Area Board

It’s another exciting evening
At the Melksham Assembly Hall,
With paper cups half full of coffee
And some displays propped up by the wall.
With a smattering of us at each table
And a couple skulking at the back –
Our tables littered with leaflets, reports
And an 86 page agenda pack.
It will be a good couple of hours till
Each item’s sufficiently explored
In the comfortably numbing familiar embrace
Of the Melksham Area Board.

And they talk of conducting a survey
Of the businesses on Melksham High Street
And I want to shout, ‘We did one last year,
This piece of work is already complete!’
I’m baffled once more and frustrated
By the complex and messy array
of so many well meaning hard working groups
Who do the same things in just different ways.
Where’s the cooperation,
The joining up of these disparate dots?
We have a hundred different agendas,
Tangled up in the same hundred knots.
And it seems like at lots of these meetings
Duplication is fairly assured
And a few wheels get reinvented tonight,
At the Melksham Area Board.

Yes, the power point presentation,
With a thousand words on the screen:
‘Review of positive outcome delivery
For the stakeholders and community.
Sustainability going forward
With the aims and objectives met…’
He’s been going for twenty minutes
And I’ve no idea what he’s said.
It’s nearly nine o’clock now
As I quietly sneak out the door,
Leave them wrestling with the next 18 items
Of the Melksham Area Board.

With the rain in my eyes at the bus stop
I contemplate what I can write
In the report to go back to my council,
Highlighting the points from tonight:
Community safety initiatives,
The closing of recycling sites,
An item on dementia friendliness
And some awareness of cold calling crime…
Ah, the bus is refreshingly empty
And the peacefulness is my reward
For giving another long late night
To the Melksham Area Board.

But I’m troubled still by the big picture
What a perfect system this could be:
So many like minded good people
Devoted the community.
If Melksham Without Parish Council,
And the Town Council just down the road
Plus the Area Board and lovely MCAP
Shared our efforts to tackle the load,
We’d be singing off the same hymn sheet
In our unified efficiency
And the people would approve of their council tax
Being spent so judiciously.
But I’m tired now and my ambitious
Thoughts lapse and roll onto the floor
Ah well, I guess I’ll pick them up again
At the next Melksham Area Board.