The TRA was represented at the conference of residents' associations held at Parliament last weekend.
Issues of citizen participation and safeguarding transparency were threaded through many of the discussions and workshops held at the inaugural one-day event. There was much revealed about tensions, inequalities, failures and quality of interactions between citizens and territorial local authorities.
Thorndon featured as a relatively young association. The TRA accepted an invitation to provide a case study for a workshop on governance and structure. We also impressed others with some of our innovations and projects, e.g.'s :
- the partnership with WCC to get into interactive, timely, participative public consultation (the heritage discussions),
- awareness of rights in exercising access to official information,
- proactiveness and empowerment e.g. initiatives like the graffiti map to create more transparency on what is going on and responsiveness of stakeholders,
- this blog for its contribution toward communication with our community.
The media release from Residents 2010 indicates there's a rousing future for engaged residents associations and their communities. Keep a watch on the Residents 2010 pages for further post-conference information.
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