Oxford eDemocracy meet up

Oxford has a gorgeous old town hall complete with an ancient ceremonial mace.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture and so you'll have to make do with this one of Steven Clift and Mary Reid who it has to be said were more interesting to talk to than the mace.

I was in Oxford to meet up with Steven and a few people who had been involved in Issues Forums.  We evaluated Issues Forums for ICELE a couple of years ago and found them to an effective technological solution for community forums.  The real benefit of using Issue Forums however is the network of people that all use them for similar reasons and the vast bank of knowledge that has been gathered over the years.

It was great to meet Stephanie Jenkins, who is Forum Manager for the Headington group, Shey Cobley from Oxford City Council and Steven Pearse from Bedminster Neighbourhood Partnership who seem to be doing good things in that part of Bristol.

Discussion focussed around how the technology behind eDemocracy Issues Forums have improved and going to improve and how eDemocracy can build upon the start it has already made in the UK.