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A reflection on AMO's 2011 convention
25 August 2011
Spent most of this week at the annual AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario) convention. This year it was held in London, ON, and around 2,600 municipal politicians and staff from across the province attended. As always, it's a combination of information, networking, schmoozing, politics, workshops and ideas. I've always enjoyed attending. Part of my enjoyment is walking around the host city and looking at how that city does things like streets, sidewalks, garbage bins, signs, etc., and compare them with how we do them in Collingwood.
However, I found this year's lineup of workshops a little weak. I think that was in part because of the upcoming provincial election - the three party leaders had to have their say, campaigning to the delegates. I'd say Hudak got the best reception from the audiences, but to me his stand on some energy issues remains questionable. However, he also made some good points about other issues and got a lot of applause during his speech. Judging solely by the audience reaction, his was the most well-received speech.
I attended several workshops and information sessions. One was about the future of Ontario's electricity system and where it has charted for growth. Interesting, but nothing I couldn't have read in a brochure, and pretty dry. Since all three parties are promising changes in electricity management and delivery services, I thought this would be more informative about political future, but it was really about providing the hydro.
An information breakfast about the benefits of fluoridation in municipal water systems was informative, but a little too short for a good question-and-answer session. The audience seemed mostly composed of pro-fluoridation politicians, so there wasn't any real debate on the merits, and the presentation was strong on the benefits. But the savings to taxpayers is huge and often overlooked in the discussions. I'll post more about this later and try to lay out the arguments I heard.
A lot of people are scared by fluoridation, but quite unnecessarily - it's up there with vaccinations and WiFi as a scary meme on the Internet - but the science behind it has been churning out studies and analyses since the 1930s. Four massive international studies were done in the past few years - the UK, Australia, USA (CDC) and Canada (Health Canada) - and they all reached the same conclusions, independently. I'll also try to present some of the science I heard in a future post, and review those studies.
The most interactive and informative was a session on the benefits and risks of using social media. I heard several good ideas, but more important, I heard some cautions I hadn't considered in my ongoing examination of social media and municipal interests. I am hoping we develop both a communication policy and a social media policy for Collingwood this year. I have asked for a report on communications - with the intent of appointing a communications officer - that should come back in October. I also expect we will discuss a communications/social media policy at our strategic planning session in early October.
Another future post: social media and municipalities. I've been working on that for a while and have a lot of background material to read, including several books on the subject. That may take a while to work through before I can put my thoughts down on digital paper.
I am cogitating about presentations for a future AMO convention that Collingwood staff and politicians could make. I think we could present something a little more dynamic than some of those I saw or heard about, something that both promoted our town and was informative and entertaining for delegates.
I get a lot of ideas from the marketplace and trade show. You get to see and discuss products, services and ideas there. Lots of energy-saving ideas in the booths this year. I always enjoy the marketplace and talking with the vendors.
Networking is also important and discussions between politicians often provides new insights and information. The members of council who attended this year - the mayor, deputy mayor, councillors West, Gardhouse, Lloyd and me - all had different interests and contacts, so we bring back a collective wisdom from the convention. I expect you'll hear a few words about AMO at the next council meeting, September 12.
However, I found this year's lineup of workshops a little weak. I think that was in part because of the upcoming provincial election - the three party leaders had to have their say, campaigning to the delegates. I'd say Hudak got the best reception from the audiences, but to me his stand on some energy issues remains questionable. However, he also made some good points about other issues and got a lot of applause during his speech. Judging solely by the audience reaction, his was the most well-received speech.
I attended several workshops and information sessions. One was about the future of Ontario's electricity system and where it has charted for growth. Interesting, but nothing I couldn't have read in a brochure, and pretty dry. Since all three parties are promising changes in electricity management and delivery services, I thought this would be more informative about political future, but it was really about providing the hydro.
An information breakfast about the benefits of fluoridation in municipal water systems was informative, but a little too short for a good question-and-answer session. The audience seemed mostly composed of pro-fluoridation politicians, so there wasn't any real debate on the merits, and the presentation was strong on the benefits. But the savings to taxpayers is huge and often overlooked in the discussions. I'll post more about this later and try to lay out the arguments I heard.
A lot of people are scared by fluoridation, but quite unnecessarily - it's up there with vaccinations and WiFi as a scary meme on the Internet - but the science behind it has been churning out studies and analyses since the 1930s. Four massive international studies were done in the past few years - the UK, Australia, USA (CDC) and Canada (Health Canada) - and they all reached the same conclusions, independently. I'll also try to present some of the science I heard in a future post, and review those studies.
The most interactive and informative was a session on the benefits and risks of using social media. I heard several good ideas, but more important, I heard some cautions I hadn't considered in my ongoing examination of social media and municipal interests. I am hoping we develop both a communication policy and a social media policy for Collingwood this year. I have asked for a report on communications - with the intent of appointing a communications officer - that should come back in October. I also expect we will discuss a communications/social media policy at our strategic planning session in early October.
Another future post: social media and municipalities. I've been working on that for a while and have a lot of background material to read, including several books on the subject. That may take a while to work through before I can put my thoughts down on digital paper.
I am cogitating about presentations for a future AMO convention that Collingwood staff and politicians could make. I think we could present something a little more dynamic than some of those I saw or heard about, something that both promoted our town and was informative and entertaining for delegates.
I get a lot of ideas from the marketplace and trade show. You get to see and discuss products, services and ideas there. Lots of energy-saving ideas in the booths this year. I always enjoy the marketplace and talking with the vendors.
Networking is also important and discussions between politicians often provides new insights and information. The members of council who attended this year - the mayor, deputy mayor, councillors West, Gardhouse, Lloyd and me - all had different interests and contacts, so we bring back a collective wisdom from the convention. I expect you'll hear a few words about AMO at the next council meeting, September 12.
