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Council gives new external relations department thumbs up

City Council has high hopes for the City’s new external relations department.

When some departments were shuffled around, communications moved under the external relations umbrella.

Councillor Brian Skakun says this could set a new precedent.

“This is exciting. There’s a lot of work to do. I think if there’s been a shortcoming in the City over the years it’s that we haven’t really had a clear communications strategy.”

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New director Director Rob van Adrichem foresees a strong partnership with tourism and PG’s residents.

“I guess you could call it more and better communication to the residents of the community, really fostering greater connections between the engagement activities we’re doing and then making people more aware of them.”

Mayor Lyn Hall says this ties into his mandate of reconnecting with the community.

“Part of the reconnection was also encompassed around social media, because it’s not just about face-to-face. There’s a lot of people who use only social media for that connection. You know, we’re sort of tapping into a new world here around City Hall and the way we do business.”

“I like to think of social media as a quiver with arrows,” explains Van Adrichem. “The number of arrows an organization needs to use to reach its audience is increasing. Some people will get their information from Facebook, others won’t. Some people use newspapers while others use radio… Some prefer an email. It’s not even broken up that clearly anymore, it’s a lot of overlap between them.”

The young department only has a few months under its belt, but has ties in Canucks Training Camp, Talktober, and the City’s first video in years, focused on economic development.

On the business side of things, the department’s slightly more than $400,000 budget is higher than communication’s has been in the past, though Van Adrichem says that can largely be attributed to it’s new role and expanded operations.

Promotional tools like advertising, design, photography, and video production are included in that proposed budget.

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