Council meetings are almost exclusively open to the public, there are very few meetings which members of the public are not allowed to attend although there are occasionally agenda items which call for the meeting to be cleared of the public. There is nothing sinister in this, it could just be that there is very good reason why the council or someone named in the discussion needs to have the information out of the public domain.

The first thing you need to do if you want to cover council meetings is find out where and when they are held and get hold of a copy of the agenda, all this information is normally available on the council website, although, it can be quite well hidden until you now where to look for it.

If you can’t find the meeting information by searching your council website, try the fantastic Openly Local site, which is being updated with more councils each day. Look for your council in the list and then have a look at the information which is listed.

You should see at the bottom of the page, Forthcoming Committee Meetings & Committee Documents. These will give you all the information you need to know about the upcoming meetings at your council.

If you have never been to a council meeting before it is worth going along to a couple of different meetings to see how they are run. If you go to your full council meeting this will normally be once a month in the council chamber and will be quite formal with maybe the Lord Mayor chairing it. Sub committees may well be held in other rooms in the council building rather than the council chamber.

It is also worth having a chat with your local councillor, and seeing if they sit on any committees and going along to those meetings.

Next we’ll have a look at agendas and what items are likely to be of intertest.

To make it even easier for readers of your own blog, I’ve just finished the first phase of a new plugin for WordPress. It provides you with a new widget based on WriteToThem.com which will provide an easy way for your readers to get in touch with their politicians.

Below is a video showing how to set the widget up and there are also written instructions. The plugin itself can be downloaded from my website where you can also subscribe to updates. Once you’ve downloaded the plugin, follow these instructions on how to manually install a plugin. If you have any suggestions, questions or comments please use the comments section.

Instructions

1. Go to Plugins
2. Activate the WriteToThem plugin
3. Go to Appearance > Widgets
4. Drag the WriteToThem widget to your sidebar
5. Configure the settings according to your preferred display
6. Check your blog and you should see the new widget added to your sidebar

So wouldn’t it be cool if you could also put this stuff on your local blog for all your readers to see and keep up to date with? Well, know you can!

I’ve just finished the first phase of a new plugin for WordPress. This first version provides you with a new widget. Once configured, the widget will show the latest activity from your MP and is available both as an addition to your blog for the benefit of your readers but also as a dashboard widget so that you can see the latest updates everytime you log in.

Below is a video and written instructions on how to set the widget up. The plugin itself can be downloaded from my website where you can also subscribe to updates. Once you’ve downloaded the plugin, follow these instructions on how to manually install a plugin. If you have any suggestions, questions or comments please use the comments section.

Instructions

1. Go to Plugins
2. Activate the TheyWorkForYou plugin
3. Go to Settings > TheyWorkForYou
4. Configure the settings according to your own MP and your preferred display
5. Click Save options
6. Go to Appearance > Widgets
7. Drag the TheyWorkForYou widget to your sidebar
8. Check your blog and you should see the new widget added to your sidebar