The other members of the
West Norfolk Self Advocacy Project and I have been on a remarkable
journey the last two months.
In July we were told by
our major funder, the Norfolk Clinical Commissioning group, that we
had to become a registered charity in order to ensure that their
trustees did not suffer if we here at WNSAP made any wrong decisions
and that our being a registered charity would protect them.
We were told that we would
have to adopt a different constitution to the one we have been using
since we formally set up in 2003 and that it might be 'better' if we
have some able bodied people on our committee. These two suggestions
were non starters firstly we have been using our constitution since
September 2003 and it has worked very well for us.
The second issue was of
the utmost importance to all of us here at West Norfolk Self Advocacy
Project. We are a TRUE user led and managed organisation. Under our
existing constitution only people with learning disabilities and/or
mental health issues can vote, can be members of the Management
Committee and can sign cheques. Years ago we had tried s mixed
management committee but it did not work as those who are able bodied
gradually took over control until we stopped them.
We spent a lot of time
being very angry about all this until David, our Coordinator said
STOP and lets look at this differently!. So we spent many hours
thinking and working out what exactly we wanted. We contacted the
Charity Commission and asked for their views on our current
constitution. They thought it was very good although a bit wordy in
places and suggested shortening our aims bit. As their suggestion
said exactly what our old aims said but using fewer words we agreed
with this. At the same time one of the people who help us fund raise
said it would open more opportunities if we were a registered
charity.
We had a special meeting
and everyone talked about becoming a registered charity and everyone
at the meeting voted yes to registering. We talked again to the
Charity Commission and on the (insert date) we got our registered
charity number – so HURRAH for us, as West Norfolk Self Advocacy
Project is still owned and managed by those with learning
disabilities and/or mental health issues and HURAH for us doing it
ourselves
