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Community Council Meeting - June 2004 The first meeting of the spanking new, if not elected, Community Council took place in June. With Chairperson, Don Beddoes, elected for this post it was refreshing to hear his, what must have been a prepared, speech. One point given great emphasis was the need to achieve more and basically without confrontations......... And so down to work all seven did go. It was not long before the contentious issue of declaring interests hit the fan. This time the rules might have changed as it seemed that a councillor can't ask another councillor to declare an interest. Most astonishingly of all, it was claimed by the Chair that, "an interest does not need to be declared"........ Shock and horror! Can this be reality? With a deft recovery, it now seems that if a councillor does not declare an interest another councillor can "shop them". Now that is a nice phrase. So if a councillor also holds a position of influence with say, a Local Community Association, they can keep quiet about it. Again we have the old conflict of interests which appears to have been one of the 'factors of ill will' that Mr Beddoes had experienced in the past five years. Now with that endurance test over and stewardship vested with him, it just might be right for someone to ask, How does one "shop" a councillor. Can anybody do it? Where does one go to do it? Can you get 'a shop assistant' to help you? What is the outcome of this shopping exercise? Does someone take the basket ( shopping that is ) away? Watch this space