Training Development, SLCC Branch Meeting and BC Planning Forum

This is the last Friday edition of the View, in future we shall forward it on a Monday in order to start the week.  Judging by how many out of office responses I receive on a Friday, this shouldn’t adversely affect most of you.

I hope you all had an opportunity to remember and celebrate Local Council Clerks Week.  It has been a wonderful opportunity to raise the profile of our profession both to our neighbourhoods and our councils.

This week, we hosted in-person training focussing on Customer Service Training for Town and Parish Councils. Of course, we all deliver customer services, our neighbours, parishioners and electors are our customers and we can take them for granted, just because they cannot chose an alternate supplier for their local services doesn’t mean that they don’t expect a professional reception and service from us.  The active conversations looked at our accessibility, who we craft our contact services for and what opportunities we miss.  A key takeaway was the acronym LAST, Listen, Acknowledge, Solve or move forward and, Thank. 

The country’s County Training Officers got together on Monday and discussed very observations on training strategies and topics.  Following this I shall be reviewing our offerings and how we can stitch them into a Training Development Plan for Officers and also for Councillors.  I believe this will help BMKALC in scheduling and planning courses and will encourage a structured training approach in some councils.  Fortunately we have most of the components in place already.

Next week the SLCC have their in-person branch meeting on Monday hosted in Waddesden and I know Helen Hupton, is has been organising the event,  is hoping to see lots of you there.  Our local branch is an excellent source of support and practical advice, and our SLCC mentors Delia S and Helen G are on hand to assist both new clerks and clerks under pressure.

I’ll be joining a meeting on Tuesday looking at the Future of the Support Sector and New! Resolving & Dealing Effectively With Challenging Situations – July 18th At 10am – Online takes place as the first meeting closes!  This will be followed in the afternoon by the BMKALC Management Team meeting which makes for a very busy day!  We have the first of the BC Clerks Forums on Thursday and the second on Monday, Helen and I are sharing the load, and we look forward to bringing you a few words on what the Information Commissioner’s Office  has been up to of late and what that offers to our sector.

Thursday 20^th July – 10am at in the Council Chamber at Beaconsfield Town Hall

Monday 24^th July – 10am in the Diamond Room at the Gateway in Aylesbury

We’ll close the week on Friday with the Canva training course.  Hoping to see lots of you there.  It’s a great tool and I know personally I’m only scratching the surface, so despite it being my non-working day, I hope to arrange to be there myself.

The BC Planning Forum will be meeting in person on the 30^th October, please register that you will be attending so that we can ensure sufficient refreshments!  As always questions in advance are incredibly helpful, so please forward them to me and we will try and have answers ready.

Some councils have reported that our invoices land up in the junk folder, next time you see one please add the email sender address to your address book and hopefully that should sort out the problem.  Finally, don’t forget to book for our Conference, the link is below the signature. 

Apart from that we wish you a happy weekend and look forward to speaking with you next week.

Kind regards

Mel, Helen and Lorraine