Tuesday, June 12, 2007
LAP-winging it.
Last night was the planning meeting for the future of Local Area Partnerships (the new Area Boards). Lots of governance issues were discussed, including membership and the types of things that might be priorities for the year ahead. If you're involved in a local community group in Prestwich, watch out for publicity in the coming days and weeks about how you can become involved.
The agenda for last night's meeting was very much to do with the agendas for future ones, and didn't have much in the way of exciting news on it. That, coupled with oppressive heat and us being squeezed around a table meant that it wasn't easy to rouse a great deal of vigorous enthusiasm for many of the more dry items up for discussion. Thankfully though we did make progress and din't get bogged down in the types of minutiae that are liable to send me off to sleep on an evening like that.
One thing that did become clear though is that the new prposals for LAPs aren't at all as clear as they need to be. Exactly who is going to make up the membership? What monies will we have control over, and where are they coming from? And what are the types of things we can expect the Council to provide practical help with? All of these things still need clarifying before we can really get going. And it's important to hit the ground running if we're to make the most of the new LAPs.
The next LAP (the first real one) will be in mid-July, at a venue to be confirmed. So look out for publicity if you want to come along. The public open forum element has been retained, and this is very important.
And it's still oppressively hot today - it needs to tip it down I think! It's very sticky and not at all nice to be in a shirt and tie inside! But I must get back to work...
Rick
The agenda for last night's meeting was very much to do with the agendas for future ones, and didn't have much in the way of exciting news on it. That, coupled with oppressive heat and us being squeezed around a table meant that it wasn't easy to rouse a great deal of vigorous enthusiasm for many of the more dry items up for discussion. Thankfully though we did make progress and din't get bogged down in the types of minutiae that are liable to send me off to sleep on an evening like that.
One thing that did become clear though is that the new prposals for LAPs aren't at all as clear as they need to be. Exactly who is going to make up the membership? What monies will we have control over, and where are they coming from? And what are the types of things we can expect the Council to provide practical help with? All of these things still need clarifying before we can really get going. And it's important to hit the ground running if we're to make the most of the new LAPs.
The next LAP (the first real one) will be in mid-July, at a venue to be confirmed. So look out for publicity if you want to come along. The public open forum element has been retained, and this is very important.
And it's still oppressively hot today - it needs to tip it down I think! It's very sticky and not at all nice to be in a shirt and tie inside! But I must get back to work...
Rick
# posted by Richard Baum @ 13:31 
