Cr Jinty MacTavish (28) said one of the key messages she heard during the campaign was that people would like more ready access to councillors.
She could understand that coming into council buildings or participating in public forums could seem quite inaccessible to people, and she wanted people to know they did not necessarily have to do those things to talk with a councillor.
They could also call, email or write - during the last triennium she had tried to be more accessible online, and believed she had done reasonably well at that - but she felt that sometimes people really sought face-to-face interaction.
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'Anything I can do to make that easier for people is probably a good thing to do.''
She had already had one cafe session, to which two people came, although they were both friends of the councillor's.
She expected the idea would take some time to grow, and that sometimes no people would come to meet her, but she was comfortable with that.
''I think its going to be a bit of a case of seeing what works, this is a bit of new ground for me.''
She would advertise when and where she would be having her next session, on her Facebook page.
Her initial aim was to have a session at least once a month, and if possible every two weeks, and it might even be something other councillors might end up doing as well.
In Timaru, she said, councillors last term held a councillor cafe every so often, where multiple councillors went to a cafe at the same time, and people knew they could drop in to see them.
''In some ways that would be better, because that way people could have more chance of speaking to someone and probably more than one of us.''
It was something she would be talking to the other councillors about.
At this stage the drop-in sessions were ''very much'' an evolving idea.
''If people have ideas about what would make councillors more accessible to them, I would like to hear for them, because that is ultimately what I'm aiming for and I don't know if this is the right way to do it or not.''
