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Live webcast of council meeting

4:48pm Wednesday 22nd February 2012 in News Photograph of the Author By Gazette newsdesk

SURFERS of the web will be able to watch a council meeting for the first time tomorrow (Thursday).

South Lakeland District Council's full council meeting will be webcast live on their website from 6.30pm. The council will evaluate the pilot before making a decision to adopt webcasting for other meetings.

Councillor Sylvia Emmott, chairman of SLDC, said: “We have arranged this trial webcasting of meetings to help improve understanding and openness. "I think people will be interested to see and hear councillors debate items on the agenda and I hope it will raise awareness about how and why decisions are made.”

Members of the public who wish to view the webcast will need to access the SLDC website at www.southlakeland.gov.uk and follow the link from the home page.

Comments(22)

davidharry says...
5:07pm Wed 22 Feb 12

I thought they weren't doing any more Muppet Shows!!

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Ambience says...
7:13pm Wed 22 Feb 12

They're not. It's the Goon Show.

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whiskeydelta says...
8:59pm Wed 22 Feb 12

Send in the clowns is more appropriate. Do you really think they will adopt this - never in a month of Sundays cos you will be able to see what your councillor really does - probably completely opposite to why you voted them in.

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magical trevor says...
9:29pm Wed 22 Feb 12

I'm not one for sticking up for our councillors....but..
..maybe instead of writing it all off, you should look in and see what happens....you might be surprised!

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survivior says...
9:45pm Wed 22 Feb 12

The comments above are nothing more than pathetic, childish name-calling. If Councillors mess up then fair enough, but please, act like adults and think about this- who will stand for election in the future if this is how they can expect to be treated, will you?

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magical trevor says...
9:48pm Wed 22 Feb 12

No Survivior....they wouldn't stand for election....probably beyond them to be honest....but they're prepared to council and councillor bash whenever the opportunity presents itself.

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survivior says...
10:02pm Wed 22 Feb 12

If you are so unhappy with your councillor whiskeydelta, and you expect them to do the opposite of what you voted them in for, yet you voted for them, then who is the clown?

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Lakeuk says...
11:55pm Wed 22 Feb 12

I think it's great that they're trying it out, credit where it's due they've listened to some moaner called Lakeuk and taken it on board and are having a go.

Not everyone is able to make it to meetings in a public capacity and being able to view/listen to proceedings live or to the recording after the event allows to public to hear from the horses mouth how points are put across and make a more informed judgement.

I'll be able to see how my local councillor contributes to the issues in these meetings (although he does have a low attendance record)

One thing to be clear on though is any decision to continue with the webcasts shouldn't be based on how many have watched the webcasts, I wouldn't expect it to be perfect at the first go - I think it needs to continue for sometime with one meeting, working out what needs tweaking to improve any issues with the broadcast and then at a point decide what other meetings to role it out to next.

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Ben Berry says...
9:42am Thu 23 Feb 12

Very funny comments! :-)

I think its a great step forward. It will give us an accurate record of events, increase communication between the council and the electorate and will stop Lakeuk moaning about it.

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survivior says...
10:17am Thu 23 Feb 12

Well said Ben, You Councillors don't always get it right but congratulations for keeping on trying in the face of constant griping!

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TomHarvey says...
11:02am Thu 23 Feb 12

Its a great move and not before time.
We get stick when decisions are made because they are supposedly 'behind closed doors' even though they're not, all meetings are public its just no one turns up - yet still have an opinion on what occurred :-) Hopefully this will encourage more people to see what we do and how decisions are reached and become more involved.
I look forwards to hearing from the one man and his dog or tens, dozens, hundreds (?!?!) who tune in.
But as Lakeuk said, bare with us, its a first attempt (there was a trial at Cabinet last week that went well) and I'm sure we won't get everything right, so please be positive on how it can be improved with the feedback. The link is here by the way http://goo.gl/ctn4b

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survivior says...
7:45pm Thu 23 Feb 12

Really enjoying the live streaming courtesy of Tom Harveys' link.

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TomHarvey says...
7:54pm Thu 23 Feb 12

survivior wrote:
Really enjoying the live streaming courtesy of Tom Harveys' link.
Glad you're enjoying it! Still awake?

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Chris Custodiet says...
11:07am Fri 24 Feb 12

Is it not interesting that whilst Council's are endeavoring to be more transparent, NHS Foundation Trusts are proceeding in the opposite direction, sparing no effort in keeping the taxpayer as uninformed as they can get away with?

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whiskeydelta says...
1:19pm Fri 24 Feb 12

Survivor - I didn't vote for him!!

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Airfix says...
1:25pm Fri 24 Feb 12

I know of at least one playing on facebook during the meeting and I thought they should be paying attention.

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TomHarvey says...
1:27pm Fri 24 Feb 12

Approx 250 people watched, which is about 245 more than usually turn up so I would say a pretty good start.
What was good/bad (from a watching point of view, not the decisions made!)?

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Ambience says...
3:04pm Fri 24 Feb 12

I think the Agenda was tailored with the webcast in mind. They were only really going over old ground, and I think most people knew that council tax would be frozen anyway. What would prove useful is for it to happen again without the council knowing they are being watched. Come back Big Brother, all is forgiven.

I actually enjoyed it. One councillor was checking his watch every five minutes or so. Some of the others looked bored to tears. It's tough at the top.

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survivior says...
4:08pm Fri 24 Feb 12

And so it begins! If things are that bad then perhaps the moaners should stand for election themselves, or are they much happier criticising from the shadows? Yes there was some fidgetting and yawning, but then that happens at every meeting I have ever attended, why should councillors be any different from the rest of us? As for them looking bored to tears, you must have a far better pc than I as I could not make out that much detail on their faces, or perhaps a little artistic license makes your claim a little stronger! This is a huge step in allowing us the voting public to see what goes on in meetings, and as Tom Harvey said, you have all always been welcome to attend in person anyway!

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Ambience says...
6:37pm Fri 24 Feb 12

survivior wrote:
And so it begins! If things are that bad then perhaps the moaners should stand for election themselves, or are they much happier criticising from the shadows? Yes there was some fidgetting and yawning, but then that happens at every meeting I have ever attended, why should councillors be any different from the rest of us? As for them looking bored to tears, you must have a far better pc than I as I could not make out that much detail on their faces, or perhaps a little artistic license makes your claim a little stronger! This is a huge step in allowing us the voting public to see what goes on in meetings, and as Tom Harvey said, you have all always been welcome to attend in person anyway!
I have stood for election here. But my rosette was the wrong colour.

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survivior says...
9:29pm Fri 24 Feb 12

Ambience wrote:
survivior wrote:
And so it begins! If things are that bad then perhaps the moaners should stand for election themselves, or are they much happier criticising from the shadows? Yes there was some fidgetting and yawning, but then that happens at every meeting I have ever attended, why should councillors be any different from the rest of us? As for them looking bored to tears, you must have a far better pc than I as I could not make out that much detail on their faces, or perhaps a little artistic license makes your claim a little stronger! This is a huge step in allowing us the voting public to see what goes on in meetings, and as Tom Harvey said, you have all always been welcome to attend in person anyway!
I have stood for election here. But my rosette was the wrong colour.
Or to put it another way, the voting public decided that you would not be as good a Councillor as those who were elected! Puts your complaints in to some perspective doesn't it ;)

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Lakeuk says...
12:38pm Sun 26 Feb 12

The webcast came across better than I was expecting at the first outing - well done to the council staff for setting this up and I hope this continues as it makes a good public record of proceedings for people to view.

There's a screenshot on my blog of what it looked like to us joe public and some more bits on what I thought of it:-

http://lakeuk.blogsp
ot.com

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