Radyr and Morganstown Paperless Office
Dial-up, Broadband, WiFi, the pathways to the Internet Super Highway are being explored by Radyr and Morganstown Community Council. Some years ago, under the guidance of cyber flying members we entered the 21st Century with up-to-date methods of communication and information gathering.
All but one of our members is now on-line and she is working on joining us in cyber space. Notices of meetings, minutes, and invitations to events are forwarded to us over the ether. My report of the OVW conference and annual meeting was written, the motions scanned in and the document distributed, before our meeting, to be formally presented – saving a great deal of time.
Each of us has reams of paper supplied by the council. We do use our own ink to print out hard copies! However expert members save copies on a memory stick and do not file the paper work and a former member dispensed with both and brought his lap-top to meetings.
No more “ringing round” for R&MCC. We have discovered how to create group mailings and e-mails await the recipients who can then make a considered reply.
The Clerk uses email for quick written communication with Cardiff City officers and submits letters to them by email to meet dead lines whilst ensuring a file copy follows by post. The internet is invaluable. It provides information on suppliers and costing. It can be used to trace the history of planning applications on Cardiff’s online archive and even to research government discussions in current select committees.
The Radyr & Morganstown community runs a professionally designed website with extensive local information. It will be relaunched shortly with an updated design. The Community Council has its own web pages within this site. All main council minutes and agenda are posted on the site as pdf files. There were 160,000 visits to the site in 2006 with 432,000 pages viewed. This increased to 230,000 in 2007 with 632,000 pages viewed. Local planning applications are listed weekly. Updates are cut and pasted from Cardiff Council’s website; no paper is used. October 2007 statistics show these viewings: 859 to the Local Directory (online list of local services), 267 for Council policies; 188 for planning and 82 for minutes.
Downloading large documents via dial-up was so slow that the Clerk has moved, recently, to broadband. The business package will reduce our phone costs and increase our efficiency, especially as Cardiff County Council uses its website for consultations and new policy documents more and more.
Individual members also ask for information on disc from Cardiff as well as the Welsh Assembly Government and the agencies that prepare policies for both bodies. We can then read the information at our leisure without going online and without having to carry about heavy policy documents.
R&MCC Minutes date back to the 1890s. The original Minute books are to be sent to the Glamorgan Records Office and we are looking into ways of transferring these valuable historical documents to disc.
However remote control is all very well and there is no substitute for a little face to face interaction. Most of us, some time between meetings, pop into the office for a chat with our friendly and helpful clerk, Helena Fox.
Judith S Marsh
Cllr R&MCC
