Media Release
Bang the Table adds Five Councils to Expanding Local Government Portfolio
Sydney 22 April, 2010 – Community engagement specialist, Bang the Table, has today announced that they have signed contracts to provide online engagement products to five councils across Victoria and New South Wales. New contracts have been signed with Auburn City Council, Bankstown City Council, Blue Mountains City Council, Yarra Ranges Shire Council and the City of Yarra. Bang the Table will provide each of these councils with the technology to facilitate a range of community engagement projects such as local arts planning, community safety assessment and land use planning.
Bang the Table now supplies its products to a total of 30 local councils in Australia and are expanding into Canada, New Zealand and the US.
According to Matthew Crozier, Director at Bang the Table, these new contracts highlight the growing trend in the local government sector to conduct community consultation projects online.
“We’ve seen huge growth in our local government client base. Increasingly, local councils are seeing that not only do online engagement tools have the power to reach a vast number of people quickly but they are also cost effective to deploy. Councils are at the coalface of delivering local services and so are highly effective in allowing the community to have input into decision making around subjects like rate rises, community planning, cycling strategies and planning issues and other community initiatives have been very popular.”
Val Schaefer from the Greater Taree City Council, has used Bang the Table’s Engagement HQ tool for the past six months and says the council wanted to provide the community with another avenue of community engagement in an online environment to ensure that the public play a significant role in determining the community’s future. Engaging with the community is an important part of Council’s commitment to good governance and ensures connectivity between community needs, aspirations and the services Council provides.
“It has been terrific to see the amount of discussion and engagement we get online. As a council we are committed to strengthening our community engagement and involving the community in decisions that affect them. Bang the Table’s Engagement HQ has been very easy for our residents to use which really helps to ensure that the process is accessible as possible to all of our community.”
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About Bang The Table
Launched in 2007 Bang the Table offers public and private sector organisations with independently moderated online consultation spaces. The company has over 80 clients across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. To date their technology has provided a forum for over 200 projects involving roughly 140,000 members of the community.
Bang the Table’s suite of products include Budget Allocator ™designed to help local government agencies better understand how its community would like public funds to be spent and Engagement HQ™ an online community engagement platform which helps diagnose and respond to community issues.
Media Contact
Corrie McLeod
Espresso Communications
Mob: 0419 526 848
Email: corrie@espressocomms.com.au
