If you’re someone who is active on social media – Twitter in particular – you may have noticed a significant upsurge of activity from Cochrane Sustainability (or Sustainability Partners Uniting Resources (SPUR)) since the municipal election.
For those who do not know, development of the Cochrane Sustainability Plan began in 2008, was complete a year later and is a document that aims to provide guidance for Cochrane to grow in a sustainable manner over a 50-year span.
According to Cochrane Sustainability’s website, over 500 Cochrane residents took part, ‘sharing their dreams for a brighter future’ for the community, how it would evolve, and provided the vision for the plan’s development.
Each participant was tasked with responding to a four-question survey, with the answers providing direction for the creation of the plan, which comprises 13 ‘pathways’ to Cochrane’s future.
SPUR is a non-profit group tasked with bringing to fruition what it would be able to refer to as a sustainable community.
But back to the original issue at hand – why has there been such an influx of activity on social media since the election?
To give you some perspective, since the election, Cochrane Sustainability has tweeted approximately 260 times (as of the evening of Nov. 12), an average of 12 tweets per day.
Prior to the election, those following Cochrane Sustainability on Twitter would see about 12 tweets per month; sometimes as few as one…or none.
You may say to yourself, ‘who cares about how many times Cochrane Sustainability tweets,’ but the reason this seemingly trivial occurrence is interesting is because it begs the question, is Cochrane Sustainability concerned about the new council?
The barrage of tweets being sent out by Cochrane Sustainability range in subject matter, from how to better heat one’s home, to informing about local events, to diving into Cochrane issues, like vehicles, traffic and pedestrians.
Informing people about how to be sustainable is most certainly a good thing, there is no question about that. But is it for some reason more so now?
Perhaps those behind the Twitter action had planned to become more active on social media long before the municipal election, and the timing is simply a coincidence. Or, there may be more behind it.
Most would agree that former Cochrane mayor Truper McBride was a strong advocate for what Cochrane Sustainability would refer to as ‘sustainable development.’ McBride also, on most occasions, has three councillors who usually agreed with his vision when it came to development in Cochrane – Tara McFadden, Ross Watson and Joann Churchill.
But is there something Cochrane Sustainability, or SPUR, knows that we don’t? Do they feel there is some kind of threat to the Cochrane Sustainability Plan with this new council? Is this the reason behind the obvious increase in focus on social media?
Is it simply an effort to get its message and goals out to its followers, or is it an endeavour to try and do something more…to get the new council and mayor to take notice…or have residents put more pressure on a council it feels is not totally in its corner?
As a non-profit, SPUR does receive a yearly community grant from the town. This year, SPUR is asking for over $10,000 less than in 2013, totalling $20,550 for 2014.
