9am – Arrive at the office. Read through emails and deal with any urgent queries
10am – Meet with representatives from a Community Group, Housing Manager, Neighbourhood Response Manager, Police and Councillors to discuss recent increase in anti social behaviour in a part of the ward. Decide on actions to be taken to address the problems and agree who will carry out tasks before next meeting.
12pm – Break for lunch
12.30pm – Go back to office to prepare for Ward Committee tonight. The meeting is an informal, themed meeting on the environment. Everyone who attends will be encouraged to give their views on the environment in the ward and participate in activities to look at what could be done to improve it. Preparation for the meeting includes preparing the flipcharts, creating attendance lists and gathering together pens, post it notes and other materials to take along.
1.30pm – Catch up on more emails and respond to messages left on the telephone. Call a community group to discuss their application for grant aid funding to the Ward Committee. Confirm a meeting with the local park project board to discuss activities to involve older and younger people in the park. Arrange a meeting with Play and Youth workers to progress youth engagement work in the ward.
2.30pm – Meeting of the risk assessment sub group which is made up of Ward Coordinators and the council’s risk manager. Look at high, medium and low risks to the Ward Coordination department and how they could be dealt with.
4pm – Go to the Ward Committee meeting venue for tonight and organise the layout of the room. Put up display boards showing recent projects that have received grant aid funding from the committee and lay out community information. Joined by planning officer and help them to display details of major planning applications in the ward.
5pm – Go back to the office and deal with any more telephone messages and last minute arrangements for tonight’s meeting. Confirm meeting with consultants to discuss how we can support them in regeneration consultation happening in the ward over the next few months.
6pm – Get to the venue early to prepare and greet any residents that arrive. Have a brief discussion with the councillors about some issues that have come up during the last couple of days and arrange a meeting with them to discuss things further.
6.30pm – Ward Committee meeting starts. Greet more residents and explain what will be happening in the meeting to them. Meet a group of residents that haven’t been to a meeting before. Talk to them about coming to future meetings and find out what made them come along to this meeting. Facilitate some group work with residents on environmental issues.
8pm – Meeting finishes. Clear up and take display boards down. A couple of people have added comments to the ‘Feedback Sheet’ to say they enjoyed the meeting as it was good to meet council officers in a more informal setting
This page is designed to give a general idea of some of the different kinds of work that Ward Coordinators are involved in. All wards however are very different and work carried out by Coordinators will vary from ward to ward.