CASEY mayor Kevin Bradford has strongly defended his council’s policy of holding receptions and dinners to honour and thank community volunteers.
This is something that I have mixed views about and it has to be said that in the course of my work I have probably been to more such dinners than anyone except the chief executive.
That doesn’t mean that I always wanted to be there and perhaps would have liked to have been at home.
I guess the same applies to the chief executive, but the functions have provided me with an excellent networking source and opportunity to meet many fine people.
Usually, they are people strongly involved in community activities, interesting and pleasant, so work becomes a pleasure.
Cr Bradford released a statement during the Tuesday 4 May council meeting in response to critical comments made in a letter to the editor.
He said: “I would like to set the record clear for the community on recent comment made in the letter to the editor section of our local newspapers in relation to attacks on this council for recognising the work of volunteers in the City of Casey.
“We are extremely fortunate to have a strong network of volunteers who form the cornerstone of our community, volunteers ranging from coaches of sporting teams, service clubs such as Rotary and Lions, St John Ambulance, preschool committees of management, community house committees of management and the list goes on.
“Not to forget one of our most valuable groups of volunteers who are with us tonight, members of the CFA who regularly put their lives on the line for nothing other than the satisfaction of helping their community.
“The two civic dinners and nine other smaller functions planned to be held by the City of Casey this year are to recognise the importance of these volunteers and their work; while not everyone can be included, the functions recognise the standing in which the City of Casey holds the invaluable contribution of our volunteers.
“To attack this recognition, I believe, is both short sighted and shows a failure to appreciate the work of these volunteers.
“The move by some people to downgrade this recognition in an attempt to give ratepayers the impression these community functions have no real purpose and are a waste of money is false and which I felt needed to be clarified.
“I believe it would be a sad day for the City of Casey if we moved to remove events such as a civic dinner to recognise community volunteers and people who contributed to the betterment of our community.
“I hope this places the issue of the two civic dinners and nine other smaller functions we will hold this year in perspective,” the mayor said.
My view is that the mayor’s statement will not quell debate on the issue because many see the functions as rorty behaviour at ratepayers’ expense.
But I support the idea of rewarding volunteers in some way and the dinners and functions are a small cost in comparison to the value of work volunteers provide to the municipality.
One of the serious problems with the ward dinners that were started for this purpose was that we were seeing guest lists that read more like a mates’ party.
We would see just a smattering of genuine volunteers to keep it in ‘order’.
However, I cannot comment on recent guest lists because I have been excluded from the dinners for the last couple of years or so because of ‘my view’ of things.