Northern Ireland Community Relations Council - About Us - Council Minutes

03 April 2003

Minutes of the Policy Development Committee

April 3rd 2003

Present: Ward Erwin, Robin Wilson, Damien McKevitt (CRU), Dympna McGlade, Philip O'Keeffe, Jessica Ellis.

Apologies: Eamon Deane, Declan O'Loan, Damien McElroy

Minutes of the last meeting

Terms of Reference

First sentence – add 'reviewing' instead of management.

Last sentence – add distilling and promoting good practice.

Agreed

CR review consultation

Dympna update:

Organising a half-day session inviting facilitators to undertake training relating to the Shared Future document and the issues/questions raised. This will provide a pool of informed facilitators who can assist with the consultation process.

Consultation has already taken place with Interface groups. Mail out to Trade Unions.

Community/Voluntary Sector Event

Committee agreed that one conference would be organised. CRO's will be asked to identify five key individuals in the Vol/Comm sector in their particular Council areas, and invite them to participate. NICVA, Community Change, RCN, Comm Development Health Network and CRC to nominate up to 15 people as well.

Damien and Dympna to carry forward. Event to take place in mid May at the latest.

Media

CRU has placed large adverts in newspapers. Chris Stewart has drafted and article that hopefully will appear in the press shortly.

Editors of local papers and producers of tv and radio need to be contacted.

There has been press attention for the Debate at BCC on April 9th

Ward suggested the NIHE Community Network as a possible mailing list. Structure - Central group meets once a month, feeds into five Area Bodies, into 37 Consumer Panels and reaches 450 – 500. Ward to get this list to Dympna

CCG Board reaches another 110.

Chris Stewart is also writing to groups – Committee agreed that it would be a good idea to send follow up letters to these groups. Damien to ask Chris to forward the list to Dympna.

Web page of the Shared Future questions will be on CRC's and other voluntary organisations websites.

Business in the Community

Agreed to work in partnership with CRC. Will apply directly to CRU for funding for two conferences, in Derry and Belfast.

Young People

Jim Morgan to assist with training 10 young people to facilitate consultation with groups of young people.

Minority Ethnic Groups

Concerns about how the issue of race has been added to the document. Committee agreed that the PD programme should convene a small seminar discussion with the main minority ethnic bodies. This will also inform our own response.

Community Development Health Network is undertaking work with Travellers.

Institute of Governance

Organising international conference to work with political parties.

End of consultation conference

Minster attendance is important. Likely to be late June

Meeting/Calendar

Agreed that a co-ordinated meeting, perhaps led by Chris Stewart, could help to get a clear picture of the whole approach. Damien to follow up.

CRC/CRU calendar of events – Dympna and Damien could co-ordinate this and circulate to raise the profile of the consultation.

Key issues for speakers presentation

Make it relevant – do we even agree that we want a 'Shared Future'?

How do we live together?

Aims & objectives

Implementation – practice?

Connect the organisations – church, business, community.

Key elements need for people to grasp the concepts in simple form – 5/6 important conceptual ideas being posed in the document.

Duncan informed the meeting that he has attended 4 CR review audiences in the last week.

Dympna and Duncan to develop speakers notes.

Council members – presentation

Two facilitators – group work

Duncan to write an article to go to all local papers.

CR Week – Derry consultation

10th April – Dympna to find a speaker for the event.

Creating Common Ground

Development of CR activities in targeted communities. Policy reference document for each area of CCG is required. How do we raise policy issues from a practice base?

Posts.

Brian's post has already been advertised twice unsuccessfully. Ward explained that the work of this post will be altered so that the grants side absorbed by other Development Officers while an extra post will be created in the administrative team.

Jim's post will run until 2006 – to be advertised in the next few weeks.

North Belfast Proposal

Proposal of staffing support agreed for one year at this stage. CRC will trawl internally initially to identify any interest in secondment.

Race Equality Strategy

Committee agreed that a response from CRC is important. PD team to work on this and present to Council for eventual submission to OFMDFM Race Equality Unit by the end of May

Student Placement

Student Lucy Livings is interested in studying the issue of flags and emblems in Northern Ireland. Committee agreed to her placement with us.

BCC programme

Reminder about the programme for 9th April debate in City Hall.

June Derry meeting

Date to be arranged after discussion with Eamon and Damien McElroy.

AOB

In future the agenda to be circulated a few days earlier than the meeting.

Co-options – the Committee can co-opt up to 5 people. Dympna to draw up a list a names from P/M and New Agenda to consider.

Next Meeting

Wednesday May 7th 3.30pm.