Charlbury town council

Thu 31 May 2007, 19:24

Thank you Richard!!

Thu 31 May 2007, 10:01

Well, I'd vote for you if I had the opportunity, Susie!

Wed 30 May 2007, 20:24

I'm just an uncontested town councillor - but I would think that as 90% of Charlbury residents who look on the internet for information on Charlbury do so through this website, it makes sense for any information on the Town Council to appear on this website, along with any information regarding councillors etc.

Wed 30 May 2007, 16:33

The town council could set up a blog (for free, e.g. on Google's 'Blogger') with a little initial help, and then the secretary could post minutes and announcements simply by emailing them to the blog. If you look at my evenlodeblogger.blogspot.com/ you'll see how this can work, though there is just the one posting there so far.

On my example, anyone can put up a new review by email, using the link provided, but it is simple to allow just one person (in this case, the secretary to the council) to email stuff in. Everything he puts on will be archived and will be accessible by month and by year. Not a substitute for an all-singing-and-dancing pukka website, but free to set up, free and easy to maintain, and surprisingly flexible.

Most important of all, it's a way of having a website up and running by the weekend, showing minutes, notices and agendas and contacts for councillors, rather than going into great discussions about something that could be budgeted for in a year or two's time!

Go to www.wychwoodpress.co.uk to see a catalogue of books created using a blog template. Or at www.evenlodebooks.co.uk you will see a website based on a blog, but with no blog! All for free, and I don't have any website software or know-how. Better than nothing.

Wed 30 May 2007, 12:07

I'm not sure if "keep voting" is quite right - the Town Council has been uncontested in recent years, if I remember rightly!

There is a bit of a back-story to the town council website (or lack thereof).

There was once a Town Council site, way back when Ray Marshall ran the Charlbury website. When Ray left Charlbury, the website became disused.

A good few years ago, the Town Council asked me along to a meeting to discuss reviving a website. I don't have the exact minutes, but from memory, they wanted me to build them a website separate from the main Charlbury site - they were not keen to have their content hosted here - and were also a little dubious about the prospect of updating it themselves.

I did offer to have a go at building one but, sadly, haven't had the time. As this is now several years on it would be worth the town council investigating other options.

In the meantime, the Charlbury Website has expanded greatly and the community pages (which didn't exist then) would be an excellent solution, if only for the short term. I am certainly happy to consider adding more functionality to the community pages (for the benefit of everyone who uses them) if that were considered necessary. The big advantage of putting something here, rather than on a separate site, is that people already use the Charlbury Website - and if communication is to be seen as "getting the message to the people" rather than "putting the message out there in the hope someone will read it", that's got to be good.

One other possibility is www.wospweb.com, a WODC project which provides a free content management system for community groups. For what it's worth, I personally disapprove of wospweb pretty strongly: partly because I think it's trying to supplant local websites (like this one) and local web designers - of whom there are several in Charlbury; and partly because I spent two years at British Waterways trying to stop them wasting millions of taxpayers' money on a really terrible third party-built website. To me, wospweb seems similar, though on a smaller scale. (The Chipping Norton Town Partnership site is another example of this, but I'd suggest you peruse www.chippingnorton.net if you want to know more about that!) But given that wospweb is there, there's no reason not to use it, I guess: and indeed this is what the Chipping Norton Town Council do.

We do have some web-savvy councillors - some post here - and it would not seem unreasonable for them, or Roger, to update any site on an ongoing basis.

It's worth pointing out that the Town Council has been generally supportive of the Charlbury Website and did once offer a grant of £500 towards it. I chose not to take this up as I felt this would be too much of an obligation, both in terms of results and (more seriously) in accountability. I am very conscious that I've not built them a site, which I'd like to have done if I had too more time, so I would not personally attribute any blame to them for this.

Wed 30 May 2007, 11:31

I'd support this. You could also email the town clerk, Roger Clarke, at charlburytc@btinternet.com to urge him on. You can't email the chairman because he's not on email. Nor possibly are a lot of the councillors. Democratic participation is a real hassle for the powers that be. Still, you Charlbury residents keep voting for them, so they are obviously doing the right thing: obvious, isn't it? I'm just an outsider from Finstock, smug as can be.

Wed 30 May 2007, 10:26

I have always been deeply suspicious of those secret meetings held every Wednesday evening in the corner house. Last I heard this was attended by Lord Lucan, Lee Harvey-Oswald and Shergar. Or you could look at pages 34 and 35 of the Charlbury Chronicle, which I believe is also availble online.

Tue 29 May 2007, 14:11

Why is it that our elected town council has no presence on this website? Chippy has a full website devoted to town council activities, even Enstone puts the minutes of the parish council and details of membership on its website.Other bodies in Charlbury such as the Gifford Trust and the Cornerhouse committee put their stuff on. Why is the town council afraid of transparency?
Anyone join me in proposing that the Council should put the following on immediately:
-contact details including email address for Clerk
-names and contact details for all Councillors
-minutes
-annual report
Councillors make great play that Charlbury is governed by a Town Council. Currently it has less presence or awareness of its activities that most local parish councils.