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Have Your Say - Q&A
All you need to know about
getting your views heard
I’ve got some views about the way things
are run in my school/town, who should I speak to?
It depends on the issue. If it’s something to do with school, get in
touch with your Comunic8 representative, if it’s concerning your local
area, ward, constituency or Township then contact your local councillor
or township manager.
Check out the other sections of Communic8 Your Views to find out how
best to do this.
What do you mean by ‘ward’? I haven’t been to hospital for years!
Erm, we’re glad to hear it, but that’s not quite what we mean.
We might not always realise it, but Wigan Borough is a big place. To
make it easier to manage and to give each place its own identity, the
Borough is split into twenty five little areas, such as Hindley, Leigh
and Wigan Central. Each of these areas is called a ward, even when
there’s no hospital in sight, and each ward has its own councillors, who
are the people who represent you within Wigan Council.
And a constituency… that’s something to do with politics, right?
Correct. Down in London there’s a place called the House of Commons.
You’ve probably heard of it, that’s the place where all the politicians
go to argue with each other. At last count, there are 646 constituencies
represented there by an elected Member of Parliament (MP), four of which
(Wigan, Leigh, Worsley and Makerfield) contain wards that make up Wigan
Borough.
OK, but how do I know which ward and constituency I’m in, and why
would I want to know in the first place?
Dead easy is that one. Just check out the PDF below which should help
make it all clear for you.
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Where Am I?
If you know your ward, constituency and township, it makes it easier to
find out who is representing you at that level, and they can pass on
your views to the council.
How do the council discuss issues and decide what to do about them?
Usually, discussions will take place at meetings.
Meetings give people a change to get together and share their views.
It’s useful to organise a meeting if there’s an issue you want to get
sorted out, but you have to make sure they’re done well, a badly
organised meeting probably wouldn’t get anything done at all.
So how would you organise a proper meeting, and how will I know
what’s going on if I ever get invited to a formal meeting?
Well, first things first, you gotta decide what the meeting’s going to
be about. If this is a follow-up meeting, chances are you’ll already
have worked out what to talk about from your last one.
If this is the first meeting you’re having, then the first thing to do
would be to make sure that everyone who’s coming knows exactly what this
meeting’s going to be about.
Then, once you’ve elected a chair and secretary, decided on a time and a
place, you can all get together.
Wait… you have to elect a chair? Can’t you just sit on the closest
thing to you?
Of course you can, but we’re not talking about those kind of chairs,
we’re talking about a Chair Person, who basically makes sure the
meetings run as smoothly as possible.
Usually, a Chair will welcome people to the meeting and open up items
for discussion, making sure that everyone’s views are heard and that all
the items on the meeting’s agenda are talked about. If needed, they can
organize a vote on issues and state whether any action should follow on
from the discussions.
Ah right. So what about this secretary? What does she do, answer the
Chair’s phone and buy their mum a birthday present when they forget like
you see on telly?
Not exactly, anyone forgets their mum’s birthday and that’s their own
problem! However, the role of a secretary is a bit like you see on TV.
Their job is to write down the minutes from a meeting as the meeting is
going on, then take them away, type them up clearly and get them out to
the relevant people in time to set the agenda for the next meeting.
In the case of Comunik8, the secretary needs to get the minutes to the
PSHE&C Team within four weeks of the meeting.
Well that’s a bit rubbish, isn’t it? A secretary just jots down every
minute that the meeting goes on for? Then what, they convert them to
hours and see how long the meeting lasted?
Not at all, can you imagine how boring that would be? Minutes in this
sense are essentially notes of all the relevant things that were said at
the meeting, and anything that was supposed to be done following it.
So you wouldn’t have:
“The group were talking about school dinners, then Danny said he had to
go for a wee. Everyone laughed and Danny went off for a wee.”
But you probably would have something like:
“Danny suggested that more choice should be given for school dinners. A
discussion followed and it was agreed that Sarah and John would arrange
for someone from the local authorities to come and discuss this with the
group at the next meeting.”
I get’cha. This is all well and good, but if I have something to say,
will my opinions actually be listened to and not just dismissed because
I’m young?
Your opinions won’t be dismissed at all. Age is irrelevant when it comes
to having your say about the things that matter.
Some ideas might not be feasible, for example, it just wouldn’t be
possible to build a road straight from your front door to your school
just so you can avoid bad traffic. Yet if you are concerned about
traffic or public transport issues, your views will be heard by the
relevant people and taken into consideration when they’re looking at
improving traffic or transport.
That’s cool. Problem is though, I’m a bit shy and don’t really want
to go up to these people and tell them what I think. Is there any way I
can get my views heard without actually going to meetings or councillors
surgeries?
There sure is. E-mail is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? If you have views
on any issues that matter to you and other young people, you can always
e-mail them to us. If it’s a school matter, would post it here on the
Comunik8 Noticeboard for your local school council to read (you can by
anonymous if you wish!), or alternatively we could make sure your views
are sent on to the relevant people.
To e-mail your views the address, as always, is
linconline@wlct.org
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