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I've been trying to follow the cricket over the last few days, but I will be glad when it's all over. Everyone at work is checking the BBC website every two minutes and it's all getting to be a bit too much for some. The rain on Saturday was quite fortunate for us, because it did cause a fair number of people to abandon the TV and come down to the new Children's and Family Centre on Wyrley Birch for a stone unveiling ceremony. The stone can't be laid until the building is finished, so it was propped up on an easel to be unveiled on the terrace. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the builders had done enough tidying up and making safe to allow everyone the opportunity to walk through the building - apparently it is 23 weeks along in a 40 week build, so the walls, ceilings and room layouts were in place. The architect was on hand to walk us through and point out all the different rooms - two nursery spaces, a cyber cafe and drop in area, training rooms, a health room etc; it will be a great resource when it is finished.
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12.9.05 15:54
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Yesterday was a long day of meetings. We started with Transportation and Street Services Scrutiny in the morning, where typically there was a row when we got to the 'report' on the Tyburn bus lane; then we failed to get an answer as to why the Tory-Lib Dem coalition feels the need to spend £125,000 on a second feasibility report on the Underground option when they have yet to publish the findings of the first report becuase the question was deemed to be 'too political'. This was followed by full Council - our first under the new meeting structure. This meant that Mike Whitby gave his 'State of the City' Report, which principally consisted of listing all his overseas visits. We also had a new section for 'Issues of the Day', which allows councillors to raise topical issues. It's an odd format - the Councillor raising the issue gets five minutes (depending on the number of issues raised - it's a half hour slot, so it might be fun to see what happens if we all raised an 'Issue of the Day') to speak, and then one other member (at the discretion of the Lord Mayor) gets a chance to respond. So we had a curiously disjointed speech from Bruce Lines on the Licensing Act, a scaremongering speech from Deidre Alden on the fuel crisis that isn't (at least according to today's news), a motion of congratulation to the England Cricket Team , and another non-answer on the Metro. We did manage to get a motion submitted by John Hemming ruled out of order, on the grounds that a motion about Ken Livingstone's current troubles with the Standards Board was not a suitable issue for debate in Birmingham's City Council Meeting; we then lost our motion proposing the establishment of a relief fund to help to provide assistance to some of the residents who have lost their homes and businesses due to the Tornado last month. Labour members in those wards have been working with community organisations to try to establish an appeal fund, but it really does need the leadership and perhaps more importantly, the independence that an appeal headed by the Lord Mayor would have. Instead the Tories and the Lib Dems have told Birmingham residents to get on and sort it out themselves.
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14.9.05 22:06
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Tomorrow's Local Services scrutiny meeting should be interesting, given that the Cabinet Member has not only been sacked, he has also resigned from the Liberal Democrats, and therefore has no issues about going to the press. I'll be waiting to see who gets the Cabinet promotion now..
We're back on schedule again now after the August lull. I went down to Greenwich a couple of weeks back to look at recycling for a Transportation review- Greenwich has a facility for sorting dry waste (paper, glass, tins, and plastic) which looks really interesting. It's almost all automated sorting, with just a few human 'pickers' to help the process along, and it's a very impressive set up. Apparently we already do send some of our waste from Birmingham to another one of these facilities further north, but it would be a real boost to recycling levels here if we had one of our own (and it would also resolve the stupid problem of our recycled waste having to be transported around the country in order to be processed).
Last week I had the odd experience of going to an open evening for College High - odd because I haven't been to an open evening since I was a prospective pupil myself. College High is bidding to become a specialist Performing Arts school, so they held a launch event for the bid, an open evening and a parents evening all on the same night, so as to have as many people there as possible.The bid launch went well - the school has a strong record on Performing Arts, with students doing work with the RSC and other organisations, but they do need to raise £50,000 in order to go ahead with the bid, so I think this event will be the first of many. I didn't manage to get very far on my tour of the school - we started off in the Learning Support rooms, and as a SEN Governor I had so many questions that I only got to go to three rooms - on the upside I now have three invitations to go back and see the work in action, so it was a productive evening!
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27.9.05 12:48
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Of all the nights to be locked out of the Advice Bureau, it would be the night when it's tipping down with rain. Still, two people had braved the weather and since it was an issue better seen than told I did go and have a look at some problem trees..not an uncommon problem in Birmingham given all the Lime and Beech trees we have around the city.
I had my first meeting of the Local Services and Community Safety Scrutiny this morning, having rejoined the Committee after a four month absence. We are told that until the Lib Dems get around to appointing a new Cabinet member, Mike Whitby himself will be overseeing the portfolio. We have asked if he could attend the next meeting, but we were assured that the vacancy will be filled by then - though no suggestions so far as to who will get the job..
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28.9.05 20:31
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