- that's what we're about to find out
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** New ideas, new directions
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** July 2023
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Blue mountains against a yellow sky and the caption: repowering democracy
All through this year, we'll be doing some serious thinking about the state of democracy and mySociety's place within it. We're inviting guest speakers to lend their thoughts, too.
Read all about the Repowering Democracy series here ([link removed]) — and sign up to follow along.
The Senedd has come to TheyWorkForYou. Image of the big wooden mushroom-like structure in the building.
** Keep up with the Senedd
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Thanks to funding from the Welsh Government, our parliamentary website TheyWorkForYou now includes debates and all Members of the Senedd.
So now you can follow along with everything that happens in English ([link removed]) and in Welsh ([link removed]) — and our alerts service ([link removed]) covers Senedd activity, too.
Completists will be glad to know that, with this addition TheyWorkForYou now covers all the law-making parliaments of the UK. See more about the background to this development in our blog post ([link removed]) .
Over to you
** Share your memories of mySociety
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It's taken a lot of people to get mySociety to where we are now. Are you one of them?
We're collecting memories from folk who were around in our earlier days: staff, volunteers, trustees, friends — anyone who remembers part of the journey we've been through over the last 20 years.
If you've got a memory to share, or thoughts about what mySociety means to the UK or indeed, the wider world, please share them here ([link removed]) .
transparency
** There are many reasons to use FOI
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We've heard some really great stories around our Freedom of Information service WhatDoTheyKnow ([link removed]) recently. The main takeaway? People really are using Freedom of Information to achieve all kinds of things.
So why not read about the campaign to save a local running track ([link removed]) , a collaborative tool for investigative journalists ([link removed]) , and how FOI helps when you just want to know something — like how many rubber bands the Post Office uses each year ([link removed]) !
** More transparency around removed requests
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It's rare, but the WhatDoTheyKnow team sometimes have to remove requests, or parts of them, from the site. Now a new piece of development is allowing them to be more transparent when this happens ([link removed]) .
Climate
** Different councils have different decarbonisation potential
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A view across London with a dirty-looking sky
Some areas of the UK face more systemic barriers to delivering climate plans than others: that's the thrust behind Alice Garvey's research.
She told us all about it, and how the Council Climate Scorecards have supported her investigation into this subject. See the whole story here ([link removed]) .
mySociety's key services
** Your donations help us run projects like these
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If you're reading this newsletter, the chances are that you see the value in mySociety's work — thank you.
Donations are part of what makes that possible, so if you're able, please consider making a contribution today.
Donate now ([link removed])
Interested in a particular strand of our work? Pick and choose your mySociety newsletters here ([link removed][UNIQID]) .
** What we're reading
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* Everyone's talking about AI, but here are two on-topic reads for us: Can ChatGPT do a civil servant's job? ([link removed]) and Welsh politician uses AI chatbot to write speech ([link removed]) (then go and read that speech on TheyWorkForYou ([link removed]) , of course!)
* Preliminary findings from the Electoral Commission on the impacts of the new voter ID requirement ([link removed]) .
* Time to stop worrying about your carbon footprint and start thinking about your point of leverage ([link removed]) .
* Coming soon, the UK’s first permanent, public collection of national security documents ([link removed]) .
* Interesting job alert: could you be a Wikimedian in Residence ([link removed]) for the National Trust?
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mySociety is a registered charity in England and Wales (1076346) and a limited company (03277032).
Through our trading subsidiary SocietyWorks (05798215) we also provide commercial services.
Image credits: Mountains: ** Marek Piwnicki ([link removed])
; Senedd: ** Senedd Cymru ([link removed])
(** CC by/2.0 ([link removed])
); Cluttered desktop: Myfanwy Nixon; jigsaw mural: ** Ashkan Forouzani ([link removed])
; view across London: ** Kyle Kroeger ([link removed])
(** CC by-nc-nd/2.0 ([link removed])
)
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