A visit to Creswell
Sooner or later, I had to come across a Parish Council meeting where I was sitting and praying for its end. The meeting of Elmton with Creswell Parish Council (ECPC) lasted well over an hour, so I managed to squeeze something interesting from it for my readers. After leaving the Chamber, one of the residents asked me what I thought about the meeting, and I said honestly: I was at many meetings, but THIS was probably the most boring of them all.
It is worth mentioning that residents and I were asked out of the Chamber before the end due to a “secret” agenda item. The residents I spoke to told me that their Parish Council always does this – whenever councillors want to talk about something that could be controversial: they close the Chamber to the public. I will not comment on that, but after a year in STC, I can confirm: old and stale councils do that often mainly because they HATE scrutiny. Sometimes, but very rarely, it is forced by contractual obligations. Usually, they prefer to blindside residents with their decisions and face the short-lived aftermath later.
How did the STC Labour Party councillor say it? “They will vote for us anyway”.
UNGODLY HOUR!
Right at the outset, I must highlight one unusual thing. The ECPC meeting was held at 2:45 PM. This is a district-wide phenomenon. No one who works normally can be a councilman in this Parish. Neither can residents who would like to observe the proceedings. Such an early hour will effectively discourage anyone with any work or family type responsibilities. It looked suspicious to me in advance, and the meeting proceedings reinforced my belief that if I took a closer look at the workings of this Council, I would probably have a lot of exciting things to report.
Despite the inconvenient time of the meeting, two residents turned up. They had a reason to do so, and, most interestingly, the topic they raised was related to Shirebrook. Having been to many meetings of different councils, I can say that most of them mention Shirebrook. I do not recall anything good being said about our town and district councillors representing our town. Still, the very fact that we are on the lips of everyone around us is an interesting fact that goes unnoticed in Shirebrook. Basically- thanks to Dowes, Fritchley, Kane and Peake- our town is seen as the root of all the evil that haunts other parish councils.
The crowning achievement of our councillors is a matter I will describe in the next episode of this series, which will concern Glapwell. There, the word Shirebrook, is uttered with outright disgust.
Anyway- I need to deduct a point for unusual meeting time.
WHERE IS THIS ROOM??
As usual – the meeting room was not marked. Moreover, the Chamber door looks more like the door to a wardrobe than to a spacious room used as Council Chamber. I only got there because the residents mentioned above opened this “wardrobe”, and since it seemed strange to me – I just followed them.
Yes, I read a book about a door hidden in a wardrobe, and I thought, why not? You only live once! People went into the wardrobe only to find themselves in some strange, enchanted realm. That sounds better than a Parish Council meeting. However, in this case, I ended up in a long but narrow room without a single window. I know how that sounds. The feeling was similar.
I must admit that I don’t remember ever being in a room like this before. Low ceiling, no windows, narrow but disturbingly elongated room with a closet-like door. When I sat down on the chair, I thought it was an exciting beginning – which turned out to be illusory. It is worth noting that due to the unusual construction of the room, the councillors were sitting so far from the audience that I could barely see their faces.
NAME TAGS
ECPC is the second Parish Council where councillors had name tags placed in front of them. In the case of SNPC, these were plain cardboard printed slips of paper. Neat and also low cost. ECPC has raked in some cash because their labels are… sophisticated. Gold badges with beautifully calligraphed, engraved names looked very luxurious. Someone must have spent a lot of money on this, plus they probably don’t foresee any changes in the composition of the Council for many years ahead – copying these nametags will be difficult and probably costly.
Although I criticise spending money on such lavish name tags, I must stress that this is a very helpful practice for the meeting observer. Transparent councillors should not be afraid that the citizens watching them will know their names—a point for the ECPC.
CHAIR OF COUNCIL
Every Chair is different – I have learned that. Some are like good football referees – invisible but in control of the meeting. Others are like authoritarian leaders – they lead meetings with an iron fist in an organised and systematic way, not allowing any deviation from the agenda. Others act as friends to everyone in the room – open, polite and helpful. Then there is Chris Kane, who causes chaos, aggression, and shouting and rarely controls what is happening around him. However, I have never yet encountered a Chair like the one at Creswell.
At one point during the proceedings, I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing. For readers who have never been to a Parish Council meeting and are not familiar with the specifics and customs of this type of meeting, this description will not be funny. However, for someone who knows how proceedings should be conducted, what I write below should be highly amusing… or disturbing.
It is standard practice at such meetings to vote to accept the minutes of the previous meeting. However, when the ECPC leader ordered the vote – he did not even raise his head to count the votes! Instead, he asked who was in favour, said to himself ‘ok’ without counting the votes and moved on to the next item. Not to mention that he did not ask if anyone was against or abstaining – the Chair did not even look up! I was sitting there looking at it and asking myself: “what just happened?”
But the funniest thing is that none of the councillors present raised their hand at all – the Leader simply acknowledged that everyone had voted in favour and moved on! It doesn’t sound all that fascinating, but I watched it with bewilderment wondering why no one was pointing out that the votes were being conducted against all democratic standards.
Is it worse than closing a meeting when there is no answer to a question and the Chairman running away like a coward from the Chamber? I don’t know – that’s why I call this a draw.
CUT OFF THE ELECTRICITY!
This situation was repeated during the vote to cut electricity to one of the Council buildings – only three councillors raised their hand during the voting! The Chair did not ask whether anyone was against or whether anyone abstained. Despite this, the motion was recorded as approved! When I revisited my notes while writing this article, I found a telling annotation next to the words about this vote-“WTF?” I know, I know- I should not use that kind of language. However, the top-down assumption of this series was that it would not be… serious.
The mere fact of cutting off electricity to a building that is on loan to someone would be a topic for a separate article if it happened in Shirebrook. I won’t go into details, but out of my duty as a chronicler, I’ll briefly mention what it’s all about. CWPC is lending a building to some sports club. Some time ago the Council started receiving huge electricity bills from this building. All attempts to contact the person in charge of the sports club were unsuccessful. The Council has tried everything, and the club is not responding to phone calls, emails and snail-mail. Hence, the decision to cut the electricity. I know it sounds strange – but listening to the arguments put forward at the meeting, I concur that the Council didn’t have much choice. I suspect that the lack of light and hot water will force the head of the sports club to make contact.
A weird situation I haven’t come across before.
BRASS FESTIVAL CONTROVERSY
The festival, which takes place partly in Shirebrook, is looking for funding everywhere. Even in Creswell. Residents are unhappy about this, as the festival supposedly has nothing to do with their town. That’s why they came to protest against the funding of something that takes place in Shirebrook. Two residents protested, and when the time came to decide about it- Council rejected the application. Public pressure sometimes works, folks!
POLICE IS HERE
Police officers also turned up at the meeting. One well known to the councillors and one entirely new for the area: one of those promised by the government. However, Shirebrook residents have no reason to be jealous – our police station has recently been reinforced with another police officer. As far as I know, another one is just finishing his training and will soon join our station.
Generally, the town has the same problems as Shirebrook: a mass of antisocial behaviour caused by bored and promiscuous youth.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO TALK TOO LONG?
The question posed in the title of this paragraph could be answered by one of the ECPC councillors – he spoke for so long and so tediously that I (for the first time in the history of these visits) wrote down his name: Duncan McGregor. This councillor was like a machine: an unstoppable string of sentences, theses, hypotheses, proposals, descriptions and stories. Did he say anything worth recording? No. The only sentence I wrote after his “lecture” was: “he talks endlessly, and I don’t even know where he started”. This is a verbatim transcription of a sentence from my notes. Until now, I have no idea where he started, what he wanted to say and whether his speech provoked any tangible reaction (apart from the audience’s boredom).
Please note, though, that I only go to other Parish meetings to observe how they work compared to Shirebrook. Hence- I am not as focused at these meetings as I am at STC, where I try to listen to everyone with complete concentration and to be safe, I record the proceedings to listen to them again when I get home. So it is possible that Duncan McGregor was saying something important and I, lulled to sleep by the monotony of his speech, lost the meaning.
Why am I mentioning this? It is probably only because it is hard to bore me, and this councillor did it brilliantly.
MYSTERY DINER IS NOT A HIT
As on most Parish Councils meetings, this summed up the activities of the local Leisure Centre (although such a building is called differently in each place). When Labour Party councillors on STC insist that our Leisure Centre is a “unique” and “staple of community”, they are probably unaware that such a place exists in literally every town in the region. It exists and spends on its activities a fraction of what our LC spends on wages alone (188 000 per year). I won’t go into it now and will just note one fact: the Mystery Diner turned out to be a flop, contrary to the organisers’ predictions. From my point of view, it’s something I’d love to take part in myself (although my work would probably get in the way). Dinner with a drink; in an exciting company and a crime mystery to solve? It sounds like an interesting evening! Nevertheless, it turned out to be a dud in Creswell.
In contrast, however, it should be added that the Council has started selling tickets for… Christmas party. At the time of writing… 96 reservations! This is because the organisers put on such a brilliant party last year that the next one doesn’t need to be advertised. After all, customers already want a repeat.
BUSINESS GRANT FROM BDC
The last note I made was mention of a “business grant from BDC”. One councillor stated that every Parish Council received such a grant. Either this is not true, or I missed this payment in the STC account because, as far as I know- STC received nothing from BDC.
SUMMARY
As I wrote in the introduction – it was a boring meeting. Apart from the moment of emotion when the residents protested against subsidising the festival in Shirebrook – nothing interesting happened at the meeting. A quiet meeting in Creswell before a meeting in Glapwell where again, the word “Shirebrook” was frequently used and very unflattering words about what the Labour Party is doing there (by the hands of Shirebrook councillors).
About that, however, in the next episode.
Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com
