ESD toolkit Info Management group

... at LGA, 10:00 to 16:00

L'Hermione (19-Aug)

Went to see this, at Rochefort yesterday. Will they get something similar afloat at Convoys Wharf, with the Lenox?

(Thu) site meeting at Randlesdown Road

10:00 to 12:00. Highways officers took some convincing. Sharonne Harvey deserves commending for persistence!

Labour Group mtg

(Wed) LWaP EC mtg

(Wed) Corporate Parenting Group mtg

(Wed) retirement do for Pat Merry

LGA seminar for Children's Services lead members

10:00 to 16:00, in Smith Square

OSBP

19:00 to 20:30

SAR meeting at Perrymount

(Monday) 09:00 to 12:00

Advice surgery at St George's

With Alan Till. 10:30 to 12:00. 1 case re (mainly) civil neighbour property dispute.

Convoys Wharf consultation event

About 13:30 to 15:00, at Deptford Lounge. Lewisham PBP in attendance.

(Wed) Leavers' Assembly at Perrymount School, present prizes

13:30 to 15:30

Sedgehill and the Chocolate Factory

18:30 to 21:30

(Tuesday) IT advice for LCPCG

16:00 to about 18:15
mtg with Daisy Cairns re member/meeting database for LCPCG. LBL IT client/project management haven't helped much!

(Tuesday) 14-19yo NEET event

Jobs & training fair, Civic Suite foyer (was busy at first, but not by lunchtime when I got back to have a look round)

(Tuesday) LDC Trustees meeting

at St Lawrence Church, 11:00 to 13:00

(Monday) Perrymount governors meeting

19:00 to about 21:00

Perry Vale Assembly meeting

18:50 to 21:30

Sedgehill School art exhibition

18:00 to 18:40
Asked DHT to email me about student works that might go up in Civic Suite.

mtg re Members IT

with Paul Maslin, Janet Senior, Simon Berlin; 16:30 to 17:30

(drop in at) Perrymount Olympic Sports

12:45 to 13:45

LDC Business Plan meeting

10:00 to 12:15

O&S Business Panel

20:10 to 21:00

Education Business Panel

... Just in time for the "school governor issues" item; 19:40 to about 20:00 (having been up to LSE for another event, and back again).

VAL CYP Forum

14:30 to about 16:30
met Royston xxx (ex LB Hackney and other LAs) who will be a useful witness first CYP SC 'unknown children' investigation.

Site visit to the new Drumbeat School, Downham

09:00 to 11:00

LWaP Campaign committee

about 20:30 to 22:00

Local planning meeting re 49 Houston Road

19:30 to about 20:10

CYP Strategic Partnership Board

17:30 to 19:30

At the Home Park music event

(all pm)

At the Bellingham Festival

(all day)

Full Council meeting

19:00 to 22:00 (or could be later!)
.. in the cramped confines of rooms 1 &  2, apparently because the Council Chamber has a leak in the roof!... due to drought I expect.

Strategic Planning Committee briefing on Convoys Wharf

19:00 to 21:30

Lewisham Homes Board visit

14:00 to 16:30 (to Wearside to see repairs staff)

CYP Chair's liaison with officers

11:30 to about 12:30
(Warwick, Salena)

Briefing for Bellingham Festival volunteers

10:00 to 11:15

CYP Select Committee (Tue)

18:45 to 21:45

Labour Group meeting

19:30 (but started about 19:50) to about 22:00

Liaison with Scrutiny Manager

Re CYP investigation scoping

Carers Week event

10:00 to 11:00

Attending Mayor & Cabinet

... for a whole host of items - but not the one about removal of a school governor, which Steve has now decided to deal with in a better way.

17:15 (to zip through the weighty papers) to about 19:30.

Labour Group meeting, plus briefing on standards

19:00 to 21:00 (and still going)

SELSA project presentation

(looked after young people)
13:00 to about 14:45

Lewisham Governors’ Association SEN briefing

18:30 to 20:30

BLGC / LCF wind-up/start-up meeting

19:30 to...
at the Saville Centre

Stakeholder meeting re Louise House

17:00 to 18:15, at Methodist Church, Normanton St.

John Healey

Tue, about 19:30 to 21:00.

OSBP meeting

Tue 19:00 to about 19:30.
No items that needed referral, but useful info about the Early Years Centres decision, and Housing RTB.

Housing casework (2 of 2)

Re service charges by Hyde Housing, Rowan Court.

Housing casework (1 of 2)

Re ASB by neighbours, James Court. Email to Cllr Wise.

Public Transport Liaison mtg

18:00 to 19:00

The Mirror - back!

Here it is again, professionally erected by a couple of Skanska guys in full safety gear.

It has suffered a small dent and see few scuffs in the course of being handled by 'the professionals'...

At Mayor & Cabinet for several items

Wed 30-May, 18:00 to...

The item about "removal of an LEA governor" (apparently a deeply flawed process) has been postponed until about 20-Jun.

(Closure of 3) Early Years Centres

"Housing Issues" (about street housing properties for disposal)

Lewisham Gateway proposed loan.

Advice surgery issue

I spoke too soon (about 2 minutes too soon) in my post on Saturday whilst waiting for advice clients. I did get one person, who was really hoping to see Cllr Wise (who's Chair of the Local Assembly for the coming year), mainly to urge her to bring forward the launch of this year's LA funding bids, so they can be in time for the project she wants to propose. I tend to agree that this would be a good idea - although the LA coordinator has made the point to me that this might inhibit bids from people who hadn't been involved in the LA previously.

meeting about Forest Hill subway

11:00 to about 12:00, with Richard Hibbert and Ilse Towler (FH Soc), John Bishop (LBL Highways) and Ian Ransom (LBL Regen programme manager). Agreed to proceed with within-budget quote from Conway, including the ceiling cladding but omitting work on the stairs - which would cost another £24K-ish and is definitely Network Rail's safety problem. Will make a time-limited (by our/Conway's works timetable) offer to NR which they can accept/fund to get the stairs done cheaper (with a possible £4K contribution from LBL plus saving from coordination with our works); or ignore, so we will have to use publicity to highlight the one unfinished (and dangerous) aspect of the subway and press them to do it anyway.

I also mentioned the Skanska lighting issues to Ian Ransom, as he is taking over looking after the street lighting project from Steve Gough.

Don't forget to put the bulbs in!

Just got in from following up casework re the street lighting in Trilby Road and the alley connecting it with Sunderland Road. I've had several emails about this during the weekend.

After I'd waited there since about 00:50, and reported it again, the Skanska guy called me to say he'd been there, that "apparently the numpties forgot to put the bulbs in", and that he couldn't fix that safely in the dark, but it would be done first thing in the morning.

I was told by the call operator (Steve Barnes) that their call centre doesn't get feedback from the crews on the streets; so this may be another systemic problem they (or we the client) need to fix - as well as getting smarter electricians!

Advice surgery at St George's

About 10:15 until 12noon. Just me, as Alan is away visiting an aunt in Germany, and Susan is fully occupied all morning doing something with Sydenham Garden Soc.

There was also an induction course for new school governors being run in the church, so I did get to meet the new Head of Governors Support Services.

Sadly, no takers for f2f advice today - balanced by at least 3 cases I've dealt with by email in the past week (and forgotten to blog at the time)... and another I've had by email this morning (boundary fencing by L&Q, Colfe Rd, chase up).

Politics Outside In - speed dating

Wed 09-May, 18:00 to 19:30
Event organised by Bridget Prentice for young people to learn about how politics and politicians work.

networkED seminar at LSE

Wed 09-May, 15:00 to 16:30.
Part work but part relevant to CYP matters, David White discussing issues of provenance and how academia differs from 'learning and teaching' in use of 'low authenticity' materials like Wikipedia. Provenance of information sources is still a topic that (I think) will be essential at primary key stages - not just later. If we don't get more proactive about teaching it, kids will just grow up like most adults today, with very inaccurate ideas about information.

Some catch-ups, now the election's over

I'll need to add a few back-dated posts, now we've finished with that election...

I don't think Blogger will let me fake the date/time of a post, so I'll try and include the approx date/time of an activity in a consistent way.

(not including details of party campaigning activity)

I'm no longer including details of party campaigning activities in this blog. Despite the views (of some others) that these comprise 'essential duties' of a councillor, I'm sticking to my opinion that they don't. Anyway, I'm doing too much of it at present to have enough time to blog it!

O&SBPs

Tue 24-Apr 19:00 to about 21:00
BP and EBP, items incl Watergate/Brent Knoll schools trust, contracts for building works for primary places expansion, regen strategies for Catford and Deptford town centres.

CYP Strategic Partnership Board

Monday 23-Apr 17:30 to about 19:30

Convoys Wharf site visit

On Thursday, 17:00 to about 19:00, for Strategic Planning Committee plus several others.

Housing Select Committee

19:30 to 22:00

I'm mainly there for the item about Affordable Housing linked to Planning processes; but the item about changes to the HRA and housing finance is interesting too.

Leaflets

Delivering latest Ken/Lewisham leaflets in Colfe, Loxton and Kemble roads, with Jacq, about 90minutes this afternoon

Briefing on the Localism Act

19:00 to 21:30ish by Kathy Nicholson

Organising CYP scrutiny business

About 1 hour in total today spent reviewing M&C agenda for 11-Apr, re what should be tabled at OSBP or OSEBP on 24-Apr, and items for May CYP SC agenda.

Canvassing in Perry Vale

13:30 to 15:45, including prep (but I haven't input the results yet).

Lewisham Homes Board awayday

17:00 on Friday until about 16:00 on Saturday

Council calendar

Having got the LBL website bug (exporting iCal) fixed by AL, successfully imported all next years events to the public GoogleCal at https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=i0qh8ofcbklkndua0khgj6tjcs%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/London

...about 15mins

Housing casework

further follow-up to SU, Deepdene Point, about 30mins

Strategic Planning ctee

19:50 to 20:30
Cannon Wharf business centre

Briefing by Assn of British Bookmakers

19:00 to 20:00

iBus sign glitch

Tory government clag up South Circular

Council AGM

19:30 to about 20:20.
... Followed by O&S C'tee, then Planning C.

Council - Cabinet confirmation hearing

18:15 to 19:00

Canvassing with Cabinet

Rushey Green (posh bit)
13:30 to 15:30

CYP Forum meeting

09:30 to 12:30
Input to CYP Plan for 2012-2015.
How to measure "positive contribution" outcomes?
CYP SC mtg on 16-May omitted from timetable presented by Yasemin Aray (LBL policy team manager). Invited Forum org's to SC, asked Jonathan of VAL to help coordinate this.
www.the-challenge.org - Marlene Copeland

Housing casework x2

08:30 to 09:15
Follow up re KW, Excelsior Gdns; and SU, Deepdene Point.

Reading Strategic Planning papers for Thursday

10:15 to 10:45. Revised Cannon Wharf business centre scheme.

Lewisham Homes Board

<p>18:30 to 21:15</p>

Canvassing in Forest Hill

16:00 - 17:30

To start with: What this is for

We have an ongoing discussion about 'Councillors Contracts' and how we (and others) monitor and value what we spend our time on as councillors. Some people have the (mistaken) impression that councillors get paid vast amounts of money for it. Different people within the political parties that select us and work for our election have different ideas about what makes a 'good' candidate, and a 'good' councillor.

I will try to make very short, simple and factual posts to this blog, documenting everything I do as a councillor at the time I do it, starting with the Council AGM on Wednesday 28th March 2012. I will use abbreviations and will not attempt to make the contents accessible to anyone else; but I will leave this blog public to read and will (at least to start with) allow public comments. I will not promise to respond to any comments at all (but I may delete them, with no explanation). I will not necessarily confine posts to activities that are strictly "council duties" but may include other things like election campaigning. (I do that anyway, and I did plenty when I was not a councillor, but some people think it's part of what I'm expected to do as a councillor.)

I will include posts about casework I do for individuals, but will of course anonymise the people involved. If you think I have included too much information about someone, which may make them identifiable, then please contact me urgently (you can find contact details on the Lewisham Council website) so I can correct this.

Let's see whether it works...