Morecambe Town Clerk

[accykeef]

The forum has been removed until someone is available to moderate it.
IMHO This type of forum is useless and would prefer a forum moderated by members.
I run one in a specialised area which gets abuse sometimes but that works where, if 3 members flag a post, it is hidden until it has been checked by a mod. This works well as abuse of the flagging procedure carries it's own punishment - a dammed good thrashing with a stick. Some members flag threads just for that.
What would be good would be if the Councillors themselves were on there so we could hear and question their views rather than the views of some Council puppet.
I did email every Councillor from the website, asking about the discussion board and have yet to receive a reply from any of them.
This truly was a website of the lowest order and I await their improved efforts with baited legs.

[trevnhil]

Good Morning Keith.

Re... "I did email every Councillor from the website, asking about the discussion board and have yet to receive a reply from any of them."

That is disgusting. I think there are more than 20 councilors and I can understand an odd one not replying..... But no replies at all..

It does make me wonder just how the 'everyday' person i supposed to get his point across to the council at all.

Trev..

[accykeef]

To be fair, I would suspect that none of the Councillors actually received my email.
Nothing else works on the site, why should the email system be any different?
I would ask them why the lights are on at tea time, if I got the chance

[Sir Wilcomb]

One cannot help but wonder if a forum moderated by the council would actually permit any comments which oppose the council point of view. I had noticed when the forum was 'active' (I use the term loosely) one of the threads was a question posed by the council in such a way as to make it appear that anything other than the council viewpoint would be ludicrous.

[WillowTheWhisp]

I also find it frustrating on a forum where all posts are moderated before appearing. We used to have a Hyndburn one like that and one evening they invited our MP to answer members questions 'live' but they even monitored his replies so I think we got about 3 questions actually with replies before he had to log off. In the meanwhile the same guy was also instantly answering people on an independant forum. ;D

[brian]

Oops, forgotten to call Keith. Haven't been in Lancaster much and simply forgot. I did notice a name and number in my notepad last night and wondered who Keith was, thanks for reminding me

[accykeef]

I think that the guy is genuinely busy with other things, not sure what but he is only doing the website part time.
The website is a long way down in his priority list which is understandable.
It should not be way down the list of the Council's priorities though.
I think that Council meetings should be webcast so the fine citizens of Morecambe can see what their great and good leaders are up to. As it stands, even someone like myself, who takes an interest in local events, hasn't got a clue who represents me, what they look like or what they are planning to make the town of Morecambe a better place.
They have advertised a public forum (June 7th.) so that things can be discussed but this is likely to be hijacked by those with the loudest voices. An internet forum is a better medium for political discussion as time can be taken to consider a comment rather than have to reply in a knee jerk fashion in a live public meeting.
The quieter members of the council may just have some fantastic ideas but are unable to get a word in edge ways amongst the rough and tumble political arguments.

[mpprh]

Bring back Nelly Bolton ?

Peter

[accykeef]

Been to the meeting tonight and it was as thrilling as I expected it to be.

They would not discuss the website in open meeting but I found out after that they have experts working on the Council website - don't expect any action soon on what should be their most effective line of communication.

[WillowTheWhisp]

These experts are they actually on hand locally or some distant bods who created the website?

[accykeef]

They didn't say but I wouldn't be surprised if it was someone's grandson.
As it is built from templates, it will be a real job of work getting it to do all that is required.

I did mention, among our group that nothing is ever advertised and we don't find out about it until later. They made a big thing about everything being in The Visitor. When I said I didn't get The Visitor, they said I would do if I cared about Morecambe.
That's when I mentioned the website but they still insisted that the Visitor is the best place for info.

[WillowTheWhisp]

But people just casually surfing the net would probably appreciate a website more than a newspaper. From what I can gather not all Visitor content makes it to the web and there are people beyond Morecambe who are interested in the town.

[trevnhil]

You are certainly right about the online edition of the visitor. It is severely limited in its content and some things are weeks behind the times.

However I do realise that they need to sell the newspapers rather than give free web coverage.

Trev..

[WillowTheWhisp]

Very true Trev, which is why it would be nice if the council website was active and reliable.

[accykeef]

The Visitor has to sell newspapers so I can understand their content not being up to date but it would be good if the Visitor's pages were only a week behind rather than months.

At the meeting, they did mention yet another website -
www.morecambelive.com/
www.morecambelive.co.uk/
which is another one under construction. This is where we can find all the relevant info about live events around the area.
I didn't know it was under construction until I looked at it when I got home. Had I known, I may have been tempted to ask if they are playing the law of averages here and if they start enough of them, eventually one may work.
I don't know who is behind it but it may be there are arguments behind the scenes - we'll see.
It is attributed to 'Bucket & Spade Marketing'.