Who: Brecon Town Council, 15 councillors serving approximately 8,000 residents in this historic town on the edge of Bannau Brycheiniog National Park (Brecon Beacons).
The brief: In 2020, the year of widespread #BlackLivesMatter protests and demonstrations, the Captain’s Walk plaque commemorating slave trader Captain Phillips was vandalised. The councillors wished to hold a “town talk” event to hear the views of their residents and inform their course of action regarding the plaque. It had to take place online due to lockdown restrictions.
What I did: I worked with the councillors to clarify the scope of the event, supported the development of comms materials (posters for key town locations and visuals for social media channels), and designed an online event which included conversation prompts from the Council, a #BLM movement supporter, and a representative from a local historical society who had carried out research into the Captain. The participants then had time in breakout rooms for reflection and discussion, before feeding back the outcome of their conversations in the plenary. 32 people attended, and the Council used the event information to come to a decision about the plaque at the following Council meeting.
What they said: “It was received extremely well and the feedback about how we sought the views of the community about such an emotive subject were positive. The online discussion forum (on Zoom) provided an excellent opportunity for community engagement. You facilitated the meeting with professionalism, skill and charisma, and ensured that the event was respectful and productive at all times. Thank you very much indeed for your help and hard work in making it such a success.”– Brecon Town Council Mayor, August 2020
I contacted the Town Clerk for an update several months later: “The outcome of the Town Talk about the Captains Walk plaque was that the plaque was not replaced in its original location. It has been donated to Y Gaer, our museum, to create an exhibition around the wider context and to leave it in its graffitied state as part of the story. Discussions also started about whether to commission/loan a replacement piece for the location or elsewhere but no decision has been taken on this yet.”
Photo credit: Jaggery on Geograph