Winchester City staff present draft communications strategy emphasizing trust, reach and listening

Winchester City communications staff on Wednesday presented a draft communications strategy to the Strategic Planning Committee that seeks to build public trust by expanding reach, improving two-way feedback and strengthening community connections.

The plan, presented by Kit Redmer, organizes communications work around three pillars: inform, listen and build a community. Redmer said the plan is a rewrite of prior comms components and is intended as a discussion draft rather than a finished product. "We inform, we listen, and we build a community," Redmer said, summarizing the approach.

The draft ties several operational items to those pillars. For the "inform" pillar staff proposed clearer metrics for reach (social media followers, click-through rates and online viewership), improved multilingual publications and a content calendar that includes monthly themes and biweekly content reviews. Redmer said staff are exploring a Spanish-language podcast and newsletter if resources permit.

On listening, staff described current tracking of contacts submitted through the city's website and recommended exploring a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to capture phone calls, emails and web interactions more systematically. "We do have the ability to track those, and those are also routed directly to departments," Redmer said; a CRM would broaden tracking to phone and email, staff said.

The plan also proposes programs to strengthen community ties: a community ambassador program to amplify city messages, expanded neighborhood nights and "pickup parties" that combine public-service education with outreach, and a working group of public information officers that would include university and health-system communicators.

Committee members asked about the city's livestreaming and broadcast reach. Staff said the city's website stream is the predominant way viewers watch meetings; the Comcast municipal cable channel is standard-definition and reaches fewer viewers. Staff told the committee that the current broadcast stack is a patchwork of dated equipment and integrations and recommended future investments to stabilize livestreams and improve redundancy.

Mayor Veach asked whether the plan would cover both external and internal communications; staff said Kit Redmer and Sarah focus primarily on external communications while internal employee messaging is largely shared between communications, the chief of staff and human resources.

Staff said they will incorporate feedback from Wednesday's meeting and return the communications draft for additional review at a future work session.

Ending: The committee did not take any formal action on the communications draft; staff will revise the document and present updates in a future meeting.