I hope you are all managing to steadily work through the busy autumnal committee cycles. At Richmond and Wandsworth Councils we seem to be experiencing a spike in school admission appeals which is keeping us on our toes. Hopefully this will settle down for us and anyone else who is experiencing the same as the academic year progresses.
ADSO Conference
We are drawing ever closer to our annual conference taking place virtually across two mornings on 25th and 26th November. If you haven’t yet booked your place, you can do so HERE. I am personally looking forward to the Question Time session, which can always be relied upon to raise a range of current and interesting issues relating to our sector. I look forward to hearing the views of our panellists on those.
As a professional association we strive to ensure a diversity of presenters at conference, we understand the importance of hearing a diversity of voices. Whilst we have been successful in securing gender balance, we still have some work to do to ensure we secure a greater diversity of presenters. Please be assured that we will continue to work at this.
International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC) – International Zoom Panel Discussions
Our friends at the IIMC are running two sessions this month which may be of interest, details are given below. Having attended one of these sessions recently, I found it interesting to learn of different perspectives on issues from around the globe. Please do go along if you can spare some time.
A session on Bullying in the workplace will be held on 20th October 2021 at 5.00pm, London time.
A session on Your Resilience/Wellbeing will be held on Wednesday 27th October 2021 at 5.00pm, London time.
IIMC sessions are free for ADSO members, if you would like to attend please register by 5pm on Friday 15 October 2021. To register please send an email to Tom van der Hoven, our International Development Consultant, at imeet@iimc.com with the following detail:
In the subject heading the words “Zoom Registration – ADSO”. In the body of the email include your name, your local authority and your position/post as well as the date of the session you would like to attend.
Continued Lobbying for remote meetings
Through our partnership work with the LGA, further lobbying of Government will take place to bring about the change in legislation that we all want. As part of this, the LGA is proposing to issue a short survey to authorities to collect evidence on the challenges and benefits of returning to in-person meetings. We will flag it in the newsletter when the survey is being sent out and we would encourage you to complete it. ADSO will also shortly be writing to Michael Gove as the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in the hope that he is more positive and willing listen to local government. We can but hope!
Members’ Forum
As ever, it is great to see an active members’ forum. Some of the topics that have caught my attention this week are:
- Full Council – are you holding meetings at your normal venue?
- Challenges of in-person meetings
- Administration of meeting in the Winter – Covid
- Chairperson rather than chairman
- Sixth form appeals
Click on the link in the Members’ Forum section below to read and contribute to these discussions.
Priya Patel, Company Secretary (Joint)