NOTES OF NINTH PROJECT STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING

Thursday 9^th November 2006 -- at PSJ, Beacon Hall, small Lounge Meeting Room

R.W.G.Butt, Chair, ( + a Topic ) Peasedown St.John Village Plan Ctte (RWGB)

P.R.Provest, Secretary, ( + a Topic ) Peasedown St.John Village Plan Ctte (PRP)

Kathy Thomas Topic Leader ‘Open Spaces, Footpaths, Flora & Fauna’ (KMT)

Jonathan Rich Topic Leader Security, Policing, etc’ (JPR)

Terry Nicholls, Peasedown Opportunities Project (T_N)

Nathan Hartley Topic Leader ‘Faith’ (NLRH)

Dave Dixon Local Partnership Co-ordinator, B&NES (D_D)

J.S.Bolwell Councillor, representing Peasedown St.John Parish Council (JSB)

Apologies for Absence received from the following :

Josephine Stockley (former Vice-Chair), adviser to Village Plan Ctte (J_S)

Bridie Marshall Topic Leader ‘Youth’ (BFM)

Ruth Grant permanent in respect of PSJ evening meetings, but supplying advice

Ross Thompson Topic Leader ‘Questionnaires format and Data’ (pan-Topic) (RRT)

Celia M.Jones Topic Leader ‘Consumer Interests (Retail)’ (CMCJ)

Colin Rich Topic Leader ‘Education’

Ruth M.Rich Councillor, representing Peasedown St.John Parish Council (RMR)

Alan Shamp representing Dunkerton Village Plan project (AJS)

J.C.L.Lyddieth a resident ( Braysdown Lane ) (JCLL)

Chairman Bob Butt said now Josephine Stockley had stood down as Vice-Chair, as she could only attend occasional meetings in the vacation periods, he proposed Kathy Thomas as new Vice-Chair in her place. This was seconded by John Bolwell and carried unanimously.

Bridie Marshall was thanked, in her absence, for her excellent co-operation over providing facilities for the mobile Village Plan exhibition. She had promised further help if we needed it.

Ruth Grant, in submitting her apology, had expressed surprise at the proposed industrial site hospital development, and was seeking further information about it. Terry Nicholls said he would be seeing her in the near future and agreed to update her on the proposal. +++

Celia Jones, in submitting her apology, had e-mailed relevant queries regarding the relationship of her ‘Retail’ and RWGB’s ‘Commercial’ interests comprising her Group.

Alan Shamp, in submitting his apology for tonight as representative of Dunkerton’s Village Plan Group, had re-affirmed his village’s renewed interest in maintaining liaison with us and wished to be kept updated with our e-mailings and continued advice of future meetings.

It was noted that two representatives of Camerton’s Village Plan project had similarly been cordially invited to observe our proceedings, though were not here tonight.

All the ‘Residents Groups’ within the village have a standing invitation to contribute to the Village Plan on the same basis as ‘specific subject Topic Groups’. It was recorded that two ‘Hillcrest residents’ representatives, who had been so nominated since the beginning, had now formally submitted a letter of resignation as they were no longer interested in the Village Plan.

Draft Minutes had been fully circulated and -NO- bids for amendment had been received.

Minutes were signed as a true record.

Both the above items were subsumed into specific topics covered below,

The situation remained that there was no obvious candidate to take on the role of Treasurer in succession to Ian McInnes.

Chairman Bob Butt said it was still a disappointment the pre-conditions relating to securing a Community Action grant were not particularly realistic for a village the size and nature of PSJ.

Dave Dixon said there was an alternative route for this type of funding through the ‘Quartet’ organisation, with a known provisional allocation ear-marked for the B&NES area.

He would look out the appropriate application forms for the Group’s consideration. +++

Bob Butt said in practice we did not have any very great ongoing expenditure until we reached the stage of printing/publishing a final report, and the sum already voted from the P.C. was funding current needs for reasonable reprographics costs, etc.

Kathy Thomas reminded Bob Butt he had earlier endorsed the idea of obtaining our own set of display boards so that we did not have to borrow the B&NES set from the Youth Centre.

These would in practice have a far wider usage than just for ‘Village Plan’ displays, as they would be useful for a variety of Parish Council events. Bob Butt said this was still a good idea but not financially feasible for Year 2006/7, it needed to be a bid in the relevant part of the precept so they could be obtained after April 2007. +++

The "two-centre" project had now taken place with exhibitions at the Youth Centre

1400hrs to 1730hrs, ( then stay for public to view on entering C.S.A.G. meeting )
on Tuesday 24^th October, then transferred to Beacon Hall for 1400hrs to 1730hrs
on Thursday 26^th October. The boards were returned ‘home’ to Youth Centre same evening.

The actual effect of the display and usefulness as a consultation exercise was then reviewed in detail. Gross attendances at both events were frankly ‘disappointing’, though there was a
"steady dribble of interested persons" at each event.

There were very few ( three plus seven ) tangible recorded results by members of the public.

Visitors had been given -blank- pieces of A5-size paper on the philosophy that this enabled them to write absolutely anything at all that occurred to them after viewing the exhibition.

This technique had clearly failed, and in discussion it was agreed that people in general felt inhibited about writing on a totally blank piece of paper. Bob Butt suggested that even if a similar piece of paper merely had just two questions on it, e.g. "what do you like about PSJ ?"

plus "what do you dislike about PSJ ?" it might be enough to trigger thoughts a little better.

Unfortunately Ross Thompson was not here tonight to give guidance on these developing academic aspects of this public consultation / questionnaire exercise, but consideration was given to further events whilst the exhibition was still mounted and undisturbed on the boards.

Nathan Hartley had negotiated a positive further venue in conjunction with his ‘Faith’ Topic.

On $unday 12^th November the PSJ Remembrance service was to be followed by a

‘Remembrance Day Games’ event afterwards in the church hall. Village Plan was invited.

It was agreed Bob Butt would liaise with Bridie Marshall to retrieve boards and response box from Youth Centre Art Room and deliver to St.John’s Church in liaison with Rev.Matthew Street.

The introductory panel would benefit from some wording revision to better suit the new venue and Kathy Thomas would produce this. KMT supplied NLRH with a sequenced set-up record.

Several members would attend the venue to help with set-up and consultation at the exhibition.

These to include RWGB ( between Rem.Day duties + 2ques sheets ), KMT ( on return from London ), NLRH, PRP ( basic leaflets ), JPR, and any others available on the day +++

The potential for other ‘roadshow’ venues this side of Christmas was then discussed :

---Carlingcott Methodist Chapel -- Jonathan Rich would consider the feasibility

---Catholic Church --Nathan Hartley would enquire but church not served by a local incumbent

---Bath Road Methodist Church -- possibly positioning difficulties ?

---PSJ School --RWGB would enquire re any pre-Christmas event suitable for involving children

Other potential "groups" within the village were then discussed in detail but none felt to provide a suitably focussed venue for the roadshow. It was disappointing that traditional cohesive groups like the W.I. had virtually faded away to nothing within PSJ.

Evidence so far had been that we were as far away as ever to getting a meaningful response rate to any form of questionnaire, though we now needed Ross Thompson’s analysis and recommendation to follow on from the agreed roadshows which he specifically had advocated.

So far the public had not been very discerning. Although "security" ( or lack of ) was a

‘hot topic’ locally whenever any incident happened, a ‘Security, etc’ board had not been included in the display as there had not been Topic input in a usable format ---but not a single member of the public had raised this as an omitted issue that should have been included !

‘Security’ should also be a watchword for bodies like ‘Neighbourhood Watch’, but this organisation also was unco-ordinated, with no cohesion between appointed representatives.

Bob Butt said it would soon be necessary to focus our attention on the formulation of the final report product, and firm-up a completion timescale. In view of the numb reactions from the public to date it was tempting to just produce a ‘try-it-on’ version without any consultation,
as the public would then be quick to dive in with plenty of vociferous criticisms, but of course this was not the way to go about things !

Continuing the theme however, Bob Butt said there -were- potential respectable bodies within the parish who should and would have a collective opinion on village affairs which we should encourage them to express so we could value it, e.g. representation from businesses if we had such a body as a local Chamber of Commerce. We could try targetting senior representatives of any such groupings to come especially to this Steering Group and give us their views.

Nathan Hartley was doing good work in amalgamating ‘Faith’ Topic components, and this gave a clue towards a first set of such invitees. NLRH agreed to approach leaders of each church and invite them to our next meeting for that specific purpose. This to include Methodist, Anglican, and Christadelphian village representation, Catholic if possible but they may not have anyone ‘village-based’. To smooth the atmosphere at such a meeting we would seek approval of the Beacon Hall management to have the kitchen open and arrange tea / coffee and some very simple ‘do-it-yourself’ light refreshment to provide welcoming ambience to special guests.

It was suggested a contributory reason for several Apologies for Absence was that Village Plan meetings were not able to be entered in diaries as the first pre-known entry to secure the date.

To meet this point it was agreed to pre-schedule the next -three- meetings, 19.00 hrs, :

---Thursday 11^th January 2007

---Thursday 8^th February 2007

---Thursday 8^th March 2007

( small Lounge meeting room, Beacon Hall, PSJ, subject to bookings confirmation )