Scottish Council on Visual Impairment
Minute of the Trustees’ Meeting held within Royal Blind, 50 Gillespie Crescent, Edinburgh on Wednesday 19thDecember at 12.30pm.
Present: Richard Hellewell (Royal Blind, President), Ruth Dorman (Deafblind Scotland, Vice-President), Graham Findlay (NESS), Fiona Sandford (Visibility) and Bob Ironside (PKSB).
In attendance: Colin Howie (Secretary and Treasurer).
Apologies: James Adams (RNIB), Danny Sweeney (NAC), John Keenan (Visualise) and Richard Godfrey-McKay (FSB).
1)Welcome new members and roles: The President welcomed Ruth and Bob and looked forward to working with them in the coming months and years.
2)Apologies: The Secretary gave apologies on behalf of those who could not attend.
3)Conflicts of interest: This will be a standing item from now on to ask all Trustees to announce if there are any conflicts of interest.
4)Minutes of meeting of 2ndNovember 2012: Accepted.
5)Minutes of meeting of 15thNovember 2012: Accepted.
6)Minutes of AGM: Accepted.
7)Matters arising:
a)Visionary: Attendance and presentation at Members Forum: Angela Tinker is happy to come to the Members’ Forum at 11am on Thursday, 17th January, 2013 in Perth.
b)Future of Rehabilitation position statement: Bobasked and Ruthanswered a question on the subject of relative salaries: Community OT are Band 4 (24K) to 7 (~48K), Grahamsaid OT were getting >6.5K more than the equivalent rehab workers. Fiona said some of the Sensory Impairment Strategy fund underspend is being used to start a 2 year Rehabilitation WorkerQualification.Ruthsaid that ideally the training would be better placed within an institution such asGlasgow Calednonian University (rather than a private firm linked to Birmingham University as it is for this year). Fionathought SCOVI should try to influence next year’s budget spend. Aletter isto be drafted by Fionaand Ruthin January to Angela Bonomy and Peter Kelly of Scottish Government Sensory Strategy Groupoffering SCOVI input to this area.A discussion then took place about trying to improve VI individual’s access to independence through various routes.
c)Website progress The Secretary/Treasurer reportedthe various updates made since October:
- a ‘Useful links’ page has been added ready to add, for example, Government Websites to it;
- Scots VIP, Members’ Forum, AGM and Trustees’ Minutes have all been added to the Members’ Area;
- The 2012 Accounts have been published on the ‘Who we are’ area in ‘AGM and Annual Report’ page;
- A YouTube video has been directly embedded into a Draft Post on the Hardest Hit campaign, thus similar posts should be quicker and easier to publish in the future;
- A (.jpg file) picture has been added to the News Post of the Blind Cookery Book from Durham.
d)Heritage Project update: Fionareported that James Adams had been approached by someone in Edinburgh about this project. Alan Suttie in Fife is also interested in getting involved in a Scotland wide effort.
e)Big Lottery project progress: the sub-group of Richard, Ruth and Fiona have drafted an advertisement for the Consultancy vacancy.The Secretary reported that this had been published in the SCOVI website, Visionary Bulletin, Third Force News ‘Goodmoves’ section, ACOSVO Bulletin, IRISSwebsite, and Catriona Burness was invited to apply.To date, one candidate has supplied a reasonable proposal.
8)Secretary/Treasurer arrangements and settling-in: The Trustees present seemed happy with the progress made to date.
9)Review who is representing SCOVI on various bodies:The Secretary presented a draft list, to which a few further were added to complete the list.Bob was appointed the SCOVI Regional Representative for Visionary. The list is now as follows:
Graham: British Wireless for the Blind Fund
Fiona and Graham: Scottish Vision Strategy Group – sub group of the UK Vision Strategy which is part of Vision2020
Graham and Richard Hellewell: Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group for Visual Impairment
Douglas Gilroy: UKAAF.
Fiona (Visibility and SCOVI), Ruth (Deafblind Scotland) and Maria Dick on Scottish Government Sensory Impairment Strategy Group.
Wendy Jack:ADSW.
At the Members’ Forum in November, Douglas Gilroy had suggested there bea SCOVI Rep on SATA. Jane Horsburgh will be asked by Richardto advise from her perspective.
10)Financial report year to date: Accepted. The requests for the 2012 -13 Affiliation Fees were sent out on 11/12/2012, three weeks later than the previous year’s. The Trustees decided that in future we should be issuing these near the beginning of each year, but to ease transition this would be phased. The 2013-14 billing fees would be issued in early August 2013 the 2014-15 billing fees in April 2014.
11)Current membership list,fee billing, and unpaid subscriptions: The current list was presented by the Secretary. Edinburgh City Council are the only ones known to have pulled out (in 2011). The rest of the list was accepted as current with no other subscriptions being unpaid (in 2011).
It was reported that John Gurd had retired early from Glasgow Council on health grounds. A letter of good wishes will be sent.
12)Investment report:Richard had received a report from Smith and Williamson detailing regulatory and administrative changes, which the Secretary will examine for any implications. It was agreed that Ruth would replace Graham as a signatory for investment instructions. These to be signed from now on by any two of Richard, Ruth, Secretary. Smith and Williamson to be advised that the Secretary should be the route for all communication.
The performance figures were noted, including the relatively weak performance of the Monks Investment Trust holding.
Ethical Investment:Smith and Williamson had produced a report in response to our request that they look into and recommend options regarding an ethical investment policy. Unfortunately, they had only taken this as far as looking at the largest holdings of the various investment trusts and suggesting a specific ethical pooled fund to replace our holding in Monks Investment Trust. Following discussion, it was agreed that we should prepare the Investment Company in advance of the full review in August, 2013 to advise on a full switch to ethical investment. Tobacco and arms manufacturers would be excluded and probably also the use of child labour, if that is a practical proposition(such as through there being a source ofinformation).
Actions
- Sell the SCOVI Monks investments and buy Standard Life Ethical Fund Units with the proceeds, as a first move towards ethical investment.
- Research through the web the availability of information to drive an ethical policy including child labour issues
- Inform our investment managers of the decision to move over to a fully ethical policy and the criteria we intend to apply from August 2013 and request that they liaise with us in advance of that rather than leave us with work still to do afterwards.
13)Risk management: This topic to be covered at the next Trustees’ meeting in March, 2013. There will be a draft done in advance of the meeting.
14)Conference 2013: Agreed we should look to a similar format and time to last year as we have had a string of successful conferences. Recommend Tue 18th June as first choice to suggest at Forum.Sub-committee to be sought again. Secretary to check availability of Stirling Management Centre but there were strong suggestions in favour of varying. Suggestions to follow up are Fire Stations in Cambuslang and Edinburgh (Free of charge, per Ruth), Dunblane Hydro. A loop system is required.Timing will be close to launch of Joint Sensory Strategy, so we will try to make it a launch event with ministerial involvement. Request to be made by Richard via Jean Maclellan.If successful, SCOD would then be invited.
Visionary have suggested a joint conference, or holding the Visionary UK conference in Scotland – may be better to consider for 2014.
15)Members’ Forum agenda January meeting:Draft considered.
16)Assumptions for the 2013/14 Budget: Members were asked to make any suggestions for the 2013/14 budget in good time before the next meeting.
17)AOCB:Grahamsaid that Apple will give a personal discount of the VAT off for one item per year for partially sighted and registered people. This information will be passed to theSecretary by e-mail plus the form to allow dissemination to all the members.
18)Date and place of next meeting:Friday,1stMarch, 2013, at 11.00 am within Visibility, 2 Queen’s Crescent, Glasgow.
Fiona then gave her apologies in advance.
After the meeting, Richard, Fiona and the Secretary viewed the Royal Blind archives as part of the discussion on a Scottish VI archive.