Echoing many of the points presented in the first post. Primarily the ones about direction and communication - the current iteration of the council feels a bit like throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks and gets a reaction, which leaves both the community and the council disillusioned about the initiative. It needs more of a guiding hand from the organizers, to figure out what it is that they prefer to see discussed.
The idea suggested above of a weekly round-up that just points out what they found relevant would be interesting for this.
There’s also the point of organization. Currently, the council section is a single stack of threads that are sometimes bumped back up for some visibility, having left it to council members to appropriately tag the threads in order for them to be found more easily. It discourages interaction, if someone doesn’t find a thread that is relevant to their interests. The forum’s already have a very simple solution for this too: make more sections, allow threads to be made in the appropriate ones, and it’ll quickly become much better organized.
The other point, which I recognize is a bit more pedantic, is the separation of EU and NA in the forums, as I doubt most of the EU is even aware this exists, and can’t really contribute in discussions that branch off of threads made here.
The council is overall a net positive regardless of the community perception of it, because there really isn’t anything to lose from its existence. But it could be better if it was nudged ever so slightly every now and then.