DEVISING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR THE MAYOR

Goodmorning All,

Fantastic to see you all at my place last Friday with so much enthusiasm and information (and great food to keep the soul going). Thankyou to one and all for making it a very productive night.

I thought I might send a blog explaining how these questions came to be as Julie and I had quite a discussion about them before Julie's blog was sent. Here goes!

Julie rang me wanting to discuss appropriate questions to ask the mayor that encompasses our assignment. I suggested the most important perspectives to working with communities is the ecological and social justice/human rights. Therefore these questions must be framed in the context of these perspectives. The other important element to working with communities is valuing local knowledge, valuing local processes, valuing local skills and valuing local resources. These elements must also underpin the questions. With regards to valuing local knowledge how was the community involved in the decision making process, was it by a council member asking questions at a local shopping centre or were questionnaires sent out. This is important because in some cases councils propose a plan to help the local community and after this plan is devised the community is then asked for their input. Not only does this show informal and formal bases at play but it also shows tokenism as the community should of been invited to responed at the very inception of the plan. This might be a touchy area but handled diplomatically can produce some insightful information.

Valuing local processes - Did members of the community meet all together at a community meeting hall to discuss goals and is this how this particular community likes to discuss goals or was it done some other way. In keeping with the ecological/social justice,human rights perspectives, was the diversity of community members (eg CALD, elderly, unemployed, single mums etc) considered to ensure they were given a voice in the process. Julie can you please double check this has been addressed as I didn't print off the questions before I started blog (Thanks gorgeous).

Valuing local knowledge and skills how is this be being addressed?

Valuing local resources how is this being addressed?

Anyway after discussion Julie has come up with a great list of questions and one which I am looking forward to hearing the answers to.

Goodluck Julie for tomorrow.

Regards.

Kerlina