Regard Annual Report to Annual General Meeting of 10 December 2006
Regard Annual Report to Annual General Meeting of 10 December
2006
Chairs’ Report
This year has been a difficult one for Regard. Some of us have been ill or very busy with other things like work. This means that some of us have not had much time to do things for Regard.
Regard has been trying to find the best way to get more people to join Regard and how to collect subscription money from our members.
Money has been a problem for Regard again this year. We have not had much money coming in. We have also had problems sorting out the accounts. The accountants we usually use were not able to do our accounts. The firm we then went to charged us too much money. Because the accounts were not done in time, we had to pay a fine.
London (Euro) Pride
Members of our Executive Committee tried to work hard with the people who organise London Pride. They tried to make sure that London Pride took LGBT disabled people's Equal Rights seriously, so that we could all access Pride. We were angry and sad that access to London Pride was not as good as it should have been. Our rights were not thought about properly - again. We will be telling London Pride why we are not happy. Regard is also putting together an Access Plan to help London Pride get it right in the Future. This has been done before. London Pride is organised by different people every year who have their own ideas about Equal Rights for LGBT disabled people.
'Liberty' Disability Rights Festival -September
A lot of Regard members came to Trafalgar Square for the Festival. The weather was bad. Co Chair Karen Shook presented some of the acts and did a bit of comedy. It went very well and earned £200 for Regard. Regard did not have a stall at Pride or Liberty this year. It is very important for Regard to let people know we are here. Regard should have a display ready to take to events like 'Liberty' and Pride
York Lesbian Arts Festival (YLAF)
Co-Chairs Ju and Karen and EC member Julie spent 3 days at YLAF. We met lots of women who are members of Regard and some who would like to join. We handed out information and Regard application forms. We also made lots of contacts. We also met women who would be interested coming to a disabled lesbian's arts weekend next year.
Disabled LGBT Health issues
Lots of work about health and disabled LGBT people is being done by some of our Committee members. We have been presenting at conferences, sitting on Committees and going to meetings. This is hard work but very important. People should know what things are important for disabled LGBT people when using health care services
Press contact
We have had contacts from the LGBT and Disability press. This has included being 'phoned by a journalist who wanted to know if Regard had any comments about the Queen's Speech! The Pink paper has an article next month about disabled LGBT people's rights, access and the new Equality Commission.
E-groups
This year has seen the Regard Online group opening - a major step forward in terms of what Regard should be doing. With our membership distributed widely, this is probably the best available way of staying close to our membership.
We would like to think that we have made some significant progress in getting things running properly - wecertainly hope we can continue to build on it.
Regards' plans for next year
Sort out our membership database
Sort out our money, funding and accounts
Write Regards' Policies and Procedures
Develop our Regard website
Work more with disabled LGBT members in different 'minority communities'
Regard will work towards being totally accessible to all. All Regard information and communication will be easily accessible.
Karen Shook, Ju Gosling and Phil Reynolds
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
Operating as two organisations means duplicating a lot of work - two sets of Annual Returns and annual accounts to the Charity Commission, for example. I am still investigating 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 three times this year, in March, June and September. There has been sign language interpreter support for these meetings. EC members have been able to keep in touch day-to-day through email and an online discussion group. The members of the EC and their responsibilities are:
Phil Reynolds (Male Co-Chair and Database Co-ordinator)
Karen Shook (Joint Female Co-Chair)
Phil Gosling (Secretary)
Brenda Ellis (Membership Secretary)
Ju Gosling (Joint Female Co-Chair, Communications, Newsletter and Website)
Ruth Bashall (Pride Events Co-ordinator)
Steven Devote (Electronic Penfriends Scheme Co-ordinator)
Lee Elliot (Fundraising and Sponsorship)
Kirsten Hearn (Liaison with LGBT Communities)
Julie Newman (Liaison with Disability Communities)
James Haskings (Joint Liaison with HIV Communities)
Richard Jones (Joint Liaison with HIV Communities)
Matthew Emile (Liaison with Learning Disability Communities and Black and Minority
Ethnic Communities)
Chris Killick (Archive and Photo Publicity)
Charley Hasted (Liaison with Youth Communities)
Lindsay River (Liaison with Older People's Communities)
Haroon Anwar (Liaison with Deaf Communities)
Paula Thomas (Liaison with Transgender Communities)
Judy Wilkinson was elected Treasurer at last year's AGM but did not take up the position because of the unfinished state of the 2004/05 accounts. Brenda Ellis resigned as Membership Secretary during the year. Julie Newman and I have been Acting Treasurers for the year. I have also been acting in the Membership Secretary's role until a replacement is found.
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 sometimes 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 company accounts for 2004/05 (see below).
The 2004/05 Company Accounts
These were left in an unfinished state at the end of last year, which resulted in the resignation of the then Treasurer. Remedial action was taken by the Co-Chairs, myself and Julie Newman to rescue the situation. This difficult situation was compounded by the ill-health of our accountant Michael Bell of Michael Bell & Co. which resulted in more delay and then, on his recommendation, our files being passed over to new accountants R L Jackson & Co. of Ilford. The accounts were eventually finished and filed with Companies House but a late filing penalty of £500 was imposed.
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. 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 because of the time taken up dealing with the company accounts this year little progress has been made in matters such as 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 2006