18 October (Part 2) - Bexley’s webcasts. Technically none too good
I decided to give this evening’s Resources Scrutiny meeting a miss. Several
reasons, they are too often boring but on a practical level I judged that with a
late night yesterday another one would put attendance at tomorrow’s Transport
meeting in jeopardy especially with another day in East Ham scheduled.
Seeing Councillors June Slaughter and Howard Marriner around the table - and
both were at last night’s meeting too - I did feel a bit guilty about opting out
but they are younger than I am so that’s my excuse. Then Chairman Steven Hall
sounded rather disappointed when he announced that “unusually there are no members
of the public present” and it wasn’t too boring a meeting after all.
Nevertheless I still managed to nod off in front of the screen and was woken
only by the audio suddenly cutting out. It would appear it does so every time
the screen saver kicks in.
There
is not in fact a lot of point in watching the screen, many of the speakers do
not appear because of misaligned cameras and others have the top of their heads cut off.
The audio quality is not brilliant either, there is more buzz and hum than when I make
my own recording and someone pressed the off button too early because the screen
announced ‘Meeting concluded’ half way through the last Agenda item.
The last thing to be broadcast was Cabinet Member Don Massey confirming what we all
knew anyway, that he is not going to be a Councillor next year. Hope the transmission break is not
an omen, Massey goes and the Council collapses. Who could replace him? Not
Councillor Craske, he might blow the budget on one of the Fixed Odds Betting
Terminals he loves so much.
Maybe the Tories won’t even be re-elected in Bexley. Well one can dream.