Are your Zoom meetings ever like this? Parish Council meeting descends into chaos

[chomalungma]

There is some awful behaviour on here.

It breaks down badly at 4 minutes.

@PolkadotsAndMoonbeams

13 for 7 places last time.

Handforth is actually quite engaged as places go — they have an independent 'party' the Handforth Ratepayers, as well as other independents and the main parties.

Impressive. They're actually elected then.

"In the May 2015 elections, only 20% of eligible parishes held an election for one of their vacancies. This time around, it’s been reported that in Devon, more than 300 candidates will be elected unopposed."

theconversation.com/local-elections-disaster-for-local-democracy-as-hundreds-of-seats-go-uncontested-115874

Yes, we never have an election in our parish. There are always fewer candidates than there are seats. There’s a good reason for that though: if an election has to be held, the parish council receives a large bill for this - thousands of pounds that come out of council tax, and thus the parish council has less money to spend that year. This bill can cripple a small parish council for the entire year. It’s in the interests of the parish council to make sure an election isn’t held. If more candidates come forward than there are seats, the parish council will attempt to negotiate privately and agree which candidates will step down, in order to make sure there isn’t an expensive election.

I'm not a regular listener, but I'm sure there was an Archers story line where one of the younger female characters tried to, or did, get elected to the local parish council and managed to ruffle a few feathers among the old guard.

On further research I have found a website for my parish council (of sorts, think 1996 geocities!).

It seems that they don’t have enough councillors and need people to step up and fill places, no election required! Which is interesting.

JW should have dealt with the legality of her position, before the actual meeting took place.
If she had proper authority, which seems to be debatable, it should have been clearly understood amongst the parish councillors beforehand.
Bound to have been trouble else. She did not take a firm enough grip of the situation that was coming her way,

@Gingersnaphappy

I'm not a regular listener, but I'm sure there was an Archers story line where one of the younger female characters tried to, or did, get elected to the local parish council and managed to ruffle a few feathers among the old guard.

Emma, she wanted to push forward with allowing affordable housing to be built in the village which was being opposed by some of the.... snobbier... villagers. She won too and nearly got her own house finally. But it wasn’t to be unfortunately and caused the breakdown of her marriage. Thankfully all’s well now and her and Ed made up and now live in a park home on the farm!

@Gingersnaphappy

I'm not a regular listener, but I'm sure there was an Archers story line where one of the younger female characters tried to, or did, get elected to the local parish council and managed to ruffle a few feathers among the old guard.

I've heard of this kind of thing. The younger councillors are also told off for having a bad attendance record, but they can't always get the time off work and the older councillors don't see the need for evening meetings, etc.

"It seems that they don’t have enough councillors and need people to step up and fill places, no election required! Which is interesting."

Explains why the quality is variable, doesn't it?

Thanks for the Archers update Christinaismyperson .

@Gwenhwyfar well quite!

Right at the beginning, does someone say Fuck Off!?

Our parish council is a lot more functional than this as I understand it, but did drop a massive bollock which had left the village trying to make up tens of thousands of pounds in fundraising for a new playground - the parish council basically couldn’t be bothered to apply for funding when it was there and now of course it’s a lot harder to come by.

Definitely more 😬 than 😂

DH has been involved in some heated teams calls but the perpetrator is more PA (and a whingy fucker) than aggressive like that vile specimen. You can guarantee that if the person he habitually locks horns with is off, dh and another guy will be hounded by him, all day.

Wasn’t The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling set around parish council drama?

The lawyers where I work have all shared and commented (laughed) about this in a private Whatsapp group.

We have 3 renegade troublemakers in our department who actually have been guilty of very similar behaviour last year in teleconference and Zoom meetings and are now in the process of being disciplined (not just for this).

Amazing how people feel a telephone/Zoom screen gives them carte blance to be as rude as they like.

Sadly that second man who appeared on the Zoom call (dark hair, younger) looked like he was a right nasty piece of work. I mean all of the ones who were unpleasant looked it, but his face in particular seemed full of hate!

Ginersnaphappy, yes, Emma Grundy is a 30-something working class woman and she got elected rather than the rather posher and older Robert Snell.

@augustusglupe

Right at the beginning, does someone say Fuck Off!?

Yes, I thought it was the main older man (grey hair?) who said that.

@augustusglupe

Right at the beginning, does someone say Fuck Off!?

Yes

@minchinfin

Lets just remember that Aled Brewerton, the ranty solicitor, was born in 1976 according to publicly available information at Companies House, so he is in his mid forties - so not all of this appalling behaviour can be explained away as the preserve of more seasoned retired people with nothing better to do.

He's a solicitor - OMG well says it all then. I work with them a lot, and sadly some of them are known for being rather unpleasant, depending on the type of law you work in e.g litigation very argumentative and love to put others right, regardless of whether this appropriate or not. He's the dark haired one with the thin lips is he - in the same room as another older man?

Planning permission is a local authority remit NOT parish council. Parish council can comment but they don’t approve planning permission or make decisions . So, NO that is not an example of how planning decisions are made @Indecisivelurcher**

It is an example of male bellicose overbearing entitlement

I attend many zoom meetings with LA, all well run and professional. No argy bargy at all

[quote Christinaismyperson]@Colate that’s why I’m asking. I have never once received a single leaflet or newsletter through my letter box regarding parish council elections? I get information on ward elections which I assume is the local council elections being held in May, but nothing about local parish elections. I’m not wilfully being ignorant.

I’ve just googled it and found the PC section on the Borough Council page, it tells me nothing about elections other than they are held every 4 years. No information on when the next one is or the last one was or the results of the last one. I click through to my parish and the only information is the Clerks email and phone number.

I’ve lived at my address for 8 years and have never received any campaign information from any of the candidates.[/quote]
You have a point. And I don't really know exactly what to say. It is political parties that usually do the campaigning and the majority of people who get involved with parish councils don't want to be involved with a political party. So they don't have a campaigning body behind them and consequently you don't hear from them. I think that political parties are not interested in parish councils because they don't have that much they can do. Sounds like a put down but not meant to be. They have very little powers but they are meant to be an easy link between the public and local government. With most of the problems you might face in your community, your parish councillor should be able to direct you to your district and county councillors, but you are capable of doing that if you are motivated by a problem to you. So, apart from entering "prettiest village" competitions and the like, they don't do much else.

Every parish will have a notice board somewhere and that is where you will find out who and what your parish council are doing. Notices will appear in the local press but local newspapers are diminishing in number and in any case there is so much noise in the media that most people seem to miss it. You have to go looking for news concerning parish councils. There is nobody that interested in them to publicise them.
Just thought, if your local parish doesn't have a website badger them to get one. In this modern day and age they certainly should have one.

@HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee

Planning permission is a local authority remit NOT parish council. Parish council can comment but they don’t approve planning permission or make decisions . So, NO that is not an example of how planning decisions are made @Indecisivelurcher**

It is an example of male bellicose overbearing entitlement

I attend many zoom meetings with LA, all well run and professional. No argy bargy at all

Lol at my mistake I actually work in planning It was early and my children don't sleep 😂

This reminds me of the tedious meetings we used to have among co-property owners when I lived in a flat in London. It took three minutes to decide to spend £25,000 on the roof and then another four hours nit-picking over who was going to pay the locksmith's outstanding bill of £25. We managed to be a lot more civil than this lot though!

Just looked at this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parish_councils_in_England
as I thought I was a bit harsh over what parish councils do. Also, I note that it says not all parishes have a council.