Speaking with children
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Time spent talking to and with school children is a regular and very interesting part of being a councillor.
Over three days earlier this week, 150 students from years 3 and 4 at Scone Public School asked me, as mayor, a wide range of questions.
Some were directly about the mayoral role:
- What do you do as mayor?
- Is your job hard?
- What inspired you to work for council?
- What would you do for the local area if you had $15 million dollars?
- How do you support the local police with their security of community spaces like schools, main street buildings and council buildings?
- For the people out there who want to become the mayor, what would your advice be to achieve their goal?
- Do you have a boss? If so who is it?
(The answer to that last question was “your parents”.)
Some of their questions were about the shire’s future such as the coming rail overpass and highway bypass, and how we could bring new shops (particularly toy shops) to the area.
From council’s perspective hearing the children’s views is informative and sometimes entertaining:
- Can Tullong Road be put on Google Maps?
- Can we have more sturdy bins? The current ones fall over a lot.
Other questions were requests for more sporting and entertainment facilities such as bike tracks, sports ground canteens and the ever popular skate parks.
- Could some land or buildings be allocated for new businesses that provide social activities for kids in Scone? Maybe you could work with the Chamber of Commerce to attract these new businesses that provide fun activities like mini golf or a movie theatre.
Interestingly there were also many questions about our history:
- Was there ever a major disaster in Scone?
- How long has Scone been the Horse Capital? And why is it?
- How many old buildings have been restored?
- How long has it been since the highway was dirt?
- What year was the biggest flood in Scone? How high did the water get? (The biggest flood was 1955 and Kelly Street had around a metre of water over it).
It is wonderful that they are thinking about their environment and their needs and speaking out to the council about them.
Mayor for a Day
Another major way we interact with young people in our shire and encourage them to think about their community is the annual Mayor for a Day competition.
The school winners have been chosen and the overall shire winners will be announced at the next ordinary meeting of the council, at 5pm on Monday at the Council Chambers in Scone.
There will be an afternoon tea before the children read out their winning entries and I encourage families and friends to come along to hear them.
Congratulations to all the 224 school children who took part