Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Shaping the Area Assembly Meetings in 2010
As a result of previous discussions on this site, I wrote to Gina Adamou, the Chair of our area assembly, to ask some questions about the way the Harringay & St Ann's Area Assembly works and how we can influence that.
I posted her comprehensive and useful response on the HoL Wiki.
In that response, in answer to my question about how we can influence the agenda and the mechanism for that, Gina wrote the following:
At the first area assembly of the year, residents are invited to propose specific issues for inclusion within their area assembly.
The mechanism needs to be flexible in order to ensure there are opportunities for urgent or emerging issues to be included as appropriate.
Residents can make contact through the neighbourhood teams to express areas of concern to consider for assembly inclusion and of course direct to their Area Assembly Chair.
So here we are, almost at the first meeting of the year. Do we want any control over the year's agenda?
Here's what they're serving up for the first course (February's agenda):
- Personalisation of Adult Social Care
- PHASCA will be giving a presentation about their Summer Scheme and some of the other projects they deliver
- Street drinking prohibited zones in St Ann's
- Safer Neighbourhood Teams - up dates
- Cabinet Question Time
- HMO - update
- Green Lanes Strategy Group - update
- Soap Box
Is that about right? Like it? Want more of the same? Fancy a different sort of agenda? Or don't you give a toss?
Feel free to use this discussion as a kind of scratch-pad to kick around ideas, but if you want to influence the agenda for the rest of the year then roll-up, roll-up and get on down to al the fun of the Area Assembly fair.
Wouldn't it be nice to imagine a year of productive assembly meeting in which we the residents had as much (if not more) say then the local politicians and council officers. Whose meetings are the after all?
Tags for Forum Posts: area assembly, area forum
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Maybe first item for first AA of the year should be: DON'T HOLD OUR AA MEETINGS MID-WAY THROUGH FEBRUARY HALF-TERM HOLIDAY. AFTER 10 WEEKS OF WINTER SOME OF US WILL BE ELSEWHERE.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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I don't see the point in some of these. All I want is
1. Personalisation of adult social care
2. Cabinet Question Time
3. Soap Box
The others do not need an area assembly. God I've been bored to tears by some people updating me about the latest business at their RA/special interest group at my area assembly.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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It would help if these updates were either presented as a stand for people to look at before, during or after the meeting or were told that they had 5 mins to do a presentation and that was it.
I recall one worthy lady being allowed to drone on and on until we were so comatose that we almost missed all the meaty stuff in the second half and as usual the soapbox got chopped which was probably the point of one or two people being there.
I think the SNT updates are quite useful and often provoke the most interaction between participants.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Those are both good ideas Liz. Praps we cd also offer to do some social reporting to amplify the voices of these groups?
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I'm sure the PHASCA folk will be great, but you raise a good question John about the nature of these meetings.
As you say the informing element can be done by mail, email, Haringey People. I'd rather use the opportunity of bringing locals & our representatives and public servants together for:
- discussing to exchange views and express opinions
- questioning for understanding
- deciding
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Yes but they don't want to be questioned. Remember BH at the transport assembly? "I'm a politician, I don't answer straight questions".
Mwa ha ha ha ha....
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Or BH to me "I don't answer emails because people hold you to what you say"
Yes, well whatever one politician might say about responding to questions, they are our local reps and shouldn't have a choice about responding to questions in a reasonably controlled environment.
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and we shouldn't judge them all by one useless article.
NC is usually willing to answer questions, even if she gets a bit carried away sometimes :) I don't recall the other cabinet member, Bob Harris, being there and now he's on his way out anyway. The 2 Lib Dem cllrs for Harringay sort of sit at the back (not their choice I'm sure) and one party gets to run the show. I just think the make up of the AA has to be different all together. It all feels very 'them and us'.
The agenda doesn't suggest that this is going to be a big 'think in' to propose specific issues for inclusion within their area assembly. but the usual talk at you and allow a few questions at the end, when we're all too tired to do much talking and the whole thing gets hijacked by someone talking about phone masts or speed bumps. Maybe Gina could earn my vote by proposing and implementing a radical change to the whole process?
@ Hugh Social reporting sounds good. Will HOL be tweeting from the proceedings?
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HoL could be Liz, will we? Shall we? I tweeted a little as HoL from the last one at the end of last yr.
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Do you mean on our own accounts? I don't have a posh phone but it is capable of sending to Twitter via texts so I may be offering a few pithy comments from the audience. Shall we agree on a hashtag? #HSAAA
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Ya think there's gonna be some much Twitter traffic that we'll need a hashtag?
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