Minutes of Eye Parish Plan Steering Group meeting: 10th January 2007

1. PRESENT

Chris Chapman
Sue Hooton
Sara Muldoon
Penny McSheehy
Lydia Smith

2. APOLOGIES

Sara Michell
John Packer
Mike Simmons
Tracey Amies-Smith

3. INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND

Lydia Smith welcomed everyone to the meeting and it was agreed that in the absence of a Chairman she would ‘lead’ the meeting and take the notes. Once the Chairman and Secretary had been agreed and appointed then they would take on these roles in future meetings.

Why do a Community Plan?

The Community Plan initiative has evolved from other community initiatives including village appraisals and community Action Plans. The process was managed by the Countryside Agency originally but now DEFRA have contracted Suffolk ACRE to provide Community Plan delivery in Suffolk using the Rural Social Community Programme (a potential source of funding)

There is no standard format/list of subjects for a Community Plan. It is up to the community to set out its ‘vision’, decide which issues they want to tackle, and then agree the priorities for action. Presenting the final information in ‘an interesting and informative way’.

The Plan process can be broken down into:

i) Formation of Steering group, agreement of aims & objectives, what we want to do and how,
ii) Development of budget, Funding application(s)
iii) Once funding has been confirmed carry out the consultations as agreed
iv) Analyse replies and develop into Parish action plan/business plan which outlines what the community would like to see happen & why
v) Do it! i.e. Implement Plan
vi) Review progress on regular (2 year?) basis

The Community Plan process takes an estimated 12-18 months. It was agreed with Eye’s large community, consultation was likely to be quite time consuming and the process was likely to take longer with an estimated completion date of August 2008.

The process in Eye to date

The Town Council supported the idea of developing a Parish Plan in principle and a public meeting was held in autumn 2006 at which the process was outlined by John Bell of Suffolk Acre. Attendees completed a form, indicating if they were interested in participating in the development process, and l were invited to this meeting of the Steering group. The process is intended to be inclusive and not exclusive so others will be encouraged to join in the work of the Steering group. In December 2006 a workshop was held with Suffolk Acre where the Community Plan process was looked at in more detail.

This meeting follows that workshop with the aim of:
i) Agreeing the role of the Steering group, and appointing the officers
ii) Agreeing the aims and objectives of the Plan
iii) Beginning to identify whom we want to reach/how we will achieve this and the estimated costs, so that a budget can be developed and used to make a funding bid for the Parish Plan preparation to Suffolk Acre amongst other organisations.

Lydia Smith confirmed that she had asked for provision to be made for the Community Plan at the Eye Town Council (ETC) budget meeting on10th January. Penny McSheehy agreed to ensure that a contribution to the Community Plan is discussed at the next ETC meeting. Lydia Smith said that in her discussions with Annette Gray (AG) of Suffolk Acre AG had indicated that bids for funding would need to be submitted by the end of February. However, Annette had also said that she was happy to discuss a provisional bid in early February and give help on identifying what information was required. Concern was expressed over this ‘tight’ timescale. It was also agreed that if the deadline was felt was too unrealistic after the next meeting, submission of the funding bid would be made after the end of March 2007, even if this meant looking for other funding sources.
However, it was agreed that the Group would seek to ensure that the draft bid would be submitted in early February for discussion with AG following broad agreement of the work programme and budget at the next meeting.

4. STEERING GROUP

The group discussed the potential role, and membership, etc of the steering group and broadly agreed the following

The role of the Steering group
· To develop a Community Plan for Eye
· To develop & produce a budget for the plan and authorise/monitor expenditure
· To identify funding sources for the plan
· To liase with organisations and groups (both voluntary & statutory) who have an input into the future of Eye in various ways including word of mouth, questionnaire surveys, etc
· To identify consultation and survey methods aimed at getting the communities1 views on the future of Eye.
· To analyse survey results and to produce a Community Plan based on these including costings and funding options
· To hold regular meetings and report back to the residents and Eye Town Council on a regular basis using the parish magazine and website amongst other methods.

The Membership of the Steering group should seek to be ‘open’ and not ‘exclusive’.
· Aim for 8-10 individuals
· Co-Option onto the Steering group at the groups discretion
· If any member of the Steering group wishes to resign then he/she must notify the Chairman in writing
· An individual can be removed from the Steering group by two thirds of the Group voting at a meeting called for that purpose

Officers
In view of the limited number attending the meeting it was agreed that only the posts of Acting Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer would be filled at this meeting with a view to filling the remaining posts of Vice Chairman, Publicity Officer, Events and Volunteer Co-ordinators at later meetings.
Lydia Smith agreed to be Acting Chairman, but said that pressure of work meant that she was unlikely to be able to fill this role on a long-term basis. It was agreed to postpone appointing the Vice Chairman until the next meeting.
Chris Chapman was appointed Acting Secretary, and Sara Muldoon Acting Treasurer.
Penny McSheehy agreed to speak to Janet Chambers regarding sharing the role of Publicity Officer.

Meetings
· Steering group to meet every 2 months as a minimum
· Quorum. To be decided at a future meeting when more people are present, but as a principle 75% was agreed.
· 5 days written notice of a meeting and matters to be discussed to be given.
· Decisions to be made in accordance with the majority vote of those present and entitled to vote. I.e. members of the Steering group

Working groups (to be set up if necessary later in the Plan process)
· Agreed Steering group could appoint these to carry out specific tasks on the Steering groups’ behalf.
· Working groups to be chaired by member of steering group, but cannot authorise expenditure

Finance
· Treasurer to liase with Town Clerk and produce regular financial reports to Steering group

5. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF PLAN

The Steering group aims to represent a cross section of the community of Eye, including the residents and businesses, the Town Council, voluntary groups, volunteers,

The Plan aims:
· To be a summary of what Eye is/already has ( Note this list is not complete at this stage)
· To say what is good and what works well
· To say what is bad and does not work in the interest of the townspeople (and businesses?)
· To itemise what can be improved in the town
· To name what we want to keep
· To have a clear idea, as a community, what we want and where we are going/how we are going to get there
· To inform the County and District Councils plans in terms of highways, education, and health, etc
· To ensure that Eye does not ‘miss out’ by not preparing a Parish Plan

How would we produce a Plan?

i) Ask the people who live and work in Eye. This would include the following:-

- All hospital and community based health services
- Social services
- Police and emergency services
- Town council
- Local businesses
- Clubs and groups
- Schools
- Every household

ii) Ask the following what their plans are:-
- Suffolk County Council
- Mid Suffolk District Council
- Water, gas and other service suppliers

Ensure that the process is robust enough for Suffolk County and Mid Suffolk District Council to adopt with LDF, and for other bodies to take into account when preparing their future plans.

What do we want to achieve? (Long term)

A written Community plan to address the issues that have been highlighted in the research

Each action will: be clear
identify the responsible lead
identify the source of funding
be time limited

We want improvement in “local living” in the following areas:-
health and social care
transport and road safety
quality of life years
any other areas identified in the research

An action plan to have formal support from the organisations involved


6-9 STAKE HOLDER ANALYSIS/COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT METHODS/PRODUCTION OF PLAN TIMETABLE AND DRAFT BUDGET/FUNDING SOURCES.

In view of the time, it was agreed to consider these issues and agree the draft aims and objectives of the Steering group at the next meeting.

10 AOB

Penny McSheehy agreed to speak to the editor of the Eye magazine about an article on the Community Plan.


11. DATE & TIME OF NEXT MEETING

The next meeting of the Steering group will be held at 19.00, on Thursday 18th January 2007, in the Council Chamber, Eye Town Hall. 

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