Minutes

Access Advisory Committee Meeting

Tuesday, 3 October 2023

5.30pm

Level 12, Boardroom

126 Church Street, Parramatta

PRESENT

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

COUNCIL STAFF

Rodrigo Gutierrez –Service Manager, Community Capacity Building

Tanya Owen - Community Capacity Building - Lead & Convenor

Hamish Murray – Universal Design and Access Officer, City Design

Elizabeth Collins - Community Care Manager

Ash Kanitkar – Community Capacity Building Project Officer

Roxanne Thornton - Chief Governance and Risk Officer

Marina Cavar – Council Secretariat and Policy Officer (Minutes)

Susan Thompson, Ross Chaplin, Scott Green, Timothy Hart, Mark Kunach and  Emily Mahendran

1.    OPENING MEETING

The Chair, opened the meeting at 5.35pm.

2.    ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO TRADITIONAL OWNERS OF LAND

The Chair acknowledged the Burramattagal people of The Dharug Nation as the traditional owners of this land, and paid respect to their ancient culture and to their elders past, present and emerging.

3.    WEBCASTING ANNOUNCEMENT

The Chair advised the Committee that the meeting is being recorded via Microsoft Teams for minute taking purposes.

4. APOLOGIES

Pino Todarello – A/Manager Natural Resources, Environment & Resources

David Moutou – Group Manager, Social &  Community Services

Jayne Boardman - Committee Member

5.    Declaration of Interest

There were no declarations of interest for this meeting.

6.    Confirmation of Minutes

(Mover: Susan Thompson /Timothy Hart)

Note:   Minutes to be corrected with the following wording for Point 7 E-Scooter Trial; – That following concerns raised by Susan Thompson that in this instance, the committee be involved in the early consultation process.

7.   BUSINESS ARISING FROM PREVIOUS MINUTES

· Parramatta Aquatic Centre

1.      Jayne Boardman and Emily Mahendran  attended as Members of the Access Committee;

2.      Large capital improvements are being considered as post opening    improvement projects.

3.      Operational team did schedule a test event with a disability service provider, however  this was cancelled by the provider and PAC was unable to organise an alternative group and is yet to reschedule.

4.      Over 55’s Leisure and Learning attended a test day and accessed aquarobics and the gym.

5.      Emily (Committee Member) provided feedback overall experience was excellent; and summarised her written feedback to David Moutou including the following:

(a)   The adult changing spaces ticked all the boxes for accessibility.

(b)   The ramps that go down to the outdoor pool are the same colour as the walls which will be an obstacle for vision impaired users. She suggested that the colours to the ramps be retrofitted so that its user friendly for vision impaired users allowing them to differentiate between the walls and ramps.

(c)    All doors should have glazing strips.

(d)    Questions over not all doors operating automatically, specifically an auto-close function.

6.      Tanya Owen will follow up on the written response on the concerns raised by Emily.

· International Day of People with Disability (IDPwD)

1. Due to time constraint  and the opening of the Parramatta Aquatic Centre (PAC) plans for an IDPwD activity will be low scale, details of this will be reported to the Committee at the next meeting if not earlier.

2. The Riverside Theatre is not planning anything this year.

3. Libraries are planning Autism awareness sessions with Autism Spectrum Australia to involve;

(a)  Both family members of people, with Autism and wider public.

(b)  Education on how Autism can present itself, while acknowledging diversity.

(c)  Strategies available to parents, as well as to the wider public on making the community more inclusive and friendly towards people with autism.

4. Community Capacity Team – seeking to develop a short quiz on Disability to be distributed to all staff as part of internal communications for the day. To be used as a platform for people to engage further with other learning opportunities. Committee Members are encouraged to email ideas for questions that they would like included in the quiz. Tanya indicated there would be a question on Universal Design, and possibly autism.  Ideas put forward by Committee Members included:

Susan;

Q - What’s the best way to assist a person with vision impairment?

A  -Offer them your arm.

Q – How to interact with an assistance dog?

A – If it has its harness on then its working…

Scott;

Q – if a person with a disability has a carer who do you speak to?

A – The person with a disability.

Susan;

Q – Employees requests for adjustments

A – It’s not specialised treatment, it is a reasonable adjustment.

8.   OTHER BUSINESS

· Disability Graphics Project

Ash Kanitker provided the following update;

1. An action out of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP)

2. Council’s aim for a minimum of 5% of images with people used across Council communications will feature persons with a visible disability.

3. Images created are to be respectful with a positive dignified image.

4. Images are also to capture diversity, gender, race, age as well as disability.

5. Focus of most images will be on people engaging with various sites and activities, the connection between people and sites and with other people.

6. People shown as having a disability must have a lived experience of disability.

Tanya Owen also added:

7. This project is to support the DIAP aim of increasing people with disability’s sense of belonging to the Parramatta community, through an increase in representation across all images.

8. The project is a stop-gap measure until images produced through projects of Council’s Marketing and Communications team can build a stronger inclusive image library.

Susan suggested –

That the on-site production crew need to be guided by someone (talent) with a disability to ensure authenticity when choosing activities and postures.

Update from Active Transport Committee – Charlene was not present therefore there was no update.

Meeting Closed at 6.19pm.

Next Meeting Date: 5 December, 2023