In January this year we hit a 1 year milestone of streaming Telford & Wrekin full council meetings, here is our story.
Back in January 2013 a friend and fellow blogger on Lightmoor Life, Jake Bennett tweeted one night a link to ParliamentLive.tv and said he’d like to see into a council meeting as easy as that. Telford & Wrekin Councillor Stephen Burrell replied that the next council meeting was in a few days, with free wifi at the venue so come and live stream it.
We thought this was a great opportunity to bring Telford community closer to the people who they voted to represent them and see how their interests are represented in council meetings. An unexpected side effect has been its shown councillors that the public do care about local government decisions.
I offered Lightmoor Life’s Bambuser channel for the streaming. So Jake got in touch with the council’s communications team and they were very helpful. The council’s protocol for full council meetings allows the public to video, photograph or use social media. Jake and I used an iPhone on a tripod with an iRig Mic sitting on a desk picking up the sound from the venues PA speakers over our heads. Bambuser showed we had over 100 live views as opposed to the public seats at the venue that had a round 4 people, 3 of who were council officers. Over a month later the video had over 300 views.
As we streamed it Jake tweeted the meeting & it was well received on twitter you can read it in our Storify here.
The council communications team were delighted with the results and said we were very welcome to do it again. One of the viewers that night Jon Farmer tweeted us and introduced us to the Google Hangouts as an alternative to Bambuser. Andy who runs Telford Live decided to attend the meetings to cover them by tweeting. The next meeting we used Google Hangouts on Air giving us multiple camera positions (laptops & webcams) and once the event is over the video automatically appears on Lightmoor Life YouTube channel creating an archive. The weak point for us was the sound quality we were not connected to the venues PA system. In March 2013 Talk About Local covered our innovative use of Google Hangouts.
I’ve had a number of people in the Local Gov. space contact me via Twitter to ask how we do it and how did we get the council to agree. One hyperlocal blogger was not having as much luck trying to get permission from their council, so I asked our Telford & Wrekin Council communication contact Nigel to talk to the hyperlocal blogger and explain the benefits and he was happy to do so. This helped the blogger put a presentation to submit to their council and eventually at a later meeting they voted to allow it.
We contacted the Telford & Wrekin Council and asked could they contact the two venues they use and see if we could get an audio feed from their PA systems. Both venues were happy to help and Andy from Telford Live provided a USB interface so we could hook a laptop up to the PA system and have the sound into the Google Hangout. This was a real boost to the sound quality of the broadcasts and was welcomed by viewers. Over the year as our groups commitments have changed Andy continues to tweet from Telford Live but also became one of our laptop & webcam positions.
In the summer of 2013 we were invited to the release of a white paper ‘Best by West Midlands 2013’. In it Telford & Wrekin Council, Lightmoor Life and Telford Live were covered for our streaming and tweeting of full council meetings.
In January this year we hit a 1 year milestone of streaming full council meetings, individually we spent our own money to buy better equipment from better quality webcams, mixers for the audio. In the past year councillors passed a motion that it has been a real success and that any type of council meeting should open to the public to broadcast as we do now for full council meetings.
Leaders of the conservative and labour councillors have given us feedback this year that they really appreciate what we do and that it’s a great way to connect with the public.
We were invited by the council to broadcast their budget presentation at a public event. It has also been mentioned by quite a few people of the 12 months that the broadcast has improved the behaviour of councillors during the meetings.
We’re planning other events now and soon will be broadcasting a Question Time style of councillors from each party answering questions submitted by the public via to Telford Live website.
If you would like to know more, contact Mark at:
Image is copyright Maryland GovPics.
