Virtual and hybrid meetings
As the post-Covid recovery phase gets underway, we all continue with virtual committee meetings but also looking to develop ways of holding hybrid meetings: this is the next challenge and, in many respects, trickier than delivering fully-virtual meetings.
Our chair, John Austin, met with colleagues from the LGA, SOCITM, LLG, NALC and the CfPS last week and we will be issuing guidance on holding hybrid meetings in due course. In the meantime, there’s a thread on the ADSO forum to share knowledge and experience of organising hybrid meetings and we look forward to hearing about your experiences.
The virtual meetings case studies remain a very useful source of guidance and information on running virtual meetings and now includes a case study from colleagues in Dudley Metropolitan BC on dealing with School Appeals: https://www.adso.co.uk/coronavirus-updates/
Webinars
ADSO is working with LLG to develop a webinar facility, which we intend to use to support training, briefings and perhaps regional meetings going forward. We hope to use our Board meeting in July to trial webinars.
Website update
One of our associate directors, Joanna Boaler, is reviewing our web pages: specifically, the site map and deleting/amending old pages and links. This is an unenviable task and we’re hugely grateful to Joanna for taking it on.
Regional Reps meeting
John Austin and I are looking forward to meeting virtually next week (3rd June) with our regional representatives, including our newest region representing themed and combined authorities.
ADSO Awards
A reminder that the 2020 ADSO Awards nomination form is now available on the website: https://www.adso.co.uk/adso-awards-2020/ I look forward to receiving your nominations by the closing date of 31st July. I am pleased to confirm that Steve Garratt from Civica has agreed to join the judging panel for the awards, alongside Colin Copus, Sue Keogh and myself. We look forward very much to receiving plenty of high-quality submissions.
Peter Sass, Vice Chair