West Berkshire Disability Alliance
Annual General Meeting
Wednesday 22nd July 2009
6.45pm – 8.30pm
United Reform Church, Church Room,
Cromwell Place, Newbury
Agenda
1. Welcome and Apologies
2. Minutes & Matters Arising from WBDA AGM 23rd July 2008
[To save postage costs, Minutes of 2008 AGM
will be available at the meeting]
3. Change of constitution to “ THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE SHALL COMPRISE OF 15 MEMBERS”
[There is space on the reply slip for your nominations]]
4. Treasurer’s Report 2008- 2009[Appendix 1 – Members only]
5. Chairman’s Report 2008 – 2009
6. Membership Report 2008 - 2009
7. Election of Executive Members 2008-2011
8. Any Other Business and General Discussion
9. WBDA Member of the year award 2008 - 2009
Minutes of The Annual General Meeting
of the
West Berkshire Disability Alliance
Held on Wednesday 22nd July at 6.45 at The Congregational School Rooms,
Cromwell Place, Newbury.
Present. Mick Hutchins Chairman, Peter Dolphin-Treasurer, Garry Poulson – Minutes Secretary, George Athorn Membership Secretary, Sue Hinks, Dawn Stubberfiled, Bob Winfield, David Sharp, Pete Atkinson, Betty Hatton, John Mead, Catherine Carey, Kate Green, John Holt, Roger Woad, John Carr, Cllr Pamela Bale, Cllr Kuldip Kanh Singh – Town Mayor of Newbury. John Head,
Apologies. Lady Howard De Walden- President, Ron Renton, Angela Rigby, Gill Brown, Sue Farrant, Sarah Greenway, Mike Trevellion, Sir Peter Micheal, Doris Carter, Carole Winter, Richard Benyon MP, Roy Smith, Allison Clarke, Joyce Mills, Philip Woollcombe, Cllr Adrian Edwards, Alan Fleming, Mrs Hemman, Sir George Young, Cllr Gwen Mason, The Mayor Thatcham, Alice Lewington, Charles Waddicor.Karen Redford, Janet Parker, Anna Porter.
The Chairman welcomed everyone to the AGM in particular The Town Mayor Cllr Singh and Cllr Pamela Bale the deputy leader of WBC. He then asked everyone present to introduce themselves by name and organisation for the benefit of the sight impaired members attending.
The chairman then handed over to George Athorn the membership secretary who was asked to run the meeting on the Chairmans behalf.
Minutes of the AGM held on the 23rd July 2008
There were no errors or ommisions reported and a motion was put by Roger Woad and Peter Dolphin that the minutes be approved as a true record. The meeting approved the motion.
Change To The Constitution of the WBDA
The executive recommended to the meeting that there be a change in the number of executive committee members to 15. This proposal was approved unanimously by the meeting.
Election of the executive committee
Lindsay Care was ratified as a member.
The following people were re-elected.
John Carr was proposed by Ron Renton and Seconded by Kate Green
John Holt was proposed by John Carr and seconded by Betty Hatton
Peter Dolphin was proposed by George Athorn and Seconded by Mick Hutchins
The following new committee members was elected.
Jenny Cameron was proposed by John Holt and seconded by Garry Poulson
Alan Fleming was proposed by Mick Hutchins and seconded by Kate Green
Sue Hinks was proposed by Peter Dolphin and seconded by George Athorn.
Treasurers Report
The treasurer then read his report and presented the accounts.
“I have pleasure in presenting the Accounts for the year ended 31st March 2009 which have been prepared on the receipts and payments format approved by the Charity Commission and have been independently inspected by Mr John Dee, chartered accountant, who generously charges us no fee.
I beg to move the adoption of the accounts. P.W.Dolphin . Treasurer
The report was adopted by the meeting and Peter received thanks and acknowledgement for his work by the meeting.
Chairmans Report
With a lot of small, local user-led disability organisations failing across the UK because of the spin-off of the current recession on the charity sector, I’m pleased to report that WBDA is still going strong and is actually growing.
To tackle a likely increased work load in the near future we propose to increase our Executive committee to 15 from 12. WBDA has also seen its membership grow.
Last November WBDA formally launched the talking signpost system called REACT in Newbury town centre for Blind and severely sight impaired people.
The event gained welcome publicity for REACT and we look forward to further promotion of the system once the alterations in the town settle down and the RNIB improve the trigger modules that set off the speakers.
WBDA recognises the problems facing Blind and severely sight impaired people that use Newbury town centre because of the shared space system in operation in much of the town.
And, recently we have had some long and detailed discussions concerning the soon to start re-development of the Clock Tower and Broadway area to ensure that planners have learnt the lessons regarding the shared space concept.
However, I would hate people to think that WBDA is just Newbury based and our Access Advisor and Executive member John Carr has been able to advise WBC on many areas of planning right across West Berkshire.
In fact, in partnership with the Ormonde Centre and WBC, WBDA is currently undertaking a survey in Newbury, Thatcham, Theale, Lambourn, Hungerford, Calcot, Mortimore & Pangbourne to update the Access Guide for shops and services.
WBDA has also been able to maintain its core activities since our last AGM which has included:
· Having members attend many vital meetings
· Holding meetings of our own
· Getting the message out via the WBDA Newsletter & website
· Supporting other disability groups & individuals
· Working in partnership with other local disability orgs/groups
· Feeding into the WBC Scrutiny Board that scrutinises the councils DES over a range of issues
Looking ahead to the coming year, I believe it will be a challenging one if the recession continues to bite, but also an exciting one if the current local and national agenda to give more control over disabled people’s lives starts to gain real momentum.
Here, WBDA will need to be at the forefront helping set the local agenda regards self-directed care and support.
Recently, there has been a first meeting of a new transport group to solely concentrate on the needs of local disabled people as we move towards the deadlines (albeit still a long way off) in the DDA. Here, again WBDA needs to be in the vanguard setting the agenda.
We know that everything concerning transport won’t happen overnight, but there is certainly enough scope to make some quick gains to improve the lives of all disabled people wanting to get about in West Berkshire for example:
· Better information
· Parking issues to be resolved
· A more integrated bus and rail system between the main areas of population
· Train staff to be available at our smaller stations that are accessible like Hungerford, Kintbury & Thatcham
· More regular meaningful dialog with local bus & taxi operators
· Better support for 3rd sector transport i.e. Readibus & Volunteer transport
So, plenty of food for thought there for the coming year.
Finally, I would like to thank the WBDA committee for all their hard work last year and our members and friends of WBDA for their continuing support.
Mick Hutchins, Chairman
Membership Secretaries report
George reminded the meeting of the sad loss of the following members during the year. Lillian Giles, Charles Baxter, Patrick Slater
He reported the following membership statistics.
AGM 2009 / AGM 2008Members / 99 / 99
Associate members / 17 / 16
Others invited / 42* / 103*
Members Attended AGM / 21
Associates Attended AGM / 2
Others Attended AGM / 6
* West BerkshireCouncil, Local Councillors and local MPs
George went on to say that whilst we would welcome more people at the AGM, we fully understand that our membership face greater challenges than the average person – so whilst funds permit we will try to keep our membership as up to date as possible by post, if you need copies of any document contact me.
We have not implemented mass e-mail as only 33% of members have responded that they would prefer e – mail. We will continue to send items out via the post.
George Athorn – Membership secretary
AOB
John Holt. Neurological alliance
John outlined the current position with regard to the ambition to build a much wanted hydrotherapy pool. He set out some of the identified needs and made particular reference to organisations whose members would welcome such a facility. With regard to the siting of the Hydrotherapy pool he told us that a number of locations were being considered at this time and currently there was around £1,000,000 of funding available to the social enterprise that is now established and working towards this project.
Anne Derby an executive member.
Anne wanted to let the meeting know that she was unable to use a special computer at this time due to a lack of funds. The chairman offered to chat with her about it after the meeting.
Peter Atkinson – Vice Chairman Strategic Partnership
Peter suggested that only people without email should receive documents via the postal service.
Roger Woad – Burghfield Handybus Volunteer Driver
Roger expressed a concern that recently in Burghfield three bus stops had been installed none of which are accessible for the disabled, namely ‘kassel kerb’ bus stops. On that point a WBC transport officer - Catherine Carey offered to take the complaint back to the transport services team.
Roger made a further point that he felt that it was wrong that the councils bus passes can not be used on community transport across boarder. Garry Poulson Chairman of the West Berkshire Handybus Operators group advised the meeting that in fact WBC had already extended a policy to community transport operators so that they could accept Bus passes on regular shopping and regular bus runs. Cllr Pamela Bale supported that and responded that it was unfortunate that this would not allow the passes to be used cross local authority.
The Transport officer Catherine Carey added that all of the councils bus fleet operators had now brought fully accessible buses into service. Though it was acknowledged that the majority of bus stops were not accessible to all. SO a general call for more ‘kassel kerb’ style bus stops was made by the meeting.
Cllr Pamela Bale also stated that the council had recently granted £35,000 to West Berkshire voluntary transport operators.
West Berkshire Disability Alliance Member of the Year Award.
Mick Hutchins then retook the chairing of the meeting. He said that for him the announcement of the winner of the Member of the year award was probably the most important part of the evening. He said that this member had a lead a Newbury delegation to London as part of the RNIB campaign to raise awareness of the poor level of disability living allowance for the site impaired. This campaign had now succeeded.
This member had recently done an enormous amount to assist a new blind lady that had moved to Newbury helping with all kinds of arrangements. The member who Mick described as always cheerful,, full of energy and enthusiasm. So Mick was pleased to announce that Sue Hinks was the WBDA member of the year. He then invited the Mayor to present Sue with the engraved placque to much applause.