Can you help us to help you?

Today i’ve added a new page to my blog site which provides details on a variety of different ways you can get involved to make a difference. Many people these days shy away from joining political parties – which is a shame as it is a perfectly healthy thing to do in a democratic country. However you can still make a valuable contribution through voluntary work – and it doesn’t take up a lot of time either!

Did you know that there are 8760 hours in a normal year? Yep, that’s 8760. Can you spare just 1 of those hours helping to change our country for the better?

If so get in contact – more details at: http://mikeflower.wordpress.com/help-us/

We’re also having a branch event on the evening of Friday 5th June – kick off at 7pm. It’s going to be a BBQ and will be held at Aldridge Conservative club – so why not come along and meet your neighbours, councillors and Member of Parliament? We anticipate tickets will cost just £5 and there is a fully licensed bar. Please come along, call the office or drop me an email if you’d like to come along! All monies raised will be reinvested in campaigning across the ward.

Blog refresh and tweeting

I’ve decided today to refresh the way the blog looks. Hopefully it should make it a little easier to post from my iPhone that way.

Also we now have five Walsall Councillor on Twitter. They are:

Cllr Marco Longhi – Pelsall, Chairman of Corporate Scrutiny and representative on the Passenger Transport Authority

Cllr Garry Perry – Pelsall, Cabinet member for Stronger Communities

Cllr Adrian Andrew, Pheasey Park Farm, Deputy Leader and Cabinet member for Regeneration

Cllr Eddie Hughes – Streetly, Chairman of the Children Services Scrutiny and represenative on the West Midlands Police Authority.

A good mix of some very useful Conservative councillor so do feel free to interact with them. Oh and one more person:

Cllr Mike Flower – Aldridge North and Walsall Wood

Proposed changes to Streets Corner Centre

Please see below a letter from the Council to local residents in Streets Corner, Walsall Wood:

Adult Social Care Services are working on changing and improving our services and how people get in touch with us. We support and advise Vulnerable Adults and Older People. This includes adults with physical disabilities, people with occupational therapy needs, people with learning disabilities, people with visual or hearing impairments and carers.

We plan to make Social Care Services more modern and give people more choice and control over the care services they receive. Most Council’s across the UK are making similar changes to their Social Care Services. This comes from national guidance from the Department of Health called Putting People First. In Walsall, the People First team is leading on this work. One of our first tasks is to develop a Response Centre with a single phone number, this will be linked to the corporate First Stop Shop and have linkages with health. There will be no face to face contact at the Centre; communications will be through various other means.

The proposed location for the Response Centre for Walsall is the former Streets Corner Day Centre site, Brownhills Road, Walsall Wood, WS8 7BS. As a local resident, we would like to tell you more about our plans for the centre and also get your views, comments and queries.

We are holding a public meeting on Wednesday 1 April 2009 at 6.30 pm in the Community Building, Walsall Wood JMI School, Brownhills Road, Walsall Wood. Refreshments will be available.

If you would like to know more please contact:

People First Team
1st floor offices, 28 The Square
Lichfield Road
New Invention
Willenhall WV12 5EA
Telephone 01922 655833
Email peoplefirstprogramme@walsall.gov.uk

Please note that as I am on the planning committee you should contact Cllrs Sears or Harris with your thoughts.

Attention parents: it’s the National Child Measurement Programme

I don’t normally have a go at New Labour or the national government on this blog but i’ve really really had enough of them. Not a day goes past when I don’t groan at some New Labour-Blairite initiative, target or phrase.

I opened my inbox today to find a rather irate letter from a parent to the local NHS and copied to me for my attention. When I read it I had to do a double take. A quick bit of research later and I can confirm that there is actually something called the “National Child Measurement Programme”. It was introduced through legislation in the Government’s belief that you really can legislate to make people thinner.

Now I hope everyone agrees that we want to have healthy children – that isn’t in doubt. But is measuring them, putting them into a database and writing to their parents to tell them they are “ver overweight” really the answer? Is this the best they can come up with? Is obesity now reduced to two simple numbers: weight and height? Is there no individual – a person with a story and feelings – behind these statistics?

This is crazy. Surely everyone is different and there are different reasons and factors behind everyone’s health. Why haven’t Labour delivered on their promise for a school nurse in every school? This would give everyone a personalised health check, not some statistical exercise. It might even make a difference!

Another example of the stats obsessed state knowing better than the rest of us. Nanny!

Read the letter here: http://mikeflower.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/di450_0903260848.pdf

A penny for your thoughts on the new bin service

Well it’s been some weeks now since the new recycling and waste collection service was introduced in Walsall and in Aldridge North and Walsall Wood. To date i’ve had one complaint about a bin not getting collected but I have to admit i’d been expecting a lot more! Am I to take it from the silence that people are happy and impressed or have people taken issues up directly with the Council?

Let me know what you think in the comments box. Would be good to hear your thoughts so I can pass them onto my political colleagues.

Schools full in Walsall Wood?

I’ve got a meeting tomorrow with the acting Head of Children’s Services and the Chief Executive of Serco Walsall who run the LEA on behalf of the Council.

This year we have had record numbers applying for schools in Walsall Wood. Great news that people have so much faith in our local schools – that’s down to the hard working staff, governors, pupils and parents who pushing all three of our schools forward.

However with schools oversubscribed it means people who live in Walsall Wood are getting disappointed and face sending their children to primary schools outside of the community.

Have you experienced this? If so then please contact me. If I can confirm that all our schools in Walsall Wood are full then i’ll be interested to hear what they are going to do about it!