirely on the council's terms with the council tightly controlling discussion and of course controlling the minutes so whatever happens the meeting appears to have said whatever the council wants it to have said.



Simon,

Come on give me a break. Am I likely to block members of the public to any meetings that I hold?

As for
QUOTE
Working group meetings are not advertised on the website
I will chase this up. I know of no reason why Working Groups could not be advertised this way, so I will ask and come back to you all.

Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Newbury Town Council - Councillor for Victoria Ward & Deputy Leader
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Simon Kirby
post Feb 14 2014, 08:34 PM
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QUOTE (Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera @ Feb 14 2014, 07:21 PM) *
Come on give me a break. Am I likely to block members of the public to any meetings that I hold?

This isn't about you. There are difficult problems at the town council that need to be addressed - it needs that warts-and-all review that you talked about, like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in SA. That's maybe what your public engagement working group could recommend, but the catch 22 is that the only people who will engage with such a group are either already emancipated and enfranchised, or else they're paid-up self-serving establishment apologists, and either way no one will want to challenge the council.


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Simon Kirby
post Feb 14 2014, 09:07 PM
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QUOTE (Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera @ Feb 14 2014, 07:21 PM) *
Come on give me a break.

Just coming back on the stewards meeting - allotmenteers are not allowed to attend. You'd think they'd be allowed really, as it is their allotments that are being discussed, and you'd think they'd be welcome to come and put questions and suggestions to the meeting and express their hopes and aspirations, even if just through their elected associations, but actually no, the stewards are the only contact between the allotmenteers and the council. That's pretty odd of course when the council, few of whom know anything about allotmenteering, make changes like banning unaccompanied children, and of course the rabidly contentious enforcement of the "locking the gate" rule, all without ever asking their service users what they'd actually like from their service. It makes the role of steward a particularly influential one, and a generous perk is that stewards also get their plots free, but it does mean that there's nothing in it for the steward to bring any criticism to the council, and without allotmenteers themselves attending there simply isn't any way for the allotmenteers to engage with their service provider. Yes, there have been a couple of tenant's meetings, but miserable screwed-down affairs they are. I remember the first one I went to, must have been around '99 - I asked about being allowed to do some hedge laying, and I remember very well the imperious comment from some old fart of a councillor (I can't remember which exactly, as there were quite a few like that) about not letting any old tom, **** or harry loose on the hedge. I was as deferential as the next man in those days, but that insulting experience in the imposing and frankly intimidating town hall left a lasting experience on me, and I have to say every single encounter with the council has been as bad or worse. I don't know if it's just Newbury, but your town council really is the most arrogant, dismissive, self-serving, defensive, ineffectual, inept, discourteous, vindictive, dysfunctional organisation one could ever hope to encounter.

Anywhoo, I laid the hedge, and a fantastic job I did of it too, binding the stakes and everything. It cost me £50 for the root stock that I gapped up with, but I was happy to pay. A couple of years later you hacked it down - the only bit of hedge on the whole site that you touched - under some pretext of a neighbour having complained about the view. Pure vindictiveness.


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Cognosco
post Feb 14 2014, 09:20 PM
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QUOTE (Simon Kirby @ Feb 14 2014, 09:07 PM) *
Just coming back on the stewards meeting - allotmenteers are not allowed to attend. You'd think they'd be allowed really, as it is their allotments that are being discussed, and you'd think they'd be welcome to come and put questions and suggestions to the meeting and express their hopes and aspirations, even if just through their elected associations, but actually no, the stewards are the only contact between the allotmenteers and the council. That's pretty odd of course when the council, few of whom know anything about allotmenteering, make changes like banning unaccompanied children, and of course the rabidly contentious enforcement of the "locking the gate" rule, all without ever asking their service users what they'd actually like from their service. It makes the role of steward a particularly influential one, and a generous perk is that stewards also get their plots free, but it does mean that there's nothing in it for the steward to bring any criticism to the council, and without allotmenteers themselves attending there simply isn't any way for the allotmenteers to engage with their service provider. Yes, there have been a couple of tenant's meetings, but miserable screwed-down affairs they are. I remember the first one I went to, must have been around '99 - I asked about being allowed to do some hedge laying, and I remember very well the imperious comment from some old fart of a councillor (I can't remember which exactly, as there were quite a few like that) about not letting any old tom, **** or harry loose on the hedge. I was as deferential as the next man in those days, but that insulting experience in the imposing and frankly intimidating town hall left a lasting experience on me, and I have to say every single encounter with the council has been as bad or worse. I don't know if it's just Newbury, but your town council really is the most arrogant, dismissive, self-serving, defensive, ineffectual, inept, discourteous, vindictive, dysfunctional organisation one could ever hope to encounter.

Anywhoo, I laid the hedge, and a fantastic job I did of it too, binding the stakes and everything. It cost me £50 for the root stock that I gapped up with, but I was happy to pay. A couple of years later you hacked it down - the only bit of hedge on the whole site that you touched - under some pretext of a neighbour having complained about the view. Pure vindictiveness.


Yes the old do I say syndrome or else. I know that very well it seems as though NTC hold the gold medal for this. rolleyes.gif
The old Dannyboy & User tactic of disagree because someone else has suggested it and not them! tongue.gif


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Cognosco
post Apr 6 2014, 02:03 PM
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QUOTE (Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera @ Feb 9 2014, 08:19 PM) *
I fully support the sentiments, but we live in a society that rightly requires evidence and someone to take responsibility for their words and deeds, and although I am willing to participate in the Forum, the questions posed can only inform my actions, not dictate them for they are generally made by 'faceless' people who do not corroborate what they have said with evidence.

As with any official body, for the Council to take action it requires the applicant to at least send in a formal letter of concern/complaint. This may appear bureaucratic but to someone such as myself who has been involved in the criminal justice system for all of my adult life, it seems eminently sensible.

As for travelling to the Town Hall, we are talking about the residents of Newbury are we not? Newbury is not exactly huge, and the Town Hall is in the centre. Now if you had said that it was disproportionately expensive to park ones car in order to get to the Town Hall, I would agree as I seem to pay a vast amount weekly merely to attend or undertake Council business.

Of course an alternative method would be for Public and Forum members to make official complaints directly to Ward Councillors, but even then, for the complaint to be processed it would have to come from a named person, unless of course it was of a criminal nature, then really people should go straight to the police.

You have though posed a rather good question about posing questions in the post-Streaming period about whether someone need to be physically present in the Chamber to ask a supplementary question to one presented either orally or by way of a letter/email? I will seek further guidance on this one.

Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Newbury Town Council - Councillor for Victoria Ward & Deputy Leader


Have there been any discussions yet regarding seeking further guidance?


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Nothing Much
post Apr 7 2014, 04:52 PM
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This is not really connected with NTC and machinations over Parkway.
It is not a council meeting or working group.
It is a clip from a newly launched local TV station.
The first of many, and yes Mustard Video is at the heart of it. Norfolk.

It is a story of a misjudged contract to stick an incinerator in an area of less than outstanding beauty.

The politics is an annoyance,but I just have to pay my tax.

As a new project I thought the video might interest folk on the localism bit.
http://www.mustardtv.co.uk/browse/the-end-...tract-scrapped/
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