Partnership Meetings

Frequency, location and dates of meetings
Full meetings of the Southampton Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership are usually held at Startpoint Sholing bi-monthly. The timing of meetings varies to try and accommodate the range of working patterns of members. By nature, meetings are formal, as they need to agree recommendations on annual early years and childcare plans, and the financial arrangements that underpin them. Meetings are therefore conducted with an agenda, and minutes are taken and circulated. Within the constraints of this formality, we strive to encourage all members to contribute fully; after all, sharing best practice is one of our key aims!

Dates and venues of meetings for 2008-09

Partnership Meeting 13th November 2008
Agenda
Papers

Partnership Meeting 18th September 2008
Agenda
Papers

Partnership Meeting 17th July 2008
Agenda
Papers

Partnership Meeting 15th May 2008
Agenda

Papers 

Callover Meeting
Full Partnership meetings are pre-ceded by a Callover Meeting. The Chair of the Partnership, a representative from the Partnership Team, the Chairs of the Working Groups, and a representative from Startpoint Sholing/Northam attend this meeting. Occasionally, other individuals are invited to attend, such as a representative from Sure Start.
No decisions about Partnership business are actually made at the Callover meeting.  It is purely convened to discuss and confirm the agenda and papers for the full meeting.

Who attends Partnership Meetings?
Minutes of Partnership meetings refer to the following four types of attendees:
* (P) Partners 
* (OBO) On Behalf Of - these are individuals who are attending on behalf of Partnership members.
* (AO) Advising Officers - this may be somebody from the Partnership Team, or anyone else who has specialist knowledge that is relevant to the Partnership. 
* (O) Observers - All Partnership meetings are open to the public. Members of the public can address the meeting through prior agreement with the Chair. Occasionally the Partnership may have to discuss very sensitive issues, in which case observers/members of the public would be asked to temporarily leave the meeting.

Discussion and Voting
During the meeting full debate is encouraged, however because of the large number of representatives attending, to make it workable all comments must be made through the Chair and as succinctly as possible. Where we cannot reach consensus on an issue then we resort to a vote - although to date this has never needed to happen! Only Partners and those who attend on behalf of Partners have voting rights.