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.

Jackie Weaver : how to deal with the patriarchy.

@derxa she was just being silly/ironic as the chairman who got kicked out had decided to rename himself something else

“That’s rich from someone from Birkenhead”

The guy flipping out like someone from the exorcist what a loon! I seriously hope he doesn’t have a girlfriend/wife.

Horrible, horrible men.
I love Jackie Weaver, Cyn and John Smith!

@Youngatheart00

I loved it. So many zoom cliches. Phone calls, toilets, mute, ‘fuck offs’ (not on mute). People generally talking all over each other and basic chaos. TBH I thought the majority of the attendees were all very patient considering it was such a blatantly unproductive use of their evenings!

What time is women’s hour - anyone know? (I don’t regularly listen)

It's on now!

@napody oh crap - oh well I’ll catch it on bbc sounds

These people should be removed , totally unprofessional and inexcusable behaviour . Some of those men need therapy

Why did she call herself Brittany Spears?
Weaver said: "The chairman simply declared himself 'clerk' and notified everybody of the case

"There is no way of stopping him from calling himself clerk. Please refer to me as Britney Spears from now on."

Have just changed my user name in her honour.

Disclaimer: I am not she.

That video reminded me why I never get involved with stuff like this. I have no time or patience with rude jumped up arseholes.

What a great insight from Jackie Weaver on Woman's Hour, being asked how she kept her cool. She said she didn't get involved in arguing about her authority, because she was focussed on her role in making sure the two councillors who had called the meeting could hold a meeting. "I wasn't there to train them in how to hold a Parish Council meeting."

Truth or Lie

Women’s Hour wasn’t great.

That was a good interview, would have liked to have heard more from her but they squeezed her in at short notice.

When you watch this alongside the 'being called out [by the parish council] for not clapping Captain Tom' thread, it really puts it into perspective.

Aled and his dad(?) absolutely terrifying. So aggressive and rude. I hope his friends have seen it and told him it was grade A dickhead behaviour

"He is not the clerk of the parish council whether or not he declares himself to be or makes a badge saying 'I'm the clerk of the parish council'" had me howling...like something straight out of the Thick of It!

That is the greatest thing I have ever seen.

"This is a great example of bullying within Cheshire East. And its environs"

👏👏😂😂😂

My local council webcasts of a lot of the decision making and scrutiny meetings, though parts are exempted for various reasons, some rather questionable. For example, decisions on contract bids from private companies might be exempt from webcast and the public being able to watch, and in real life members of the public exercising their rights to watch would be asked to leave etc. I think that companies wanting to run a public service should have to be willing to be considered in public (but then I'm in favour of councils delivering services and offering centrally organised support for related organisations such as schools directly.

You can go to your local council's website and go to the section normally called something like Democracy etc. The London Borough where I lives has recorded and webcast the meetings for years, but now they've moved from the Civic Centre to Zoom. Meetings

I'm a parent governor, was a parent governor scrutiny rep (not a councillor) on 2 scrutiny committees for 4 years) and a Labour Party activist, and I have been involved in lobbying the council - before I was on Scrutiny - over decisions. And I have been involved in other stuff.

I will say women can be unpleasant, exclusionary bullies etc as well, and can tell lies. And in my local Labour Party some of our councillors are not always honest and truthful when talking to members. They are currently opposing efforts by other members of the same political party to implement the manifesto that our candidates stood on.

You have no authority here Jackie Weaver

The frightening thought is that some day soon lockdown will end and face to face meetings will restart, and then you can't mute men like this.

Julie's iPad and the phone call cracked me up

I have a Swedish clip on horrible behaviour by (male) chairperson too but not with English subtitles so I won't post that one, but it certainly is widespread behaviour -- petty local power greed basically.

As a contrast I'd like to offer current Finnish PM Sanna Marin back when she was chairing the council of Tampere during a mad debate on trams. This is how it's done, sternly but respectfully.

I ended up on a committee a bit like this (not quite as bad) but it was a shock after being on a much more organised one with an extremely good female Chair. I took a copy of Shackleton along to the next one, but you get people who roll their eyes and say "why does it matter?".

People forget that they're meant to be working for the good of the locals/membership under a defined system, and just on their own behalf.

People forget that they're meant to be working for the good of the locals/membership under a defined system, and not just on their own behalf.

@Bigbigbirfday

Women’s Hour wasn’t great.

It was a bit crap. The questions didnt feel very prepared.

@Skyppy

Reminds me of PTA meetings 20 years ago.

I nearly got lynched at a PTA meeting. We had raised loads of money as a friend of one member was someone who was really popular on Saturday night TV at the time and he opened our Christmas Fayre. We charged people to come in, about £2 I think but as a school with under 200 pupils we ended up with hundreds and hundreds of people coming to see him and of course some stayed and spent money. So we then have the meeting about spending the money, one lady wanted us to buy more paper towels for the loos, someone else wanted carpet in the reception classroom and so it went on and got more and more hyped up (good job we didn't have the internet in the 80s) so I got a bit fed up of it and suggested we donated it to a country that was int he midst of a famine. Well I united everyone else against me so nothing went to charity but they agree how to spend it.