14th January 2021
Meaningful engagement with the community by our Council is one of this Association’s goals.
WILL YOU HELP DEVELOP THE NEW COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT POLICY ?
Bass Coast Shire Council released their Draft Community Engagement Policy 2021 and want us to consider this draft and provide Council with feedback. A copy of the policy can be obtained from Council’s website https://www.basscoast.vic.gov.au/about-council/strategies-and-policies/draft-community-engagement-policy where you can also submit your feedback.
Having reviewed this draft, BCRRA considers that significant changes are required to render this policy into a meaningful document that the community can trust and understand. Our submission has been compiled and sent to Council. If you wish, you can download and read a copy of it – click here
This policy which will set the standards for how Council engages with us for the next five years, providing the means for us to have input into how Council spends our money. Please take this final opportunity to provide your direct feedback to Council on how engagement should be conducted in Bass Coast in future.
All feedback must be given to Council by Sunday 17th January 2021.
LIVE STREAMING TO CONTINUE
This Association has been asking Council to live stream their meetings for many years, but our requests have been resisted. Finally, with the restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic, livestreaming became a requirement. Following a six month “trial period” Council unanimously endorsed the continued livestreaming of Council Meetings (using free voice-to-text closed captions) from this meeting forward.
It has been an interesting process to see how some Councillor’s opinions have changed over time, from initial resistance, through guarded acceptance and now unqualified support as they can see how many people actually take advantage of this.
On average, each livestream of Ordinary Council meetings attracted 46 viewers, while on average approximately 118 viewed each stream once published. That’s far more than ever used to physically attend meetings!