Boundary
Committee present request to Local Councils in Cheshire
At two presentations held on
Tuesday 30th June, staff from the Boundary Committee outlined how they would
like the Town and Parish Councils of Cheshire East and Cheshire West and
The presentations are available
for your pleasure! Click here for Cheshire East. Click here for Cheshire West and
Kingsley
and Nomansheath join the Quality list
At a meeting of the County
Accreditation Panel on 26th February 2009, Kingsley and Nomansheath Parish
Councils received their recognition as a best practice council when the Panel
awarded them Quality Status. Kingsley in particular have been pursuing
this status for some time and were delighted to receive their award at the
Kingsley Open Day, Friday 26th March, from the Chairman of Cheshire County
Council, Councillor Steve Wilkinson. This was one of the last duties that
Cllr Wilkinson had as the County Council was replaced by two
"unitary" councils the following Tuesday. Well done to
Kingsley.
Nomansheath meanwhile are one of
the newest councils in the Northwest, having been formed as a merger of two
smaller councils only just under a year ago. Mind you, the combined size
of the council is still under 1,000 electors and it just proves that "good
things come in small packages".
Well done also to Helsby as they
managed to pass the re-accreditation process, which they have recognised is
more stringent than four years ago when they first succeeded.
Annual
General Meeting of ChALC
This took place on Thursday 23rd
October 2008 at Middlewich Civic Hall. As always the attendance was
superb with over 100 councillors and clerks attending, as well as Edward
Timpson Member of Parliament for Crewe, Councillor Steve Wilkinson, the
Chairman of Cheshire County Council (and newly elected member of Cheshire East
Shadow Council) and other VIP attendees. Cllr Paul Edwards, the Mayor of
Middlewich, welcomed all to the meeting and there are a few photographs
available here.
Another
two additional Quality Councils
At the meeting of the County
Accreditation Panel on Monday 1st September 2008, Congleton and Sandbach
Two
additional Quality Councils
At the meeting of the County
Accreditation Panel on Tuesday 6th November 2007, Nantwich
and Northwich
These awards now mean that well
over half of the towns in
2007
AGM
The above meeting of ChALC took
place on Thursday 18th October at Middlewich Civic Hall, with over
100 representatives from 58 Councils in attendance. The President of
ChALC, the Rt. Rev Alan Chesters OBE, chaired the meeting, as over 120 people
packed the hall to enjoy the pre and post AGM networking opportunities, as well
as participating in the meeting where some of the highlights were as follows...
1. The Annual Report was presented by Roger
Parkin, Chairman of ChALC, who spoke to the report, including the ChALC
approach to becoming "financially independent", the challenges and
opportunities of Unitary Local Government and some fundamental
changes to the Planning system.
2. Jackie Weaver, The Chief Officer of
ChALC gave an entertaining presentation where she reported that membership once
again increased this year, training, support and mentoring continues to expand,
but the core business of ChALC has not suffered, in that the number of calls,
emails and letters requesting advice has also increased. In addition,
representation on outside bodies continues to increase, hence the influence of
ChALC continues to grow, allowing ChALC officers to improve the level of
communications with members.
3. The Chairman of ChALC's Finance Committee,
Brian Kerr, OBE, introduced the accounts and illustrated how ChALC continues to
work towards achieving Financial Independence, whilst still
maintaining a healthy reserve position, as well as bringing in more external
funding.
4. The election of officers saw the
election of two new Vice-Presidents in Bob Armitage - who has been
involved in ChALC for many years, including chairing the Chester Area meeting
for over 10 years - and Frank Walton, who has been the clerk to Cranage
Parish Council since 1954 and been a stalwart of the Congleton Area meeting
since its formation. In addition, a new Vice-Chairman was elected, in
Stuart Hulse from Helsby
Parish Council and several new representatives to the Executive from the Area
Meetings.
5. Four motions were discussed and full
details will be available on this site in due course.
The post meeting networking saw
several members appear reluctant to leave the gathering and the buzz in the
room was excellent. Feedback forms were circulated and returned, with all
of the information being collated to ensure that future meetings improve on the
standard.
If you attended and have not fed
back information but would like to, please email Susan Harding. If you did
NOT attend, it would be useful if you can let us know why not - unless you have
already given apologies - by emailing Susan."
New
Code of Conduct introduced
With effect of 03rd May 2007, the
new Code of Conduct came into force and Councils will need to adopt this within
6 months or the mandatory provisions will take effect regardless! For
further information, look at our section on the Code.
Cheshire
Clerk speaks at National Conference
Jonathan Williams, clerk to Middlewich
Another
new Quality Council
On 19th September 2006, the
Quality Accreditation Panel awarded Antrobus Parish Council Quality Status. This topped
off an excellent year for the community of Antrobus having also won the title of
Neston
getting closer to its own Local Council
For Full story, click here
ChALC
secure IT funding for member councils
Thanks to the involvement of ChALC
in the "ChangeUP" process of providing improved support to
"Infrastructure organisations", Jackie Weaver secured funding to
provide IT equipment to the following councils...
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Great Boughton |
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Hough and Chorlton |
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The total for this
(including training on use of these and some of the associated software)
amounts to almost £4,000.
Are
you a new councillor or chairman? Or perhaps a candidate in the elections?
As elections take place this year
in some districts, you may be reading this as a candidate to become a Town or
Parish councillor, or as an incoming Chairman of a council. If so, then
there are opportunities to find out how to do your job as councillor/chairman
from those that know!
From the viewpoint of one Mayor,
the view was that "The chairmanship session should be part of all
Vice-Chairmen and Deputy Mayors planning, let alone Chairman and Mayors.
This should extend to committees as it would benefit ALL members, if their
Chairmen knew how to do the job better. I'll certainly want to come back
to this session."
The Cheshire County Training
Partnership (part of the National Training Strategy) provides training that is
specific to the First Tier of Local Government. Details of dates are on
the training page of this site.
For a comprehensive look at the
National Training Strategy, click here.
‘Well-deserved’
OBE for NALC’s former chairman
NALC was delighted to announce
that its former chairman, Cllr Brian Kerr, has been appointed an OBE in the
2006 New Year’s Honours list.
Brian, who still serves NALC as
vice president and chairman of the finance committee, was chairman between 2000
and 2004. During his stewardship of the parish and town council movement,
first-tier councils saw their role expand. Among the initiatives introduced
have been Quality Status, the National Training Strategy and increased powers
over antisocial behaviour. Brian also made an enormous contribution to the
internal modernisation of the sector.
Brian is still chairman of Saughall and Shotwick Park Parish
Council in
Well done Brian!
Two
new Quality Councils
On 12th December 2005, the Quality
Accreditation Panel awarded two more councils Quality Status. These are Audlem
- the first in Crewe & Nantwich District - and Tarvin,
the third Quality Council in the City of Chester District. For more
information, click here.
Annual
General Meeting & Charter
The ChALC AGM was held on 13th
October at Middlewich Civic Hall where over 100 people attended, including
several senior representatives of the County and District Councils who were
there to officially confirm the three tier charter that has been so
successfully negotiated by the Executive of ChALC. This appears to be the
first three tier charter in the country - although confirmation of this has not
been received yet - and the County and District Councils are to be
congratulated and thanked for their foresight in realising the importance of
the Charter in ensuring relationships and partnerships between the three tiers
of government in
NALC
Success
At the Annual Conference of the
National Association of Local Councils, our own Chief Officer, Jackie Weaver
and Regional Development Officer, Chalky White, presented with Chris Thomas
from Cheshire County Council one of the satellite sessions entitled
"Preparing for change - Keeping the baby AND the bathwater".
This session addressed the County's proposal for working with Town and Parish
Councils in
Quality
Continues to grow
On 31st August 2005, an extra 7
(yes, seven!) councils achieved Quality Accreditation in
Another
AQA Success
Frank Walton, who clerks three
Parishes in the Congleton Borough area (Cranage,
Somerford and Twemlow
Councils) has become the latest success in the bid for Quality Status. As
a clerk of over 50 years standing, Frank is an example to all of the clerks out
there that are hesitating about helping their Council achieve the Quality
Status.
Well done Frank!