NOTES OF THIRTEENTH PROJECT STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING

Thursday 10^th May 2007 -- at PSJ, Beacon Hall, small Lounge Meeting Room

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)

Nathan Hartley ‘Faith’ (NLRH)

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

John S.Bolwell representing Parish Council and residents’ interests (JSB)

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

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

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

Alan Shamp representing DUNKERTON Parish Plan project (AJS)

Jacqui Ward Community Action ( see Minute.4 )

Bob Butt had had an accident at home and was incapacitated with a bad back. Members wished him well and in his absence Vice-Chair Kathy Thomas took the Chair for this meeting.

Ross Thompson was unable to attend due to a long-standing prior commitment, this was unfortunate due to the key stage of Public Questionnaire / Consultation we were now in, however he had e-mailed several points to be tabled appropriately during this meeting.

Alan Shamp was also incapacitated with bad back similarly to RWGB. He also was wished well.

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

Minutes were signed by KMT as a true record.

Peter Provest reported, further to Minute.11 of 8^th March meeting, that when thanking
Jacqui Ward for her hospitality extended to us at the Community Action Parish Plans’ Social Evening he had invited her to attend in her official capacity to observe and offer advice on our progress. Unfortunately she was unable to attend tonight due to prior commitment but was very willing to come to appropriate future meeting(s). It was confirmed Jacqui Ward had taken over the role in Community Action formerly represented by Richard Snelling. PRP reported on the enjoyable success of the 29^th March Social Event, which had been well attended by a good number of Parish Plan teams from a wide area, even beyond B&NES, and with groups at all stages of Plan preparation, from ‘gleam in the eye’ to ‘already published’. Incidentally an unexpected result had been that PSJ team emerged formal winners of the Skittles Competition!. We currently hold the Trophy ( until the next such event ) and the actual prize ( Swiss chocolates ) was now opened and enjoyed by members present during tonight’s meeting.

As neither Bob Butt nor our ‘finance monitor’ Guy Matthews were present we had no updated information on the progress of Grant application. Kathy Thomas asked PRP to check with RWGB whether there was any news, and if so to include the answer as a post-meeting Note.

Nathan Hartley enquired the current situation regarding the proposed purchase of a set of display boards for use at appropriate events. Kathy Thomas confirmed these had been obtained and already put to good use at Parish Annual Meeting to publicise the Plan.

The set purchased was flexible to meet site and event limitations : The three-fold units could be set up as ‘one double-deck plus one table-mounted’ or as ‘three table-mounted’, and used either single or double-sided as appropriate to the venue. The B&NES’ set of boards loaned from the Youth Centre ( Bridie Marshall ) was currently still in the Parish Office, and
Jonathan Rich said he would return them when suitable opportunity with car occurred.

The new purchase had been funded from the monies granted to the Plan project by the P.C., and it was logical that when no longer needed to specifically publicise the Plan, the boards should revert to appropriate general use by the P.C.

It was unfortunate Ross Thompson had been unable to attend, as the project was currently at the key stage of conducting the public consultation requirement.

RRT had provided update on some of the aspects he was dealing with :

• Zebedees helping with surveying PSJ parents.
• Christine Hartley helping with canvassing PSJ businesses
• Ruth Grant and colleague surveying variety of groups
• progress on timescale for expected receipt of completed surveys

Kathy Thomas said that when preparing her own set of supervision documents for groups she was monitoring she had found it desirable to review and slightly modify the draft documents that RRT had supplied, in order to improve clarity and remove some ambiguities. She had also added a miniature sheet ( double-sided A5 ) for use by individual respondees.

There was some general discussion on the progress so far of the current stage of consultation.

Some ambiguity and confusion was being caused because the classification of "groups" had assumed the focus of basis was "locational" ( i.e. centred on the venue for regular meetings ), whereas a "functional" ( non geographical ) basis was also relevant for many "groupings".
Terry Nicholls instanced the particular case of persons he had approached via "P.O.P." who had protested they had already supplied data through Ruth Grant. It was still likely that there would be further overlap as her colleague Annie was covering further groups.

It was also pointed out that some groups only met randomly and not at all regularly, for example "Housing Associations" ( e.g. Redlands ) might only meet together on rare occasions when a new issue of concern arose. This could be checked with Sara Holley.

Although several groups had evidently been canvassed already it was not clear where any resultant data might be. Secretary PRP said he was only in possession of one document which complied with RRT’s criteria, that being from Bridie Marshall and representing Youth Centre views, but presumably material from other sources was being channelled direct to
Ross Thompson at this stage as he was dealing with this whole phase of the exercise.

Timescale. RRT had originally specified end-April, but this date was now past and the exercise clearly far from complete. KMT’s revised letters now quoted "end May" which was just about attainable if all those concerned set to work promptly. There would be a contingency period on this if it was assumed RRT would be working on the results throughout "June".

KMT expressed concern regarding those ‘Steering Group contacts’ who were not regularly at these progress meetings, she questioned whether they do read their Minutes promptly enough and clear their Actions within each requested timescale ?. In her own experience there was a tendency for persons to only check and pursue their Action points shortly before the next progress meeting. It was agreed to review RRT’s list and update it in these Minutes, then Secretary PRP to draw attention in his covering e-mail of Distribution re need for Actions.

As stated, RRT’s List of Organised Groups in the Parish was then reviewed/revised as follows :

Group name, ( target Group Leader’s name ), [ steering group contact ] :

--Lunch Club (Ashia)

--All Girlz Cheerleading (?)

--Low Impact Aerobics (Karen)

--Beacon Tots (?)

--Tae Kwon Do (David+Linda)

--Health Promotion (Heidi+Zoe)

--Weight Watchers (Nicola)

--Pilates (Emma) [ for all above delete references to DJTK or RWGB and replace with KMT ]

( Seniors Exercise (Jill) ----delete group altogether )

--Cubs + Scouts (SianCook)

--Brownies + Guides

--Rainbows (MissParry) [ all these KMT, same as previous list ]

--CricketClub (MikeGregory)

--FootballClub (MikeGregory)

--CSAG plus/minus new PACT [ these three MikeGregory, same as previous list ]

--P.O.P (RuthGrant+TerryNicholls) [ already done by Ruth Grant, but data location unknown ]

( FAST delete as a group )

--Meet the neighbours

It was now understood that ‘Annie’ was processing up to six groups, mostly transfers from R_G

--PSJ Primary School, parents and children (ColinRich) [ ColinRich, same as previous list ]

--DAFBY, YIP, Club Nights, etc (BridieMarshall) [ already done by Bridie Marshall ]

--Book groups (CeliaJones) [ Celia Jones, same as previous list ]

--Liberal Democrat Party [ previously shown as GailColeshill --will now be supplied by NLRH ]

--Labour Party [ previously shown as BobButt is this still relevant ? ]

--( presumably no other similar groupings such as "Miners’ Welfare" still exist ? )

--Carlingcott : Friends, Social, Pilates, Gardening [ these four RRT, same as previous list ]

--Zebedees Nursery parents [ RRT, same as previous list ]

--Parents’ Voice ( Guy Matthews ) [ Guy Matthews, same as previous list ]

--Sunnyside Housing Assn ( if still a meeting group ) [ Sara Holley, same as previous list ]

Faith : ( groups reallocated between NLRH and RRT as agreed amongst themselves ) :

---Methodists Bath Road, previously considered as an entity, but in practice there are several functioning groups within the community ( e.g. Wives Group, Youth, etc )

---Methodists Carlingcott to be researched separately to Bath Road, possibly via Colin Rich

---Catholics, transfer liaison from NLRH to RRT

---Anglican, already done by NLRH

Discussion then ensued on the outcome of this part of the exercise. There still seemed to be very much to do as presumably the work that Ross Thompson would be doing through June would be to look for "common things" in the first exercise that would lead to the questions to be raised in the secondary and more comprehensive questionnaire.

PRP expressed concern at the ever-lengthening timescale and the very real possibility of a "questionnaire fatigue" reaction from people who found themselves being approached again. They were likely to react "but I have already given my views on Parish Plan" if asked on a further occasion.

However it was fully understood public consultation was a central core for deriving valid data for the Plan to be officially accepted, and members then explored one specimen relevant item : "Street Lighting" : It was known there were two opposing viewpoints on this item. On one hand well proven security benefits derived from providing extensive and comprehensive lighting. The other viewpoint was the more recent idea of decrying ‘light pollution’ and fearing the global warming effects of dissipating unnecessary energy into the environment.

What was not known at all was which of these might be the majority viewpoint in PSJ ?

This was the sort of thing on which it was necessary to establish the true extent of public view.

There should be several other similar focal points, e.g. refuse collection methods.

Members concluded that by the next scheduled meeting, 14^th June, Ross Thompson should be well into the "next stage" exercise and we could assist him with finalising this.

Although members’ needed to resist the temptation to ‘get on with’ preparing a Plan from a minority viewpoint without waiting for the proper consultation results, this does not preclude some thought being given already to the format of the published report, regardless of eventual subject detail within it.

‘First’ Existing Situation Reports. When we commenced this exercise in 2005 the logical first step had been to divide village life into sixteen broad ‘Topics’ and commission an ‘Existing Situation Report’ from an appointed Topic Leader on each. The results could best be described as "uneven". A few reports were multi-page affairs with comprehensive detail, data and illustrations. Some of the others "missed the point" in their reporting, and sadly a few have never been completed and handed in. These documents as such need to remain available as a permanent source of useful background detail, but the final published report should have no more than a slim consistent paragraph of background narrative for each topic recommendation.

Public consultation feedback. This must pick up the exact feelings of the public, as found.

However this report part must not be "standalone", it is imperative it feeds directly into an :

Action Plan. The Action Plan to be the tangible main part of the report and above all must have ‘achievable’ elements. It will be useful to break the Action Plan down into measured sections, by target timescales and by the agencies who will logically be empowered to carry out the Plan.

The whole document to make the statement : "This is what the village wants" and provide ready answers to individual enquiries that may arise on separate topic elements within the Plan.

Members had not reviewed any more already-published Plans since last meeting.

When the current series of meeting dates had been fixed in January it was expected that extending to June would be sufficient, but was now clear further meetings were necessary

Secretary PRP said he had made a preliminary enquiry with Derek Kennedy regarding future dates, and the following could be made available to us :

All these dates felt to be suitable by members present, and PRP was asked to book them.

Thanks again to Derek Kennedy for making accommodation and catering facilities available.