Bancroft discusses CCE Plan at Aug. 25 meeting

By Michael Riley, Local Journalism Inititive Reporter

At their special meeting on Aug. 25, Town of Bancroft council discussed the first-year impact report on their Communications
and Civic Engagement Plan from Sarah Phoenix, their municipal communications and civic engagement specialist. The plan
gave council a summary, highlighted key outcomes, performance metrics, and organized impacts that were achieved during the
reporting period, from Aug. 2025 to Aug. 2026. Phoenix, Mayor Paul Jenkins and Andra Kauffeldt, the Town's general
manager, comment to The Bancroft Times on the report and council's discussion on it.
Bancroft established a communications and civic engagement function to improve communication, transparency, and public
participation last year, with the first year focusing on creating communications processes, performance measures and
engagement opportunities for residents. The key results included: 485,644 Facebook views and a 39.8 per cent increase in
Facebook reach, 34,688 Instagram views and a 754 per cent growth in Instagram performance, three major community
engagement initiatives conducted including budget. Phoenix noted there were financial implications with council receiving the
report. She concluded that the first year successfully established communications and civic engagement as a municipal service
that supports transparency, resident engagement and public awareness.
“The results provide a strong foundation for continued improvement and expanded community engagement in year two,” she
says.
Phoenix went through her report to council during the Aug. 25 meeting after Mayor Paul Jenkins introduced it for discussion.
“So I'm here to outline some of what's occurred over the past year; our outcomes, some metrics and impacts that have been
achieved during this period. So I'm here one year today, and as you can see on page two council created a new municipal
function, a communication engagement framework, we implemented performance measurements and stakeholder processes.
You can see that we have increased our Facebook views, our Facebook reach, 754 per cent on our Instagram growth, and I just
started that six months ago so I think we're doing okay. We've been increasing these things throughout that time, we've had
some engagement things and we've had above average compared to the other municipalities' responses. We've reached twice
as many residents that actually exist and pay within our community and rate payers. So, as you can see, effective
communications and engagement support transparency, service awareness, and engagement. What we've noticed through our
digital reach, our audience development, our engagement, is that residents have engaged most with community stories, events
and local successes our Facebook audience grew to 5474. So that's a lot beyond what our reach is. So our highest responses of
course; business openings, milestones, festivals, tourism and destination promotion and partnerships and community
achievements. Digital impact, so we had lots of community impact in relation, we had more residents receiving municipal
information. Of course, everyone will say they don't know and they don't see it but we've reached more, we're doing a little bit
every day. Community events have gained broader promotion. They are engaging in more things. Our largest audience
segment, which I was really happy to see, is not just 65 years plus, but we've kind of got it down a bit to 35 to 64 years. We
have a 95 per cent Canadian audience, which means we do have an international audience watching what's going on in our
community. Neighbouring communties and Bancroft and regional reach, and also visibility in major Ontario markets. I know
that many people have sent me stories and videos of people following our area.
So I know we don't like to talk about the website because we know it needs a major overhaul but we still have seen an
increase in traffic. So we have recorded over the last year, lots of website server searches, and we're working on it on a daily
basis trying to make it more accessible and approachable, with not a budget increase so every little bit helps. Our residents are
primarily using our website for program and service information. The top searches are jobs, taxes, permits, waste services and
recreation, which probably doesn't surprise anyone in this room. So another part of this year is giving residents a voice in
decision making. So this is around our engagement, and surveys and communications that we've done, around the budget
piece, around the recreation and community infrastructure data project and we now have a lot of baseline data for future
planning and consultations. And I know some of this information will work towards some of those grants we are moving
forward with and it's great to have that information and we'll definitely strengthen our applications. So, the most important
thing is that we're delivering value across the organization, and there's different things that this function and position do. There
are governance and transparency to council with communications like today, public engagement, budget information, surveys,
infrastructure communication. We're also doing a lot of community development this way through community branding and
storytelling, community events, promotion, organizational support around public awareness campaigns, grant and funding
announcements, and departmental support.
So year one, we had to establish what the function looked like and moving forward, and we're supporting those things and
we'll continue that. So moving forward into year two, we want to of course continue to increase participation, improve
understanding of priorities. It's definitely been an interesting process going through the election process every four years. So,
we're definitely learning all together how to communication those things in an easy-to-understand format for all our residents.
We want to support evidence-based decision making and we want to enhance municipal information. So, you can kind of seevaguely what the commitment is but we can kind of move forward from here. So, the last one is just kind of information.
Effective communication is more than about sharing information, it's about building trust, strengthening connections, and
creating opportunities for participation. As our town continues to build on this foundation, we remain committed to keeping
residents informed, engaged and connected. So, thank you to everyone and communication is not just one person and it's not
just one way. So, I want to thank our partners, our community, our council and everyone within the team for the support
throughout the year and we're building a stronger Bancroft,” she says.
Councillor Val Miles said that she thought it had been an incredible opportunity and choice for the town to move forward
with.
“I'm a reader/scroller, not that much of a poster, every now and then I do. And I'm old, so I'm only on Facebook, not
Instagram. But there's no two ways about it, if you pay attention at all, the increased amount of information that is being
dropped on Facebook is exponential, and I think each and every one of them who has given the community who's on Facebook
or who also looks, way more information. The last year has just been incredible in terms of what it used to be, preceding that
from that forum only. But that's a big forum and it's used a lot. So, I think it was a brilliant year to start with, and I think
website development will improve all of this, but I look forward to the opportunity that social media and the digital
communications bring to the Town of Bancroft in the future,” she says.
Jenkins told The Bancroft Times that it was a great report and goes a long way toward the Town's goal of getting information
out to the public.
“The number of public views on the various platforms show that the outreach is working,” he says.
Phoenix told The Bancroft Times that she was pleased with the discussion and appreciative of council's enthusiasm with the
report.
“It was encouraging to reflect on the progress that has been made over the past year and to discuss how we can continue
building strong connections with residents, businesses and community partners moving forward,” she says.
Kauffeldt told The Bancroft Times that improving communication to residents and visitors had been identified as a challenge
and a goal of council and staff for years.
“Creating dedicated staff time and resources to improve and increase the amount of information available, in a timely manner,
has proven to be quite successful and well received given the statistics presented in the report. The Town will continue to
provide information in various formats and across multiple access points to ensure that stakeholders have the information they
need, in an accessible format, when they need it, and to promote civic engagement in accessible ways when appropriate,” she
says. “We look forward to building on this success moving forward.”