This page was exported from Bancroft this Week [ https://www.bancroftthisweek.com ] Export date:Thu Sep 10 15:57:59 2026 / +0000 GMT ___________________________________________________ Title: 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 Communicationsand Civic Engagement Plan from Sarah Phoenix, their municipal communications and civic engagement specialist. The plangave council a summary, highlighted key outcomes, performance metrics, and organized impacts that were achieved during thereporting period, from Aug. 2025 to Aug. 2026. Phoenix, Mayor Paul Jenkins and Andra Kauffeldt, the Town's generalmanager, 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 publicparticipation last year, with the first year focusing on creating communications processes, performance measures andengagement opportunities for residents. The key results included: 485,644 Facebook views and a 39.8 per cent increase inFacebook reach, 34,688 Instagram views and a 754 per cent growth in Instagram performance, three major communityengagement initiatives conducted including budget. Phoenix noted there were financial implications with council receiving thereport. She concluded that the first year successfully established communications and civic engagement as a municipal servicethat supports transparency, resident engagement and public awareness.“The results provide a strong foundation for continued improvement and expanded community engagement in year two,” shesays. 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 beenachieved during this period. So I'm here one year today, and as you can see on page two council created a new municipalfunction, 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 juststarted that six months ago so I think we're doing okay. We've been increasing these things throughout that time, we've hadsome engagement things and we've had above average compared to the other municipalities' responses. We've reached twiceas many residents that actually exist and pay within our community and rate payers. So, as you can see, effectivecommunications and engagement support transparency, service awareness, and engagement. What we've noticed through ourdigital reach, our audience development, our engagement, is that residents have engaged most with community stories, eventsand local successes our Facebook audience grew to 5474. So that's a lot beyond what our reach is. So our highest responses ofcourse; business openings, milestones, festivals, tourism and destination promotion and partnerships and communityachievements. Digital impact, so we had lots of community impact in relation, we had more residents receiving municipalinformation. 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 bitevery day. Community events have gained broader promotion. They are engaging in more things. Our largest audiencesegment, 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. Wehave a 95 per cent Canadian audience, which means we do have an international audience watching what's going on in ourcommunity. Neighbouring communties and Bancroft and regional reach, and also visibility in major Ontario markets. I knowthat 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 anincrease in traffic. So we have recorded over the last year, lots of website server searches, and we're working on it on a dailybasis trying to make it more accessible and approachable, with not a budget increase so every little bit helps. Our residents areprimarily using our website for program and service information. The top searches are jobs, taxes, permits, waste services andrecreation, which probably doesn't surprise anyone in this room. So another part of this year is giving residents a voice indecision making. So this is around our engagement, and surveys and communications that we've done, around the budgetpiece, around the recreation and community infrastructure data project and we now have a lot of baseline data for futureplanning and consultations. And I know some of this information will work towards some of those grants we are movingforward with and it's great to have that information and we'll definitely strengthen our applications. So, the most importantthing is that we're delivering value across the organization, and there's different things that this function and position do. Thereare 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 andstorytelling, community events, promotion, organizational support around public awareness campaigns, grant and fundingannouncements, and departmental support. So year one, we had to establish what the function looked like and moving forward, and we're supporting those things andwe'll continue that. So moving forward into year two, we want to of course continue to increase participation, improveunderstanding 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, andcreating opportunities for participation. As our town continues to build on this foundation, we remain committed to keepingresidents informed, engaged and connected. So, thank you to everyone and communication is not just one person and it's notjust one way. So, I want to thank our partners, our community, our council and everyone within the team for the supportthroughout 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 forwardwith. “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, notInstagram. But there's no two ways about it, if you pay attention at all, the increased amount of information that is beingdropped on Facebook is exponential, and I think each and every one of them who has given the community who's on Facebookor who also looks, way more information. The last year has just been incredible in terms of what it used to be, preceding thatfrom 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 thinkwebsite development will improve all of this, but I look forward to the opportunity that social media and the digitalcommunications 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 informationout 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 thereport. “It was encouraging to reflect on the progress that has been made over the past year and to discuss how we can continuebuilding 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 challengeand 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 toprovide information in various formats and across multiple access points to ensure that stakeholders have the information theyneed, in an accessible format, when they need it, and to promote civic engagement in accessible ways when appropriate,” shesays. “We look forward to building on this success moving forward.” --------------------------------------------------- Images: --------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Post date: 2026-09-10 11:38:48 Post date GMT: 2026-09-10 15:38:48 Post modified date: 2026-09-10 11:38:50 Post modified date GMT: 2026-09-10 15:38:50 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Export of Post and Page as text file has been powered by [ Universal Post Manager ] plugin from www.gconverters.co