MEDIA STATEMENT - Council meetings go live

Released: Friday 18 August 2023

South Waikato District Council is pleased to announce that our Council and Committee meetings held in the Council Chamber in Tokoroa will soon be live streamed and accessible to the public.

Council meets regularly throughout the year. There has been significant interest from the community and Elected Members to introduce live streaming so that interested people can listen to Council and Committee meetings remotely.

“Having the ability to live stream Council business is an important part of transparent local governance,” said Mayor Gary Petley. “As your Mayor, I am especially pleased to provide our community with easy access to tune in to Council business.”

Coupled with introducing live Council meetings, Council is also moving to a new meeting management software platform which provides improved efficiencies around the production of agendas and reporting on Council meetings.

All going well, the upcoming agenda for the 30 August Council meeting will be the first meeting with an agenda constructed through the new software and live streamed on a public portal.

“Council looked at several platforms available on the market, spoke with other councils about what they use and considered our specific goals that we wanted to achieve, before settling on a platform that provides excellent functionality and value for money,” said Executive Officer Jillian Anderson.

“This is an exciting step forward as we look to the future of transparent governance within Council, how reports are prepared and agendas made available for the public,” said Mayor Petley. “Council is looking forward to seeing our community tune in.”

The link will be available via Council’s website: www.southwaikato.govt.nz by the morning of Wednesday 30 August.

The software, including the platform, maintenance, support, live streaming and video bookmarking, will cost $26,000 per year. The platform provides for a more streamlined and efficient agenda build process plus the added advantage of live streaming for our community.

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