Thursday 8^TH March 2007 -- at PSJ, Beacon Hall, small Lounge Meeting Room

R.W.G.Butt, Chair, Peasedown St.John Village Plan Committee (RWGB)

Kathy Thomas Vice-Chair, + ‘Open spaces, footpaths, Flora & Fauna, Environment’ (KMT)

P.R.Provest, Secretary, + ‘Transport’ (PRP)

Jonathan Rich ‘Safety, Security, Policing and Security Lighting’ (JPR)

Ross Thompson ‘Special responsibility for Public Consultation and Questionnaires’ (RRT)

Nathan Hartley ‘Faith’ (NLRH)

Terry Nicholls, ‘Social Facilities’ and Peasedown Opportunities Project (T_N)

Guy Matthews monitor of finances, Village Plan project (G_M)

Alan Shamp representing DUNKERTON Village Plan project (AJS)

Josephine Stockley general advisor (J_S)

Bridie Marshall ‘Youth, etc’ (BFM)

Michael Gregory ‘Sport’, etc’ also C.S.A.G (MJG)

Ruth Grant advisor on health / social aspects (R_G)

Derek Kennedy advisor on available public meeting facilities (DJTK) [ see Note** ]

Colin Rich ‘Education’ (C_R)

Gail Coleshill B&NES Councillor for Peasedown St.John (GMC) [ see Note**** ]

John S.Bolwell representing Parish Council interests (JSB)

However RWGB apologised that on 15^th February he had failed to record an Apology for Absence he had received from Guy Matthews for that evening. ‘Apologies for Absence’ list to be amended accordingly. With this amendment the Minutes were signed as a true record.

Terry Nicholls explained although he had not been able to attend 15^th February and had sent Apology accordingly, he had in fact briefed Richard Button to attend our meeting and deputise for him. Most unfortunately family circumstances had intervened at short notice to also prevent Richard Button from attending.

Peter Provest reported an e-mail from Richard Snelling who advises us he is no longer our
link-person with ‘Community Action’. Our new contact is Jacqui Ward. The three members present who had already met Jacqui Ward at the Camerton Village Plan exhibition were very impressed with her involvment. ( see also Minute.11 re social event for V.Plan committees )

Neither Bob Butt nor our ‘finance monitor’ Guy Matthews had any updated information on the progress of the application. RWGB confirmed that our responses to two ‘layers’ of questions asked of us after making our application would appear to have been accepted satisfactorily.

Bob Butt said it was necessary, following earlier ‘slippages’, to return to the theme of ensuring the current date revisions of overall timescale was not further eroded. At previous meeting we had re-targetted an end-completion date of October 2007 ----at very worst this must be held from any further slippage beyond end of 2007. At this end of the timescale we now had

Ross Thompson’s programme for distributed consultation within Groups, as a precursor to

wider questionnaire. Some members of this Group would be deflected to other local activities in the near future, hence decision not to hold a meeting in April. However work now set should progress without an intermediate review to enable results to be tabled at our May meeting.

From May, Topic Leaders should start to be in a position to write-up their future projections for the Plan based on emerging consultation results, though RWGB stressed there should be no unilateral writings by anyone without due reference back to Steering Group for approval. In this respect we may well need meetings at a greater frequency than monthly over a short period.

The discussion widened to consider the specific relationship of the Plan Steering Group to the Parish Council itself, bearing in mind the May elections might cause a major, theoretically a total, change in cast-list of elected Councillors. It was established there was no prerequisite for the Steering Group to be composed of Councillors, indeed this very meeting tonight had a majority of non-Councillors present. If Councillors currently on the Steering Group were not
re-elected in May there was no reason why they should not continue serving on this Group. RWGB said the important thing for this Group to do of its own initiative, after May election, was to re-affirm existence and purpose for the Plan, and seek approval for a continued role and relationship with the Parish Council as existed now.

Alan Shamp confirmed that in the case of Dunkerton, their Village Plan committee was similarly acting quite independently and separately to their existing Parish Council, but they had retained formal links with their P.C., who also had representation on their Plan committee.

Ross Thompson, as per Action Point at last meeting, had distributed to all members his schedule of "List of organised groups in the parish", To maintain overall timescales as just set by RWGB the list itself needed to be completed tonight and the actions it embraced completed through all nominated contacts by next Steering Group meeting on 10^th May.

RWGB then went through the list section by section and established completion of nominated entries into the right hand column ( "Steering Group contact" ) from members present :

PRP reported that Derek Kennedy had expressed qualms at what he (DJTK) was being asked to do, in particular the timescale required, as RRT’s e-mail was dated 2^nd May with completions listed as being due by tonight 8^th May, this was less than a week and with ten Group Leader entries shown against Beacon Hall, yet several attend less often than weekly !.

RRT apologised that DJTK had read from the list an ambiguous interpretation of what he was asking to be done by tonight, the intention was only a first stage of completing list itself.

RRT offered to telephone DJTK to clarify intentions, agreed useful he should do this. +++RRT

RWGB said the top part of list ( Beacon Hall Users ) did look a little daunting, and he would also discuss with DJTK with the intention of spreading out the contact persons. +++RWGB

RRT had an Action Point at last meeting to follow up with Ruth Grant her kind offer to help with consultation within some of her Groups. RWGB queried whether this offer still stood as he believed Ruith Grant was due to retire in the near future ? RRT said he had contacted
Ruth Grant and she was indeed willing to deal with three Groups for us, and he had pre-printed these into the list.

Kathy Thomas volunteered to deal with the like-minded grouping of "Cubs, Scouts, Brownies, Guides" and was reminded that "Rainbows" needed to be added to this.

The main contact with "Sporting" Groups was clearly Mike Gregory, whose name was already in the second column and should be added to the third column for the sporting entries, and it would in fact be particularly interesting to hear from those involved in the various sports what they might come up with as desirable aims for enhancing sporting opportunities in the village.

The C.S.A.G. was likely to undergo a radical change in the very near future ( an E.G.M. had been called for 20^th March ) due to a Police-led initiative to transform it into a ‘P.A.C.T’ body, though there was some apprehension this could lessen the desirable level of very local control.

Several other detail contact allocations were agreed, including Colin Rich in respect of the PSJ Primary School ( parents and children ) and RRT himself would cover Zebedees.

Nathan Hartley offered to contact Sarah Bevan to ask her to deal with remaining "play" Groups such as "Peasedown Summer Playscheme", and similar, in which she was known to have an interest. SFB might also have an inside track on contact with the Catholics, as NLRH had found difficulty over getting any response from them via his own direct contacts.

Ross Thompson said as some ambiguity had already arisen, he would summarise exactly what was being asked of the "Steering Group Contacts" now allocated into the right-hand column :

• take responsibility to contact the actual leader of the (functional) group(s) concerned
• issue to actual leaders single sheets specifying exact agreed wording of the six questions
  ( can be copied directly from RRT’s recently issued sheets if this is found easiest to do )
• ask leaders to consult within their Groups and produce result sheets by beginning of May
  ( this gives "ample enough time" but guard against "putting to one side as plenty of time")
  ( this is NOT asking the ‘Steering Group Contacts’ to actually conduct the consultations)
• bring completed results to Steering Group meeting Thursday 10^th May.

Queries clarified :

• individual responses can be anonymous ( as per exercises already done )
• make sure the total number in group, that is represented by responses, is specified
• if some persons in a Group functioning within PSJ are not in fact PSJ-resident their views are welcome, but ensure the proportion of these to total within Group is specified.

Several results were already arriving from Groups, and these were reviewed :

Bridie Marshall had sent her contribution results to all members on the Distribution.

This represented canvassing of Youth age 11-17 who were users of Youth Centre plus Youth Parish Council members specifically.

This was considered to be input on exactly the right lines we were expecting.

Bob Butt said the only major channel of further communication would arise during a proposed exercise of "speed-dating" ( not quite usual meaning of phrase but P.Councillors to be open to close-range quizzing by Youth Council members ). The P.Councillors could use the opportunity to quiz the Y.P.C. members back about their input points.

Nathan Hartley had sent his contribution results to all members on the Distribution.

This represented views from Anglican and Methodist church members. He had sent out to 50 and achieved 14 returned responses. This was felt to be an about average response rate.

Difficulty in contacting Catholics already referred to (above). The Christadelphians were being encouraged to participate in Annual Parish Meeting event which would establish better contact with them ready for similar consultation exercise.

Ross Thompson confirmed he was assembling these, and other reports already received,
as part of the summarised consultation inputs.

Peter Provest reported on a communication he had received from Derek Kennedy of the Community Association ( Beacon Hall, etc ). He had spoken to DJTK about it, and the latter was happy for paper copies to be made and tabled at this meeting for a wider discussion.

Some widely ( perhaps wildly ) divergent opinions were raised in the subsequent discussion.

Difficult to summarise satisfactorily, but at the one extreme were those who felt it imperative to continue a large measure of ‘self-help’ and voluntary effort, even though a large majority of the public were indifferent to the positive results obtained. At the other extreme some members opined that where levy payment was already being made for services ( e.g. cleansing, etc ) then the legitimate extent of activity was not to duplicate such services by voluntary efforts but to maintain pressure that the paid-for services were actually provided by the relevant Authority.

The debate was most neatly summarised by Terry Nicholls : although there was considerable sympathy for the views of DJTK and his justifiable frustration that continuing voluntary efforts did not achieve the necessary change of attitude in parents ( nor even in the actions of some offending adults ) this did not diminish the value of pressing on with initiatives such as this Village Plan exercise. There was no particular merit in just "giving up" and abandoning all effort.

One opinion was expressed that introduction of helpers called ‘Play Rangers’ might constructively assist with forming the attitudes and activities of one age range within ‘Youth’.

At January meeting Bob Butt had asked members to now continually review other completed Plans, not with a view to copying but to gain ‘do’ or ‘do not’ pointers in regard to formatting.

We had dissected "Wellow" at the February meeting.

Terry Nicholls said he had now examined the internet web-based Plan of Talaton, Devon.

The main tactical disadvantage of accessing this one was the large size and consequent slow downloading to one’s own computer. Once downloaded it was quite interesting to read, with short text paragraphs and lots of pictures which made it ‘easy’ rather than ‘heavy’ to peruse.

RWGB urged -all- members to keep on reviewing the many completed Plans now available.

Peter Provest said that while auditing in the Parish Office he had been concerned to find that display boards used for the travelling exhibition on PSJ Village Plan were still there.

The boards actually belonged to B&NES, but, even more importantly, had been borrowed as a personal favour from Bridie Marshall and should have been returned to Youth Centre.

PRP asked what had happened to the earlier proposal that Plan should have its own boards ?

RWGB asked how these might be financed ?. PRP suggested they could be funded out of the unspent balance allocated to Plan by PSJ P.C. for Year 2006/7, now drawing to a close.

RWGB said if PRP cared to make a formal Proposal to that effect, and if carried by this meeting, this would act as supporting authorisation for financing the purchase of boards.

Peter Provest then Proposed purchase of appropriate portable display boards, to be used at first for further exhibitions of Village Plan, but also, and subsequent to life of Village Plan,
to revert to use by PSJ Parish Council, e.g. at events such as Annual Parish Meeting.

Jonathan Rich Seconded this Proposal.

Put to the vote and carried unanimously.

RWGB nominated a small working party of Kathy Thomas and Peter Provest to liaise with the Parish Clerk to select and purchase a suitable set of boards from Suppliers approved by P.C.

As already detailed in Minute.8 of 15^th February meeting, Jacqui Ward had proposed an informal get-together of Steering Group Committee members from all Plans, this to be centred around a Skittles Match. To enable Jacqui Ward to organise catering it was now necessary to nail down who exactly was going from PSJ so that she could be sent a total number and names of those --definitely-- attending from here.

Unfortunately the date selected was not suitable for several present ( including our one known player of the game of Skittles ! ) It was assumed that as the main objective was to be able to liaise with other Committees re Plans, some lack of skill in actually playing Skittles would be tolerated. After discussion six names emerged who would definitely ( repeat, definitely )
be able to attend : Bob Butt (RWGB), Jonathan Rich (JPR), Ross Thompson (RRT),

Guy Matthews (G_M), Peter Provest, (PRP), + partner Tini.

These names would now be e-mailed to Jacqui Ward as firm attendees for catering totals.

Alan Shamp said the Dunkerton Village Plan Committee would similarly be attending the event.

RWGB reminded members the originally scheduled meeting for 12^th April was now cancelled, and that some Actions discussed tonight were scheduled to be completed by May meeting.

Thanks were again due to Derek Kennedy for making available tonight’s meeting room accommodation and welcome catering facilities, Much appreciated.