Full Council

Having a birthday on 13 December means that it often coincides with the final meeting of the Full Council for the calendar year.

The pre-meeting takes place at half-past six, where the Chairman, group leaders, and relevant officers run through the procedural arrangements for the evening. This is something I suggested a couple of years ago; before the pre-meeting was introduced, a lot of council meetings fell into anarchy over procedural wrangles. Now, everyone is clear about who's going to be doing what when. It doesn't - and nor should it - interfere with the right of members and groups on all sides to lob political grenades into Full Council meetings by means of amendments or questions, but it does make the meetings run far more smoothly.

After the pre-meeting I pop downstairs to the mezzanine floor to check with Diane, who runs the Youth Council, about the presentation of certificates I'm doing to the youth councillors. There's a lot of activity in the Gibberd Gallery - it's a private viewing of an exhibition of prints by Ana Maria Pacheco, and the de Merc Choir are singing Harlow 1947, a piece composed by local resident Adrian Jolliffe and featuring the early years of Harlow.

The Full Council meeting starts at eight o'clock as usual. The presentation to the youth councillors goes smoothly, and we gather for a group photograph afterwards. I introduce Sunil as our new strategic director, and he's appointed by the meeting as the council's 'Section 151' officer, who has particular financial responsibilities. Then it's into the rest of the agenda - announcements from the Chairman, changes to the composition of council committees resulting from the recent by-elections, questions from the public, references from committees, questions from councillors, and into the home straight.

The meeting closes at a little after a quarter past ten - and after the meeting has finished, we stay behind for a few minutes to make a farewell presentation to Cllr Kevin Brooks, who will be emigrating next month.

I'd hoped for a slightly shorter meeting on my birthday, as I tell members, but I invite them to the Chairman's suite to have a piece of my birthday cake. I'm also selling raffle tickets for my Chairman's Charity - Harlow Stroke Support Group - and take £51 in sales this evening, all in a good cause.

There's very little of my birthday left by the time I get home at about twenty to midnight.