Why lm council meetings?

MARCH 2013 BRIEFING NOTE FOR RICHMONDSHIRE COUNCILLORS WWW.RICHMOND.N0TICE.COM

A free, open, independent public space for Richmond residents

Benets of allowing the cameras in

Involve more people
Although all council meetings are public, Richmondshire Council is not unusual in having very few members of the public attending meetings. There can be many reasons for this - people unaware of when meetings are held, reluctance to set out on dark icy nights, childcare issues, shiftworking needs to name just a few. Using technology to provide what is effectively an on demand service people can choose to view where and when they want has been shown to increase the number of people attending. such as newspapers typically takes many hours, if not days,

Transparency

As has been shown with the lming of parliament, secretary Eric Pickles Feb having cameras in the room 2011. where important decisions are made provides a new level of transparency, its hard for decisions to be relayed to to imagine a time when we the people they effect. wouldnt expect to see that happening. Modern communications means this important news can Immediacy now be relayed instantly via electronic means. Reporting from council meetings by traditional means

new media costs noth ing and will help improve public scrutiny" Commun ity

"Opening the door to

Richmond Noticeboard founder Sarah Hartley started the site as a community initiative and contributes as a volunteer. A qualied and experienced multimedia journalist, she is the MD of Talk About Local a company which helps people nd a voice online using digital tools. Full prole available here: uk.linkedin.com/in/sarahhartley

Addressing risk
Carmarthenshire council was was forced to reconsider its policies after a high prole and deeply embarrassing incident which led to the arrest of a blogger attempting to lm a meeting without permission was widely reported in the national media - forever to be associated with the hashtag #daftarrest . Last month, the council decided to go ahead with live streaming of meetings and the footage will also be available to view on the council website after the meetings. Councillors caught out What happens if a councillor says something they later regret? Well this is a matter for the politicians but would be the same for any councillor who spoke out inside the chamber and was minuted, albeit that lming means it is more likely to be heard externally. Equipment Although the mobile kit we use (see technology) is new and reliable, failure in public broadband service or 3rd party delivery services is possible. Continuity Because the lming will rely on volunteer effort, coverage will be taking place when possible so there cant be a guaranteed continuity of service. Best endeavours.

Positive experience from elsewhere

The way people consume information is changing. Some councils have spent hundreds and thousands of pounds on streaming which no-one watches so when members of the community came forward and offered, rather than nd reasons we couldnt, we saw it as a great opportunity Nigel Newman, head of communications at Telford and Wrekin. More on that here: http:// Telford Wrekin talkaboutlocal.org.uk/ hyperlocal-innovation-googleOnly just started allowing their hangout-for-council-reporting local bloggers to do this. On the rst occasion the meeting was streamed live using an iPhone, on the second occasion this month they used several laptops to direct a multi view version. The council used its own comms department, website and Twitter to promote the lming before the day. They had about 200 watching live and there was an additional 90 in the three days after the meeting.

Bury Council
Took the decision to fund streaming - 1,200 a year from a local business and started in December.

There is a real disconnect between the people we represent and the councillors. The Richmond Its about Noticeboard has leaving the age about 2,000 pages dinosaur and coming into the viewed a month digital age Councillor and 300 Twitter Tamoor followers Tariq.

How the lming will happen

Technology The lming will take place using an ipad, small tripod to ensure steady camera position and microphone. The exact position can be decided in conjunction with yourselves but it could be easily accommodated within the press bench area of the chamber. The lming will be streamed live using the 3rd party service Bambuser. It will be continuous and unedited. The footage is archived. See examples of lming using the same method archived by John Popham at the recent CommsCamp event for local government ofcers here: http:// johnpopham.tumblr.com/ post/44210024082/ archived-live-streamsfromcommscamp-13#_=_) Legals All the content on the Richmond Noticeboard is offered under a free Creative Commons licence and can therefore be shared by the councils own website or other media such as The Darlington and Stockton Times under the conditions laid out. More information on that here: http:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 Each month, the number of visitors and other analytics are publicly shared on the noticeboard. Headline gures for February: * 1,677 page views * interview with the mayor the most viewed post * most users found the noticeboard via Google * iPhones remain the most popular mobile device used to access the Noticeboard

Richmond Noticeboard
A free, open, independent, public space created by local residents for local residents. The Richmond Noticeboard is non-commercial, has no political agenda and is an entirely volunteer created community space online. The website and twitter stream were started by local resident Sarah Hartley in 2012 and uses free digital tools to connect people in the town online or via mobile devices. Anyone is able to post news, events or offers. The site is monitored for unlawful, offensive or spam material which would be removed. Some of the content is posted automatically via public RSS feeds - such as the councils planning applications - the remainder is posted by contributors. See the proles of the contributors under people who run this board at www.richmond.n0tice.com.

One of the recent items posted on the noticeboard shared an interview and pictures from the International Womens Day celebrations in town.