Thursday 25 February 2010

TDCTV Thanet District Council meeting premier, today’s the big day.


As some of you will know while KCC were using a large budget running Kent TV, TDC snubbed this service preferring to use Youtube instead.

They have various films on their Youtube channel below an example.



Anyway I believe that today’s proposed screening of this evenings council meeting will be too long to put on to Youtube so I expect they will host it elsewhere, I also expect some of you will remember that the previous premier didn’t go to plan see http://birchington.blogspot.com/2009/12/silent-movie.html

I am afraid that when TDC engage in matters of technology things don’t always succeed, anyway we will hope for Ars Gratia Artis but don’t be surprised if they attempt something somewhat more complicated with the lion and things don’t work out quite as expected.
It’s not looking too good so far, this is from today’s agenda:

Public Document Pack

Please note that the recording and/or
photographing of any Council meeting is not
currently permitted under the Council’s
procedure rules.

You are hereby summoned to attend the meeting of the Thanet District Council to be held
in Council Chamber, Cecil Street, Margate, Kent the on Thursday, 25 February 2010 at
7.00 pm for the purpose of transacting the business mentioned below.
Democratic Services Manager

To: The Members of Thanet District Council
FIRE ALARM PROCEDURES: If the fire alarm is activated, please vacate the offices via
the stairs either through the security door to the left of the Chairman or opposite the lifts in
the foyer. Please do not use the lifts. Please assemble in Hawley Square on the green.
Officers will assist you and advise when it is deemed safe to return to the Chamber.
SUPPLEMENTARY A G E N D A
Update I have just received a message to the effect that the council meeting won’t be webcast due to problems with the council chamber’s public address system and that the council will amend their website to this effect.

I am assured that this is a technical problem that the council just don’t have the money to repair at the moment and that when funding can be found to repair or replace the Public address system the council still have plans to webcast their meetings.
Further update that I think reflects particularly well on the council, they now say that they are going to give it a go and put up with the flack if they get eaten by the lion, metaphorically that is.
Here is the official version
Chamber microphones delay council webcast pilot
We have identified some constraints regarding the council chamber microphones and are currently investigating a range of solutions. Until a cost effective solution is in place, we are unable to proceed with the webcast pilot which was planned for Thursday, 25 February 2010.

Replacing the equipment would require significant expenditure. Because of the the current financial climate we are looking carefully at doing this in the most cost effective way.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused, and will update you when we know more.
Update, the word on the street is that they are still going to have a go at it and that cabinet seems to be pushing the issue through, so lay off them for a bit if you don’t mind.

Possibly the worm turned and it may be up to us to support this, after all I think we are saying that we want more open government and I suspect it hasn’t been an easy day all round.

Let them ride the lion for a bit please.

10 comments:

  1. I am afraid that when TDC engage in matters of technology things they end up spendinfg a great deal of money and end up with a load of rubbish that is not really fit for purpose..."but it was cheap guv" it was only a few hundred thousand.

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  2. I agree with the previous comment

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  3. Please assemble in Hawley Square on the green and wear bright colours so we can spot you amongst the other turds.

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  4. Didn't I read on you blog one councillors saying that TDC get £7000 per man, woman and child in thanet as a grant from the govenment? TDC cant be strapped for cash if this is true and fixing the speaker system would be a drop in vthe ocean. It would make Thanet richer than many an oil state! But just maybe it was a councillor exagerating the truth or getting his facts wrong yet again.

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  5. Its suprising how quickly tdc can get through money, a carpet here a carpet there, double glazing, new furniture, a few mercedes trucks "they were a right bargain", make a few directors redundant employ a few more with a different title. Throw some money at business parks and leave them empty. The list is almost endless, not forgetting a few hundred thousand per year on IT.

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  6. oh well what a suprise, the IT isn't up to the job and the equipment they have got needs replacing. TDC really could not organize a bunfight in a bakery. The director in charge should really get the house in order, how embarrasing after all the advanced publicity, perhaps Canterbury Council to take over then we might get a decent service.

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  7. Cost Effectiveness! Its back to the Town Crier.
    "Oyez! Oyez! Hear ye this Citizens of Thanet!
    Cllr Ezekiel doth say in the Year of our Lord 2010 on the eve of 26th Febrary ...."

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  8. Two corrections here.

    The first involves the web-casting pilot which went ahead tonight and we will see the results tomorrow.

    The problem surrounds the old and now obsolete microphone system hard wired into the chamber and now not entirely reliable for such an exercise and too expensive to replace in the present financial circumstances.

    It was this councillor who said the average subsidy for every man, woman and child in Thanet is £7,00. In Margate Central and Cliftonville West this is closer to £9,000 and takes into account all services on the island and includes policing etc.

    Thanet is a net recipient of benefits as having some of the highest deprivation problems in the country and I will share some of the figures on my ThanetLife weblog in the coming days.

    Even with such figures we are hardly awash with money and need much more to address chronic problems but we have still managed to peg the council tax increase at under 2.5% in contrast to 11% under the last Labour administration

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  9. Oh good that sounds very up to date a web cast pilot that we can see tomorrow.
    Next you will be saying telephones at TDC are answered within 4 rings and they really did need all that carpet and double glazing.
    with a nod to the winter olympics pull the other one its got cow bells on it.

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  10. I hope that the £9,000 given to each Margate Central resident is a gross figure and Dr M can give the figures for the total taxes paid by the same residents like income tax,vat,national insurance, business rates, council tax, road fund tax etc.

    ReplyDelete

Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.