By Samantha Castle, Reporter
In my short time as a trainee reporter I've attended numerous town and community council meetings, and I've also attended the odd Conwy County Council planning meeting - all great sources of stories, plus the odd amusing titbits when a councillor speaks out of turn!
I attended a Conwy cabinet meeting yesterday with my deputy news editor, and boy do they go on, and boy do they bite the hand that feeds them too!
The meeting began with leader Goronwy Edwards saying they had just held a reception for their own award winners, and how nice it was. He wanted everyone - I think he meant us - to note this "positive news story" as there was "so much negative press about the council lately". I think he must of been referring to us again!
As the meeting progressed I was please to hear a number of county councillors informing their peers of a number of positive achievements they had come across, and I was also pleased that all the events they mentioned had already been featured in the Weekly News over the past fortnight
These included the new Art and Craft centre in Cerrigydrudion (March 29th edition), Patti Diaz's second hand kids' clothes shop in Colwyn Bay (March 29th again), and Conwy Freecycle (March 15th). Yet the Weekly News' positive news coverage failed to be commended by anyone in the council chamber - apart from me! I was screaming out loud in a kind of dream like sequence in my head, as anyone who attends these occasions will know spectators cannot speak.
The cherry on the cake was when one councillor mentioned a number of school pupils who had recently achieved their Duke of Edinburgh awards. "Wouldn't it be better if the council sent them a letter of congratulation instead of it just being mentioned in the paper?"
The mind boggles, what more do they want? I'm sure they will be the first on the phone to us when they want to publicise something they have done, in an effort to scoop votes or convince their constituents they are effective.
The good news is there - week in, week out - you just have to be big enough to admit it.
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Sue wrote...
Samantha, you said : "I think he must of been referring to us again!". "must of"? That should be either "must have" or "must've" but never "must of"
Sue:
Many thanks for your criticism regarding a mistake in my blog entry. I would be interested to hear if you have any comments on the actual contents of the blog as well...?
Sam
Posted by: Sue | March 31, 2007 10:39 PM