Lama's log

I spent 3 days there and would have blogged direct from there except I didn't take my charger so had to be content with playing with my new phone. One day I'll remember things....

Sometimes, as I'm sat in those series of meetings, it seems to me that council is really important but that those there are the only ones who know it and boy do they know it.

The agenda was lousy but this for me then served to point out the worth of the agenda committee (a group which previously just baffled me). We are willing to do business but it needs putting before us in the first place.

The issue of civil partnerships came up. I was incensed by a document which declared that any minister who enters into such a partnership will be asked to resign as an accredited minister. It is outrageous on any level that I can understand but there it was. I was very grateful for a question which came before mine and which opened the issue for some discussion well and with sensitivity. My feel after the meeting was that there was far more support in the room than I suspected.

It still astounds me that the ministry exec decided to exclude someone one the basis of their sexuality without any wider or formal conversation with it's members. I am astounded of how we stroll breezily into the category of being homophobic without any expressed difficulty or voiced worry.

The area that really stirred up energy and feeling was that of roles and tasks. A real highlight for me was the point at which a woman stood up and made a detrimental reference to the colour of paper the report was written on. I'm still not sure what I can make of all that. The roles and tasks group set out to define roles and tasks. They were asked to do this by the council body and then they were mightily stood on for doing so. It was a low point.

Still, next March may be better.