Regard Annual Report to Annual General Meeting of 9 December 2004

Regard Co-Chairs’ Report

The last 12 months have been extremely positive ones for Regard. We have returned to our roots of being an organisation of disabled lesbians, gay men and bisexuals, run by the members for the members.

Our Aims

Regard aims to raise awareness of disability issues within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) communities, and to raise awareness of sexuality issues within the disability communities. We also work to combat social isolation amongst our membership, and to campaign on issues specifically affecting disabled LGBT people.

Our Structure

Following the 2003 Annual General Meeting (AGM), we decided to restructure the Executive Committee (EC) so that each member is responsible for a different area of Regard’s work. (You can see a list of members and their jobs below.)

EC members report on their work each month to the rest of the committee via an ‘email group’. The email group is also used daily to exchange news, to report on active areas of work and to ask the rest of the committee for guidance. We also meet quarterly in real life.

Rather than have an office which is hard to access and difficult and expensive to run, we have therefore set up a ‘virtual’ system of working in which we can all participate. We are still striving to improve the access, particularly for people who have difficulty with email, so if you want to join the committee but have difficulty with email, please don’t be put off.

Media Work

In the past year Regard worked with Gay Times to raise awareness of the lack of access to LGBT venues, with our secretary Philip Gosling and co-chair Phil Reynolds taking a journalist on a ‘club crawl’. We also cooperated with G3 magazine on a similar piece about lesbian venues. Further coverage came in a Guardian piece on disability and sexuality, with our co-chair Karen Shook being quoted extensively.

LGBT People with Learning Difficulties

Regard has identified several areas of work as priorities. The first is to improve our inclusion of LGBT people with learning difficulties, and to highlight issues affecting them. As part of this, co-chair Karen Shook has been working on a project called “Secret Loves, Hidden Lives? Exploring same-sex relationships for people with learning disabilities” working with the Terence Higgins Trust and the Norah Fry Research Centre at Bristol University. Next year we are aiming to support a conference bringing together all of the LGBT people with learning difficulties who participated in this project. We hope that this will form the foundation of Regard’s future work in this area.

Transgendered Community

At the 2004 Annual General Meeting (AGM) we will be proposing that our work is extended to cover the transgendered community. The Executive Committee believe that this move is long overdue. Please support the motion to ensure that our future work is fully inclusive.

Information and Advice Line

We are aiming to relaunch our old ‘Helpline’ as an information and advice line in 2005. We have set up a committee to take this work forward, and are currently deciding how the line will operate. If anyone is interested in helping with this work, and perhaps in joining the EC to take shared responsibility for it, please contact our secretary, Philip Gosling, using the Regard contact details.

Regard Groups

Regard is encouraging our members to set up local groups, where members can meet, socialise and take part in local activities, as well as feeding back to Regard nationally. These groups can be formal or informal. In either case, we will promote local groups to members living in the same area through our website and mail-outs.

For example, a member or members might simply undertake to be at a local LGBT venue on a particular night each month, and invite other members to join them. Or members might decide to form a local branch of Regard, and apply for funding from their local authority and other local organisations.

Where local disabled LGBT groups already exist, we are encouraging them to affiliate to Regard and to send a representative to the Executive Committee. If you are a member of a local LGBT group and would like the group to affiliate to Regard, please contact our secretary, Philip Gosling, using the Regard contact details.

Website and Penfriend Service

Regard has a new website address, www.regard.org.uk. Over the next year we will be developing the site to include chat rooms and bulletin boards, as well as increasing the news, advice and information content.

We will continue to run the Penfriend service, but believe that, in the 21st century, many members will benefit if we now facilitate their meeting and talking on the internet. Please note that we are looking for a new EC member to run the Penfriend service. If you are interested, please contact our secretary, Philip Gosling, using the Regard contact details.

Liaison with the Disability Rights and LGBT Communities

We now have two members, disability liaison officer Julie Newman and co-chair Phil Reynolds, on the national council of the British Council of Disabled People (BCODP). We are looking forward to working with BCODP to develop the organisation further, as well as continuing to raise LGBT issues amongst the disability community. Over the next year we hope to work more closely with Stonewall and other LGBT organisations to increase awareness of disability issues within the LGBT community.

London Pride

A group of EC members led by our LGBT liaison officer Kirsten Hearn worked alongside Pride organisers to ensure that the disabled access to London Pride was improved. This followed complaints from our members at last year’s AGM that the 2003 Mardi Gras had been very inaccessible. We also sent out a press release about our work on Pride.

This work at Pride was very successful, and we also ran a stall at the rally in Trafalgar Square that followed the march in order to attract new members. We are now working to improve the access to next year’s Pride still further.

Improving Access to LGBT Venues

Regard is working with the London-based organisation Artsline to develop a national database of accessible LGBT venues. This will be published on our website as well as in other accessible formats.

We are also working to raise awareness of access issues amongst LGBT venues. In particular we are working with the venue Heaven to ensure that it is accessible by Pride 2005, and to produce a training video for other LGBT venues.

Discrimination Law

With the support of Regard, our co-chair Ju Gosling successfully pursued a case against her union, the National Union of Journalists, for disability discrimination leading to personal injury. The case made it clear that much more work needs to be done with regard to ‘multiple discrimination’, in particular where homophobia is an issue alongside disabilism.

We therefore intend to set up a working party to make recommendations to the new Equality and Human Rights Commission on how best to take this work forward. We will also be fundraising to provide legal support to disabled LGBT victims of discrimination, and producing a guide on how to take cases.

Join Us!

We are looking for new members of the Executive Committee, both to job-share existing posts and to take responsibility for new areas. In particular, we are seeking members to take responsibility for working with the older LGBT community, and to represent the Deaf community. We also welcome proposals for members to work in other areas that we are not currently covering. If you are interested in joining the Executive Committee, please contact our secretary, Philip Gosling, using the Regard contact details.

Membership Renewals

If you have not already renewed your membership, then please do so! Please note that we will waive the membership fees of anyone who cannot afford to pay, but if you can afford to make a donation in addition to your subscription, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

The Chairs would like to thank Greater London Action on Disability (GLAD), London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, Vicarage Lane Community Centre and Margaret and Jay from Marg’s Community Kitchen for their help in facilitating our meetings and mail-outs. We would also like to thank our secretary, Philip Gosling, for his magnificent work in sorting out the business and organisational structure of Regard.

Ju Gosling, Phil Reynolds and Karen Shook, Co-Chairs

Regard Secretary’s Report

The Secretary's goal is to make sure that Regard operates legally, efficiently and effectively as an organisation (or rather as two organisations - read on!). So the job involves preparing the Agenda and writing-up the Minutes of Executive Committee (EC) meetings, acting as the first contact for correspondence from members and outside organisations, and making sure that all the "legal paperwork" is in order.

Our Structure

Regard mainly operates through a legal structure known as an unincorporated association, which is registered as a charity with the number 1056873. This is the Regard that you know and are a member of. However for business convenience we also operate through a company called Regard (GB) Limited, which is entirely separate. To make this work the members of the Executive Committee double-up as the members and directors of Regard (GB) Limited.

Part of my work this year has been applying to the Charity Commission for the company to be given charitable status as well. To do this we had to hold an Emergency General Meeting of the company in July to make minor amendments to its constitution. Charitable status was then granted in August with the number 1105458. You can see the entries on the Charity Commission website at www.charity-commission.gov.uk

Your Executive Committee

The Regard EC has met three times this year in March, May and October. These have been well attended despite difficulties finding suitable and accessible venues! EC members have been able to keep in touch day-to-day through an "online" or "email" group.
The members of the EC and their responsibilities are:

Phil Reynolds (Male Co-Chair and Database Co-ordinator)
Ju Gosling and Karen Shook (Joint Female Co-Chairs)
Phil Gosling (Secretary)
David Tyler (Treasurer and Joint Membership Secretary)
Brenda Ellis (Joint Membership Secretary)
Ju Gosling and Kate Rouse (Communications, Newsletter and Web site)
Ruth Bashall (Policies and Procedures)
Lee Elliot (Fundraising and Sponsorship)
Kirsten Hern (Liaison with LGBT Communities)
Justine Fallis and Julie Newman (Liaison with Disability Communities)
James Haskings (Liaison with HIV Communities)
Matthew Emile (Liaison with Learning Disability Communities and Afro-Caribbean Communities)
Nohmy Harrison (Mail-out Co-ordinator and Liaison with Youth Communities)
Chris Killick (Archive and Photo Publicity)
* Also Ben Marr, Sara Gavin and Sophie Bryant have been involved in the Telephone Helpline Sub-Committee of the EC.

On a personal note, I’d like to give my thanks to everyone above for their help throughout the year.

Sorting out the Legal Paperwork

Last year a certain amount of "legal paperwork" needed to be done for the Charity Commission and Companies House. I can now report that the Annual Return and details of new EC members have been filed with the Charity Commission; also company accounts and returns have been submitted to Companies House and the Company Registers updated.
Improving the way Regard works

David Tyler and Phil Reynolds have done a lot of work improving Regard's computer database. I have also been working with Ruth Bashall (Policies and Procedures) to develop a sound framework for the internal workings of Regard. This will eventually include a Code of Conduct and individual job descriptions for EC posts and also criminal records checks for EC members. These measures should protect the membership as well as the efficiency and good name of the organisation.

Ways of contacting us

Post - BM REGARD, London WC1N 3XX
Web - www.regard.org.uk
Email - secretary@regard.org.uk

Philip Gosling, Secretary

Treasurer’s Report

The Accounts for the 2003-04 financial year (subject to final audit) will be laid before the meeting.

The EC is developing a new fundraising strategy, including encouraging people to make monthly donations, and is setting up a Finance and Fundraising Sub-Committee including myself as Treasurer and the Fundraising and Sponsorship officer.

David Tyler, Treasurer

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