Community Law meeting

Community Law Canterbury held a meeting in the afternoon of Friday the 10th, which I attended. The brief of the meeting was:

Community Law Canterbury’s initial response to the quake was to provide an immediate availability for both information and advice and to provide fact sheets in relation to topical legal issues related to the quake. We also attended community forums and begun work on compiling a legal resource manual.

We are currently undergoing an analysis of our own client’s needs to date and wish to learn more from our community as to what its present legal needs are and how we can best contribute with legal help.

To that end we invite you to a meeting at Community Law Canterbury, 281 Madras Street, on 10th December 2010 from 3pm to 5pm. The focus of the meeting will be for us to briefly introduce our response to date and our anticipated further legal needs but more importantly to hear from you as to what types of legal issues your organisation has been confronted with or any legal difficulties you or your clients have experienced

A large number of people attended, most of whom represented support groups from a range of organisations. It was a bit surprising that the issues canvassed ranged well outside the legal area however it certainly helped provide a context from which Community Law can work out where best it can make a contribution.

I was too busy paying attention to take notes however there will be minutes provided in a week or two which I will distribute to those who are interested.

One piece of information provided via a member of the Ombudsmen's Office was that EQC is about to set up a complaints procedure with dedicated staff (who should have been appointed by now). Will try to find the details and post them here.