Leadership in Action 2021 Agenda

Resilient People Make Resilient Teams
Lucy Duggan, Managing Director and Fellow of the Wellcome Trust, Lightbox Management Training

This session will explore the practical strategies that promote resilience using discussion, presentation, group challenges and individual reflection.

How councils are harnessing the cloud to drive productivity
David Hall, Managing Director of Cloudy IT & Conference Sponsor

This session will explore best practices for how councils can streamline their operations using cloud-based Microsoft 365 digital tools.

CloudyIT will give practical insights from their work with councils to show how Microsoft 365 applications are being used to their full potential to better support staff and the community.

Demonstrating secure, cost-effective, and more efficient ways to improve communication, collaboration and manage data using digital technology, CloudyIT’s experts will present some of the easy-to-use apps that have provided transformative solutions for councils.

@CloudyGroupLTD

The Art of Negotiation
Aisha Elliott, Somerset Business Agency

This session will feature the – what, why, who, how and when of negotiation in business.

The learning aims are to:

• Explore the definition of negotiation and why it is so crucial in so many contexts
• Identifying negotiation skills, tactics, and competencies
• Assessing our audience and tailoring our skills for an effective result
• Navigating when and how to bring a negotiation to the table
• Establishing how to close the deal in a negotiation

@SBAenterprise

Managing council meetings more effectively
David Hall, Managing Director of Cloudy IT, Conference Sponsor, and Magnus Mjøsund, VP of Product at Decisions

This session will show you how one easy-to-use, time-saving, Microsoft 365 application called Decisions, is helping councils to run more effective meetings.

Acknowledging the importance of council meetings, whether in-person, online, or a hybrid that blends both, this session will show you how simplifying the meeting management process and reducing the administrative burden using digital tools can empower your staff and community for greater engagement and collaborative action.

Demonstrating the Decisions meeting management app, this presentation will demonstrate how clerks are able to speed up meeting preparation, execution, and follow-up by building the modern agenda pack using Microsoft 365 technology that in turn helps to make council meetings more organised and decision-focused.

@CloudyGroupLTD

Mental Health in Leadership
Becky Walsh, Personal Power Specialist, Author & Coach

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines mental health as ‘a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.’

Anything from sleep problems, fatigue, irritability, worry, stress, depression and anxiety can hold you back from being that person. In this webinar, we will look at how our perceptions of ourselves can cause these symptoms. You will discover the thoughts and voices in our minds (subpersonalities), and how to control the less helpful ones like the inner critic and build new ones that make you a resilient leader.

@beckywalshcom

The High Street Task Force
Dr Steve Millington, Director at the Institute of Place Management

The High Streets Task Force is a government-funded programme that runs until 2024. It has four objectives, to increase local authority capacity to undertake high street transformation, to develop place leadership among whole communities, to develop a national voice for the high street and to make data and intelligence on high street change widely available. 

The Task Force has much support for places available on its website and has announced a two year programme of direct support for over 70 town centres. It has supplied more than 500 data dashboards to towns.

Virtual Drinks
Featuring a 30 minute comedy sketch from Brian Brookes

You might know Brian as the boring drab, grey fellow from BHIB Insurance Brokers who attends our National Conference each year but behind closed doors Brian is a stand-up comedian and after dinner speaker with over 40 years experience. Appearing on Opportunity Knocks in the 70s and narrowly losing to Lena Zavarone.

Nowadays he is a joke writer for a couple of Nationally known comedians and has worked with Lee Mack on Not Going Out and is currently working with Joe Wilkinson on a spin-off to After Life.

Brian is also best known as one of the people behind the Richard III find when he worked for Leicester City Council but more of that in his session.

The Future of Leadership in Action
More details to follow

Code of Conduct – Bullying & Harassment
Paul Hoey, Co-Director Hoey Ainscough Associates Ltd

Paul Hoey will lead a session exploring the model Code of Conduct and accompanying guidance published by the Local Government Association. Paul was commissioned by the LGA to write the Code and guidance and this will be an opportunity to discuss how the Code will work on practice, focussing on areas such as bullying, the use of social media and declarations of interest.

Leadership Think Tank – Addressing the Key Leadership Challenges for the Local Council Sector
Breakout room discussion

If you have identified a key issue that you feel should be debated, please send to Becky Over at [email protected].

Suggestions so far include:

• Dealing with social media from councillors and repurposing town centres
• Councillor behaviour and the Code of Conduct
• Current issue of virtual versus physical meetings
• The Government recognising our sector as legitimate so we can directly receive funding streams and are able to deliver certain provision and services
• Economic regeneration/place-shaping, what is our role in the context of a loss of European funding
• Supporting cultural services and principal councils funding/support
• Building capacity, how do we ensure we stay fit for purpose, as we grow and evolve?
• Developing partnerships for local delivery of existing and new services

Cranbrook Town Council: The Story So Far
Janine Gardner, Town Clerk and Responsible Financial Officer, Cranbrook Town Council

This session will focus on the creation of a new Town Council in 2015, how it evolved and how the Council was able to inspire the community along the way.

Cranbrook in East Devon is being developed on land which used to be green fields. It’s the first town to be built in Devon since the Middle Ages. The town welcomed its first residents in 2012 and by early 2021 was home to approximately 5,500 people occupying more than 2,000 homes. The Local Plan expects growth to reach around 8,000 homes by 2031. 

The session will explore the Council’s challenges including negotiating Section 106 obligations and Community Infrastructure Levy projects, the transfer of assets and services including a 35-hectare Country Park and Nature Reserve, community development work and a youth service, to name but a few. The session will also explore how the Council worked together with a consortium of developers to assume the responsibilities previously covered by an estate rent charge which many councils up and down the country now grapple with.

We will see how Local Council can rise to meet challenges and encourage delegates to learn from the Cranbrook story so far.

@CranbrookTC

Leadership Think Tank – Addressing the Key Leadership Challenges for the Local Council Sector
Feedback session

Creative Collaboration for Our Time
Dr Penny Pullan, Director of Making Projects Work Ltd.

Do you face the challenge of running really effective meetings, workshops or sessions as a clerk? Would you like to feel even more confident when working with challenging groups or senior individuals? Would it be good to be really competent and productive whether in-person, virtual or hybrid?

Dr Penny Pullan, expert on collaboration and author of ‘Virtual Leadership’, will close the conference by introducing ideas from her upcoming book: ‘Making Workshops Work: Creative Collaboration for Our Time’. She’ll explore how to take an idea or brief through preparation to an engaging, well-run, effective session, with agreed actions and clear follow up. When you apply her ideas, you’ll feel competent and confident as you deliver great results, with everyone committed, whether you meet virtually, in-person or a hybrid of the two.