THEIR FIRST two years as community board members have left two South Taranaki women questioning the role of the boards and their future.
Sharlene Stokes brought the matter up at Patea Community Board's meeting yesterday.
She said rural people wanted to interact with the boards but didn't understand their role. In Patea
people confused the board with the town's community development trust.
She would have liked more training and information about the workings of council and the contribution boards could make.
"I raised this discussion today to make people aware that we lack training. We are keen, we want to work for the community, but we feel ineffectual.
"We are capable of more than what we get."
Ailsa Aiken said she had also felt ineffectual as a board member, and was sometimes not sure that she had earned the money she was paid.
Both women were impressed by the efficiency and community development work of South Taranaki District Council. Community development advisers, councillors, community groups and Library Plus personnel did a lot of the work community board members used to do.
There was still a role for the boards, Mrs Aiken said, because of the value of local knowledge.
"Waverley is quite distant from Hawera, in the way we think, and the things we do."
But she said the board could meet quarterly instead of six weekly, and meet with the community in between.
Chair Ian Wards had been on community boards for years, and said agendas were thinner now because council policy and council officers dealt with a lot of matters that used to come before boards.
Also, the council was more efficient.
South Taranaki District Council is to review the role of community boards next year. Mayor Mary Bourke said she hoped members would be honest in their assessments.
"As Ailsa Aiken says, other people are already doing the job."
The review should be about how best to meet the needs of people on the ground, not about how best to keep butts on community board seats.
She suggested Ms Stokes put her concerns in writing, because community boards would be elected as usual next year and it would be the council's job to look after them.
