Your Say Unley

A better engagement tool is now on line for you to respond to community consultation. I have copied the letter from staff announcing this tool. Now take your time and have Your Say on everything you want to. I would like lots of reponse to the Representation Review if possible.

Good morning everyone

I am very pleased to let you know we have just launched our new online community engagement hub, Your Say Unley - http://yoursay.unley.sa.gov.au

Your Say Unley offers increased opportunities to inform and engage our community and provides a convenient and easy way to share ideas, points of view and discuss important topics and issues that impact and shape our city.  This tool is intended to complement our other mediums of engagement (including face-to-face and feedback forms) and is in keeping with our Engage Outside the Square Toolkit, as well as consistent with our Community Engagement and Consultation Policy.

The site is hosted by leading online consultation specialists, Bang the Table.  Their product, Engagement HQ, is successfully being used by a number of International, Australian and South Australian councils, including the cities of Adelaide, Holdfast Bay, Burnside, Marion, Charles Sturt, Playford, Mitcham and Alexandrina.   

Engagement HQ provides extensive functionality with a variety of tools and options available for us to pick and choose from to fit the individual engagement initiative.  These include:

• News Feeds, Photo Galleries, Guest Book and Question and Answer feature within the front landing page  A number of alternative methods to undertake online engagement including:
• Traditional surveys (between an individual and Council)
• Open discussion forums (“Smart Forums”) enabling the community to have a conversation both with Council and with one another.
• Quick polls
• Add on “Widgets” within each project page including Frequently Asked Questions, image/photo gallery, embedded video, document libraries, slideshows, key dates and identified project   teams. 
•  Social sharing allowing for RSS feeds, social media links (Facebook, Twitter, Linked in) and bulk email notifications allowing us to message participants.  

Engagement HQ also provides sophisticated qualitative and quantitative reporting (allowing project staff to track the progress and results of engagement in real time) and ensures a high level of security and moderation, with the forums monitored 24/7 to ensure the discussion stays on topic and is respectful.
Registration is required to participate in online discussion forums:  it's free and very easy to join and use.  Additionally, participants can comment anonymously by selecting an alias of their choice and registration also allows participants to nominate topics of interest to be kept informed of.
This program will be overseen by our Community Planner, Helen Hoare, and we are looking to run training for staff who regularly undertake consultation and engagement in early December.  This will focus both on the use and features of the tool as well as provide helpful tips and hints for those preparing engagement forums and questions .  
In the first instance, we have agreed that this project is considered a trial and over the next 6 months we will be reviewing our use of other data gathering mediums, such as the Community Panel and LGA survey to ensure we have the most adaptable, efficient, user-friendly and relevant tools at our disposal.

You can access Your Say Unley by using the "Your Say Unley" link located on our website (you may need to refresh your web screen) or by entering http://yoursay.unley.sa.gov.au in your web browser. I encourage you to take the time to explore this exciting new addition to our engagement toolkit.  You will notice that we have a couple of live consultation opportunities currently underway which have been uploaded into Your Say Unley, including the Community Asset Action Plan and the Elector Representation Review.  We will also be launching the next stage of engagement on the draft Community Plan 2033 in the next few days.
I welcome your feedback on Your Say Unley - all comments, ideas, concerns and suggestions are encouraged.  It's all part of the improvement and development process.

With kind regards

Megan

Megan Berghuis