Public Engagement Plan for 2025
The above image was meant to be a critique from someone that contacted me in 2024. It is quite possibly my favourite criticism I’ve ever received. It’s also a great way to kick off my 2025 Public Engagement Plan blog.
Yes, it might be my last year on Council but I don’t plan on slowing down my engagement as there’s still a lot of important work to do and I think you should continue to expect me to do what I’ve always been doing on engagement.
Overall, my engagement plan won’t look much different from 2024 which you can read here. Here’s a summary of what the 2025 work will look like:
- A virtual Community Conversation every month.
- An in-person Community Conversation every three months and community-specific ones working in collaboration with the community leagues.
- Door-knocking at least twice a month not including September due to the numerous community events happening each week as part of Community League Day. This will also include more frequent door-knocking during our summer recess.
- Continuing to attend community league AGMs, events, etc.
- Putting out monthly e-newsletters to share information about what is happening in the city.
- Continuing to regularly share updates on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and any other forms of social media that people are regularly using.
- Continuing to visit seniors' residences in the ward twice a year.
- Ongoing responses to calls/emails/social media comments.
A few comments based on this plan as it’s the same plan from 2024.
In total, I averaged more than twice a month door-knocking although some months were one day and other months it was more. Overall, this continues to be one of my favourite ways to engage with people as I know a lot of people I meet at the doors don’t engage with me any other way as they are busy with life.
I continue to attend community league AGMs and I would encourage you to do the same. Most of them are very poorly attended and that’s a shame considering the amount of volunteer hours each community league board member puts into helping to build an even better community. I know a lot of leagues now provide virtual options and so even if you are busy, consider joining virtually.
For the in-person Community Conversations, the community specific ones are actually generating greater attendance than the ones I do for the entire ward. I’ll keep doing both but I’ve enjoyed ramping up the community specific ones as they can be a great way to dig into the more local issues.
The number of e-newsletter subscribers is still disappointingly low (below 800 people). If you haven’t already, please sign up for the newsletter on my website as it’s the best way to stay informed about different engagement opportunities as well as important City information.
Social media continues to be an important part of engagement but I’m finding less value in Twitter as the days go on with a lot more uptake on Facebook and now LinkedIn. After a 1 year hiatus on TikTok, I’m going to start using that again in 2025.
The main thing I want to review with you is the change to how I have handled emails. Last year I asked you which option you preferred: Longer response time to emails but the responses still come from me or shorter response time but the responses would come from Rajah and Kristin in the ward office. Overwhelmingly you chose continuing to have me respond.
I thought I would see how you feel about that. With the volume of emails increasing every year, my email response time is typically reaching the 7 day mark that I said I might reach last year. Is that okay with you? To try and reduce that response time, I have put in my 2025 calendar dedicated times for replying to emails and phone calls. That should allow me to at least maintain my response time if not improve it.
Is anything missing from this list? Are there additional ways you would like to be engaged? If yes, please let me know your feedback so I can try to create an engagement plan that reaches as many different people as possible. Thanks everyone and I look forward to connecting with you throughout 2025!
