I've been so busy the last six months that i've had very little time to do anything, I was successfull in being elected to Carmathen County Council in May and this immediately started an intense training session which ment during the first four months i was very busy attending various training and induction meetings, 

I've been in County Hall Carmarthen at least twice a week attending these meetings and various committees that i sit on, but at long last the training sessions seem to have come to end which means that the only time I would need to attend Carmarthen would be to attend one of the various committees that I sit on.

Because I've been so busy I haven't been writing much in this blog, plus I suppose Face Book hasn't helped as i seem to log onto this almost daily, anyway I'm going to start updating this blog a bit more, so here's a start of what happened this week in my busy schedule

I finished work on Tuesday morning after doing a nightshift, on Monday night, obviously I went to bed for a few hours, on getting up I went to get my translated version of my community news letter and then called with one of my labour friends, to drop of some of these leaflets to be folded, ready to deliver on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday morning the two of us went out delivering up the fforest and Llanedi, whilst two of the other Labour members continued to fold more leaflets for the rest of the week's delivery.

Wednesday afternoon I was in Carmarthen attending a training session on the the schools MEP plan, I thought it was very informative, it explained the whole process, of how schools get selected for review and the process for consultation and which sectors of the public is involed in the consultation, if theres any changes affecting any schools, 

However eventually there was quite a heated debate towards the end of the session by some plaid members of the committee and the director and executive board member for education, over funding for schools and the welsh language in schools in llanelli.

One of the plaid members kicked off that he would be prepared to raise the county councils tax bill, so that more money could be made available to increase and improve more welsh medium schools,

This started the lively debate off because aparently at last years budget setting council meetings, plaid cymru moved a motion to lower the council taxes, which ment the revenue collected by the county was less, and with less revenue theres less money to spend on services, some of the older councillors joined in the debate about Plaid contradicting themselves having one stance when it suits them and another at a diferent moment in time......

It was stated in the debate that it was plaid who reduced the revenue last year and it was therefore Plaid's fault there was less money in the pot, and that the plaid councillor who now wanted more money to be collected to invest in schools should go on record and pursuade his leader, as to why the county should raise council taxes? 

Needles to say there were a few  hot collars in this lively debate.

Anyway this wasn't going to be the first time on Wednesday that i would be hearing some contraversial statments made by a plaid councillors........ Wednesday evening there was a special meeting in Arlan Gwili to discuss Youth Strategies, held by Llanedi Community Council, and the question was asked.........because the pool campaign has been lost, was there any reason why the pool committee couldn't release any money to be spent, to help in providing a youth club in the urdd hall,

The chair of the council asked me to provide an answer to this question. I stated that

"It would be a pool committee decision and that the money had been raised to try and save the pool, but given the campaign had failed and that the park is to be regenerated to provide youth facilities in the park, such as an astra pitch, and a modern splash park and other facilities in the park the pool committee would need funding to add to any grant application, so the likely hood would be the money would be used to help secure this regeneration and there would probably be some sort of consultation with the village to advice the residents where the money would be going,

and there was also a strong feeling, that some of this pool committee money should be used to place a memorial on the the pool site to remind the village that the community volunteers built a lido which served the community for some 70 years."

The response i had from one of the plaid councillors was "Why waste money on the past, we need to forget about the past and invest in the future?"

My comment was

"Once the pool buildings were demolished and filled in a peice of the village history would be lost and a small memorial would be appropiate, given it has had so much history for so many people in the village, and that ultimately it would be a pool committee decision on how this money should be spent and that it had already been decided that the money should be spent in the park and not spent else where in the village"

I thought it was shocking  that a plaid councillor from the village could even think that a memorial to the men that built the lido would be a waist of money!!!

Thursday morning i stayed in and i wrote my weekly column in the morning. I then attended a site meeting with planning officers in the park, only i had the timing wrong, i turned up In Hendy Park at 2.45pm, ready for a 3pm meeting and got soaked waiting for the officer, I had never met them before so I was standing in the park in the rain waiting like a lemon. getting wet.

I went home at 3.15pm to ring the officer about half past to find out the meeting had taken place at 2pm, four people had attended and the officer gave me advice on what he had recommended to the group,

on his advice I contacted the highways officer and set a meeting for Tuesday 2nd december at 2.30pm, on completing this i then shot off to Kidwelly to help with the door knocking exercise, there was a bye election on the town council, which Labour won comfortably, i think it was 280 something for labour and 50 something for the other candidate, but don't quote me on these figures

Anyway this takes us up to Friday, Friday i was back in county hall Carmarthen for the second time this week (At the start of the week I was scheduled for a third visit but luckily one was cancelled), where i took part in a housing scrutiny, followed by more leaflet dropping in the village with my news letter,

Then in the evening I attended two Christmas light switch on ceremonies, one in Llanedi followed by the other in Tycroes, my Amanda also came down Friday for the weekend and we went Christmas shopping on Saturday morning (after we had collected from the liberty stadium), the 4 Swansea v Cardiff tickets that she had purchased earlier in the week on line.

After Amanda went home I was in out in Pembrey knocking doors because there's a bye election there this week coming, this election is not a two horse race like kidwelly, it has three candidates and there's been a lot more activity in the ward by all three candidates. 

Sunday i was up the fishery and my dad asked had i seen the new White Springs Web page that one of the anglers has put together, the angler runs a fishing forum called "nuts about carp" and he does a bit of blogging about his fishing trips etc

This angler has designed a new web page for White Springs which has a forum on it, where anglers can add their comments the link is below,  I hadn't seen the web page prior to this although I was aware of it because my mum had mentioned something about it last week when I was last up the fishery

http://www.whitespringsfishery.co.uk/

I had started a similar idea of gettig anglers to add their own photos and stories using face book, it has about 55 members and the members have added about 160 photos, If you are into fishing and have fished White Springs feel free to join