Regard Annual Report to Annual General Meeting of 4 December 2005
Regard Annual Report to Annual General Meeting of 4 December
2005
Chairs’ Report
Over the past year, we have continued to develop Regard as an organisation run by the members for the members. Our aims are:
We follow the social model of disability, and welcome as members all disabled LGBT people with physical and/or sensory impairments, and/or chronic illnesses and conditions, and/or learning difficulties, and or who are users/survivors of the mental health system, and/or those who identify as disabled because of other conditions. We also have a membership category for non-disabled people who wish to support our work – contact the secretary for details.
Raising awareness of LGBT issues within the disability community
British Council of Disabled People: Phil Reynolds and Julie Newman have continued to represent Regard on the national council of the British Council of Disabled People (BCODP). This is the only national umbrella organisation of disability groups controlled by disabled people ourselves. Julie has also been acting as the BCODP Treasurer since June 2005.
UK Coalition for Disability Rights in Europe: Ju Gosling and Julie Newman attended the inaugural meeting of the UK Coalition for Disability Rights in Europe. This is a new organisation, intended to replace the UK Disability Forum for Europe that went into liquidation in 2004. The Coalition will represent disabled people from the UK on the European Disability Forum and its various committees. The Forum is the main consultative body on disability for the European parliament, and also carries out a wide range of European-wide research on disability issues. The Coalition is currently being developed by a steering group, and Julie Newman represents Regard on this.
‘Secret Loves, Hidden Lives’: Karen Shook has represented Regard for the last two years on a joint project between Terrence Higgins Trust, Regard and The Norah Fry Research Centre at the University of Bristol. ‘Secret loves, hidden lives’ explored issues for people with learning difficulties who are gay, lesbian or bisexual. It has now finished and, as a result, several very useful resources are available. See the November 2005 newsletter for details of these.
Raising awareness of disability issues within the LGBT community
Pride 2005: Kirsten Hearn, Brenda Ellis, James Haskings, Ruth Bashall, Ju Gosling and Charley Hasted all worked in various ways with the London Pride committee to ensure good disability access to the march and rally. Charley and James also stewarded on the day, while Ruth rolled in at the last moment to steward the buses after the accessible parking was moved from Westminster to the City because of Live8.
Regard is now producing an ‘access template’ for Prides around the country, in order to help improve access to Prides nationally. This will be available on our website, or on request from our secretary (see below for contact details). If you are able to represent Regard on your local Pride committee, please let us know.
We will also be working with renewed vigour to ensure that London Pride 2006, which is also Europride, is the most accessible Pride to date. If you are London-based and would like to get involved in this, please let us know.
LGBT History Month: Ju Gosling helped to launch the first ever LGBT History Month (February 2005) on behalf of Regard, speaking at the Tate Modern last December. Ju also attended the parliamentary launch, and worked with the History Month organisers to make the website etc accessible to all. Ju is continuing to liaise with the History Month organisers on behalf of Regard, while Chris Killick is compiling a photographic history of Regard for our own website. The organisers are encouraging people to organise an event for History Month in their local area and to promote it via the national organisation. See www.lgbthistorymonth.org.uk for more details and ideas for events – let us know if you decide to organise one so that we can advertise it on our website.
Policing: Ju Gosling, Julie Newman, Lee Elliott and Charley Hasted represented Regard at a consultation meeting on policing the LGBT community. One issue we highlighted was the fact that many disabled LGBT people experience high levels of homophobic harassment and abuse, due to their isolation as well as their perceived vulnerability. On an ongoing basis, Kirsten Hearn, our LGBT liaison officer, is also a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority.
Access to ‘the scene’: In 2006 we will be launching a new campaign to open up ‘the scene’ to disabled members of the LGBT community. We believe that the LGBT community has a much higher proportion of disabled members within it than the population at large, due to the physical and emotional effects of homo/transphobia, together with HIV. We also have an ageing community who have access issues too. However, very little progress has been made to open up access to LGBT community venues, despite the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act. As a result, many disabled and older LGBT people are isolated from their community and are more vulnerable to homo/transphobia as a result. We will initially be campaigning in London, in conjunction with the disability organisation Artsline, but will later be broadening this to cover the country as a whole. If you would like to get involved, please contact Regard (details below).
Campaigning on issues which specifically affect disabled LGBT people
Green Paper on Social Care: In 2005 the Government released its Green Paper ‘Independence, Well-Being and Choice’. This outlines the Government’s new policy on social care. Regard responded in detail to this, looking particularly at the way in which social care issues affect disabled LGBT people. A copy is available from our website, or on request from the Secretary – see below for contact details.
Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI): In September 2005 Ju Gosling and Phil Gosling (no relation!) were asked to represent Regard on CSCI’s Equality and Diversity advisory group. CSCI is responsible for inspecting all residential care facilities, as well as social services departments. Ju and Phil are both service users, and will be raising issues relating to LGBT people who receive any form of social care. The group will continue to meet quarterly, and Ju and Phil will report back via the newsletter and website.
Combating social isolation among the disabled LGBT community
Local Groups: We are continuing to encourage members to set up local Regard groups. These can be as formal or as informal as you like. You might want to set up a formal organisation with a secretary, chair and treasurer, and apply for local funding. You might even want to employ your own worker and run an office. But you might just want to be available to meet other disabled LGBT people in a gay venue once a month. Either way, let us know and we will advertise the group to other members in your area. We also encourage independent disabled LGBT groups to affiliate to Regard. We currently have a vacancy on the Executive Committee for someone who takes responsibility for liaising with local groups; please let us know if you are interested (contact details below).
Information Line: We are still seeking funding to re-establish our information line. However, we have made considerable progress in working out how the line will function, where it will be based, and how volunteers will be trained and supervised. If you would be interested in helping to run the Information Line, please let us know (contact details below).
Pen-friend Scheme: The Pen-friend Scheme Co-ordinator’s post has continued to be vacant over the past year. However, we now have two people who are interested in developing separate men’s and women’s services (including transgendered men and women). We are also intending to develop electronic friendship services from our website, including email groups, a bulletin board and a chat room. If you would like to be notified of these once they are launched, please let us know (contact details below). Also let us know if you would like to run a Regard email group on any subject.
Aside from the above, officers and Executive Committee members have continued to do a great deal of other work during the year. This includes: attending meetings; participating in consultations and research; liaising with and advising individual Regard members; and producing briefings for the rest of the committee on their specialist area of work. Thanks to all of them. Thanks also to Margaret and Jay of Marg’s Community Kitchen for catering for our committee meetings, and Kim from Vicarage Lane Community Centre for all her support.
Ju Gosling, Karen Shook and Phil Reynolds, November 2005
Secretary’s Report
The Secretary's job is to make sure that Regard operates legally, efficiently and effectively as an organisation (or rather as two organisations, as will become clear shortly!). The job involves preparing the Agenda and writing-up the Minutes of Executive Committee (EC) meetings and general meetings, acting as the first contact for correspondence from members and outside organisations, and making sure that all the "legal paperwork" is in order.
Background - Our Structure
Regard 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. Charitable status was granted to the company in August 2004, under register number 1105458. You can see the entries for both on the Charity Commission website at www.charity-commission.gov.uk
Changing how we operate by dissolving the unincorporated association
Operating as two organisations means duplicating a lot of work - two sets of Annual Returns and annual accounts to the Charity Commission, for example. In the next year, I would like to study the feasibility of dissolving the unincorporated association and transferring all of its assets and liabilities to our company, Regard (GB) Limited. Your memberships and subscriptions would automatically transfer over to the company if and when this happened.
Your Executive Committee
The Regard EC has met twice this year, in May and September. These
meetings have been well-attended despite continual difficulties finding suitable
and accessible venues. There has been particular and extremely regrettable difficulty
in securing reliable sign language interpreter support for these meetings. 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:
Charley Hasted was co-opted onto the EC in May to fill the vacant Liaison with Youth Communities post. Sara Gavin (Telephone Helpline Co-ordinator) and Justine Fallis (Liaison with Local Organised LGBT Groups) resigned from the EC during the year because of other commitments. We have been unable to fill the post of Penfriends Scheme Co-ordinator as yet.
On a personal note, I'd like to give my thanks to everyone above for their help.
Correspondence
A large part of the Secretary's role is acting as first point of contact for correspondence from individuals and organisations to Regard. This comes through our BM postal box, the website and the Secretary's email address. Details of all these methods of contact are given at the end of this report. Where necessary, correspondence is forwarded to the relevant EC member(s) to deal with directly.
Sorting out the Legal Paperwork
Organisations like Regard operate within a strict regulatory environment. Each year, a certain amount of "legal paperwork" needs to be filed with the Charity Commission, Companies House and this year, the Inland Revenue as well. I can report that all the legal paperwork for the past year has been filed on time with the exception of the 2003/04 Company Accounts for which a late filing penalty of £250 was imposed by Companies House (the Treasurer's Report this).
Improving the way Regard works
I have been working with other EC members to develop a sound framework for the internal workings of Regard. So far I have completed an internal database for EC members covering regulatory requirements, contact details and individual accessibility requirements and also a policy on expenses claims. However little progress has been made with developing a Code of Conduct, detailed job descriptions for EC posts and also criminal records checks for EC members. Further progress on these matters must be a priority.
Ways of contacting us
Post - BM REGARD, London WC1N 3XX
Web - www.regard.org.uk
Email - secretary@regard.org.uk
Phil Gosling, November 2005