It’s Our City! Public Meeting and AGM

Sunday from 13:30-16:30 ,18-22 Union Street, S1 2JP Sheffield

PUBLIC MEETING (WE HAVE A REFERENDUM TO WIN!) followed by IT’S OUR CITY! ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

We invite all It’s Our City! supporters to attend this important public meeting about the upcoming Sheffield referendum – and (we trust!) the end of ‘strong leader’ governance at Sheffield City Council. The activities of It’s Our City! are based on Sheffielders making common cause across all our differences for the good of our city – your input and ideas are crucial!

The venue is Union St Co-Working Space, 18-20 Union St. S1 2JP (thank you very much to Matt for offering this). We will be on the second floor which is accessible via lift for those needing it. https://www.accessable.co.uk/venues/union-st We will be able to purchase drinks in the ground floor cafe.

We hope also to have a speaker during the afternoon – further details will be posted as these are confirmed.

Everyone is also VERY WELCOME to stay on for the formalities of It’s Our City! Annual General Meeting (approx. 3.45/4.00-4.30). We will definitely need some new Coordinating Group members who we will be voting in – please consider this especially if you have been one of many active supporters contributing your energy, time and/or skills, we have plenty of work to do! If you want to signal your interest in this, or have questions, do please contact me as chair – rhubba4@gmail.com

PLEASE NOTE that to formally vote at the AGM (and to sit on the CG) you do need to be a member of It’s Our City! Details are here (including information about how we maintain our independence from political parties as a community network) : https://www.itsoursheffield.co.uk/membership/

SO IF YOU SUPPORT OUR AIMS PLEASE DO BECOME A MEMBER – it’s a quick form to fill, that’s all! Please fill this in in advance, we won’t be able to process membership applications on the day!

We look forward to seeing you on 26th Jan 1.30pm.

So what is this all about?

In short, we are trying to change the way our council is run.

Dealing with Sheffield City Council can be difficult and often feel like you are hitting a series of brick walls. A lot of the problems seem to be down to the system the council operates on, called ‘The Strong Leader model.’ Under this system, just 10 out of 84 councillors have the power and responsibility to make nearly all the major decisions on behalf of over half a million people.

Sheffield is full of local talent that is being wasted by the city council which barely uses any goodwill of the people. The current system makes it very hard to cooperate with the council in improving our city because of the very top-down nature of it. Just imagine how much better our city could be if it was easier to approach the council with different ideas!

We want to change the Strong leader model to an updated version of the committee system, where all 84 councillors – your councillor including – have more input into the decisions that affect us all.

During the course of the last year we have collected over 26,000 signatures with the help of the people of Sheffield. This means that the council will now have to call a referendum and ask the people how they want the city to be run.