The West Thurrock and South Stifford Community Forum is an independent non political voluntary group made up of representatives from the local community including residents, schools, local businesses, voluntary, community and faith groups.
The forum was originally set up in 2001 following a public meeting in June 2001 which was well attended by residents, local businesses and organisations. There was an attempt to wind up the forum in 2009, but residents voted unanimously to continue and the committee resigned. When the Forum reformed after the original committee resigned, it was renamed West Thurrock and South Stifford People’s Community Forum, as shown on the constitution documents, but over time, ‘People’s’ has been dropped from the title.
Minutes, Meetings, News and Members
Code of Conduct at Public Forum Meetings
- All members shall be open and honest in their dealings and show respect for other members
- All speakers will address themselves through the Chairperson
- Only one person shall speak at a time
- All speakers shall be polite and not raise their voices
- All speakers shall respect all others in attendance and shall not use offensive language.
- All forums observe equal opportunities and respect diversity of all community members. Racist, sexist, ageist, homophobic and discriminatory language aimed at disabled people will not be acceptable or tolerated so please do not air personal views that are likely to offend.
- All speakers will keep to the subject under discussion
- Unless there are exceptional circumstances, each person may speak only once on an issue until every other member has had the opportunity to speak thereby accounting for all opinions
- All members shall abide by the decisions taken at meetings
- If any member does not abide by the Code of Conduct, there will be a warning that if they break the Code of Conduct they may be asked to leave the meeting
- The offending member will be told that three warnings will be given and this is the first warning
- The offending member will be told that there may be two further warnings and at the third case shall ask the meeting to vote on whether the member should be asked to leave the meeting
- In the event of there being a conflict of interest (or potential conflict of interest) this must be disclosed to the meeting and if necessary, the member who has disclosed the conflict, (or potential conflict), whether financial or non-financial, shall absent themselves from the meeting whilst the subject is under discussion. Political references shall be avoided.
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