Service User Member Involvement Team – SUMIT
Seeing Better Together
Minutes: Wednesday 29 April 2015
1. Welcome and apologies
Present: Paul Baskcomb (PB chair) Stella Hodgson (SH), Shamaila
Kauser (SK), Sheila Long (SL), Matthew Galtress (MG) and Julie
Scarle (JS staff rep & Minutes).
Apologies: Catherine Norcliffe (CN), Kay Dear (KD), David Butler
(DB) and Neana Lawson (NL NFB). Absent: PS
Chair for next meeting
MG, JS to take minutes.
2. Minutes from February meeting
The minutes were approved.
Action: JS to publish Minutes on website and place on notice board.
3. Matters arising:
a) SUMIT membership:
After consideration, Jay Roe confirmed that she does not wish to
join SUMIT as she hasn’t enjoyed committee work in the past. JS
to ask staff for ideas for new SUMIT members and SUMIT
members to consider recruiting new members from amongst the
groups they attend.
SUMIT currently has 10 members, 7/8 of whom are active, with a
capacity of 11.
It was agreed: that until such time as SUMIT has 11 members
and people who failed to attend regularly were blocking others
from joining, to take no action, but to keep the situation under
review.
b) Drop in/e-mails and suggestion box
Spam mail on SUMIT email.
Suggestion box contained two items:
i) Note from service user, Carole (second name not provided)
suggesting that My Sight Notts should invite a member of the
Royal Family to visit the charity as a way of getting publicity and
raising the organisation’s profile. JS explained that this would
fall under her job role and she was happy to respond to Carole
to thank her for the idea and say that when a suitable
opportunity, such as the opening of a new centre, arose, My
Sight Notts would do all it could to secure a VIP visit, but there
needs to be an event taking place, a launch happening, a new
building to be opened that My Sight Notts could consider
inviting a VIP to attend. There were currently no such
opportunities in the pipeline, but she would reassure Carole the
charity would keep this under review.
ii) Note from SUMIT member, SH suggesting that the charity
organise a day trip to Hampton Court for the palace’s 500 year
celebrations. This was passed to Services Manager, Emma
Cruickshank (EC), who thanked SH for her feedback but said it
had been agreed with Trustees and with SUMIT, that until the
charity’s finances were in a stronger position, it would focus its
day trip activities on local venues where the mini bus could be
used instead of visiting places a long way from Notts where a
coach would have to be hired, making the trip prohibitively
expensive.
Action: JS to respond to Carole
SUMIT members thanked Stella Hodgson for promoting the
Suggestion Box to her arts group and agreed that other SUMIT
members would proactively promote the Suggestion Box at the
My Sight Notts activities which they attended.
JS also confirmed that she has updated the information on the
front of the SUMIT Suggestion Box, which was an action from the
previous meeting.
5. Courtesy calls
A new topic for further courtesy calls was discussed and JS
said that it was likely My Sight Notts would be requesting
SUMIT involvement in further consultation work for the
Reaching Communities application. She also suggested that a
potential topic for future courtesy calls might by the My Sight
Nottinghamshire magazine, My Magazine. Did service users
read it? Did they like it’s current and format? Would they prefer
a different type of newsletter, for example an e-newsletter?
Would they prefer a different content, such as puzzles and
brain teasers etc?
SUMIT agreed that My Mag would make a good topic for a
future courtesy call session.
Action: SK to draft sample questions.
6. Raising the profile of SUMIT
The new SUMIT leaflet was approved.
Action: JS to ask Touch Transcriptions to transcribe into Braille
and audio format and to print off 20 copies to be kept in the
SUMIT box.
JS confirmed that she had followed up on an action from the
previous meeting and had spoken to Sarah to ask if SUMIT
could have a display at the next My Sight Notts exhibition in
order to promote their work. Sarah had welcomed the proposal
and the next exhibition was due to take place on Wednesday
20 May 10am until 2pm.
PB asked for volunteers to man the stand and SK agreed to
man it from 10-12 and SH agreed to man it 12-2pm.
Action: JS to confirm with Sarah.
7. Engagement events
It was agreed to review the date and subject of the next event
at the July meeting.
8. Membership scheme
Final changes to the membership rules were discussed and PB was
asked to give the document a final read before it was submitted to
the Trust Board meeting on 14 May. SUMIT was happy for PB to
submit the final version straight to JS for circulation to Trustees.
Action: JS to await comments from the Trustees and then use the
rules to draft a user-friendly membership booklet and bring to the
next SUMIT meeting for comment.
8. Services update
EC My Sight Nottinghamshire’s Services Manager attended the
meeting and provided a services update.
a) Holiday provision
EC informed SUMIT that due to the costs, My Sight Notts would
not be offering an annual holiday this year and that all service
users who had accessed the holiday in the last three years
were being written to to explain the situation. She explained
that the holiday cost the charity £2,000 to deliver. To meet
these costs holiday makers would have to pay an extra £150
each on top of existing holiday costs to meet the cost of
providing volunteer sighted guides and staff etc. This would
make the holiday cost prohibitive for most service users.
b) Day trip provision
EC said that following the SUMIT consultation on day trip
venues it had been agreed to deliver a programme of local day
trips. She explained that the charity had not appointed a new
Social Coordinator because as plans currently stood; this post
would be funded by the Big Lottery as part of the Reaching
Communities bid. SH asked what would happen to the post if
the bid was unsuccessful and EC confirmed that My Sight Notts
would meet the costs of the post from its own funds, but that it
made sense to wait to see if the Reaching Communities
application was successful before the recruitment process
began. She said as an interim arrangement two members of
staff had been asked to increase their hours to deliver a
programme of day trips and young people’s services from June.
These trips would be to local venues and would be subsidised
by My Sight Notts, but costs would be kept low by using the
mini bus and not hiring a coach.
EC said that social activities had been highlighted as important
in the recent survey of service users and that the charity was
committed to delivering a programme of social activities in the
future.
c) Support Centre opening times
EC also updated SUMIT on the progress of the pilot project to
extend the opening hours of the Support Centre. She said that
no one had visited the support centre during the early evening
and so extended evening opening hours would be stopped.
People had visited the support centre for its Saturday opening
sessions, but these numbers had dwindled over the last 12
months, and now seemed confined to special events held on a
Saturday. It had therefore been decided to limit Saturday
opening to special events.
PB asked what the attendance rates were for normal support
centre opening times and EC said numbers have been
dropping and she would be reviewing this with Sarah as part of
a wider review of services for Reaching Communities.
Action: SUMIT asked to be kept informed.
d) Shared space scheme for Station Street
EC then informed SUMIT of a local campaign opposing a
shared space scheme for Station Street in Nottingham, which if
implemented would see pedestrians share the same space with
cars and cycles. She said My Sight Notts was working with
NFB and Guide Dogs to oppose the plans and to raise local
awareness about the danger posed by such schemes.
SUMIT wished the campaign every success and thanked her for the
keeping SUMIT informed.
10. Any other business
a) Reaching Communities
Michael Conroy (MC), Chief Executive of My Sight Notts
attended the meeting to provide an update on Reaching
Communities. MC informed SUMIT that our application had
been approved for stage one and we would now be going
forward to stage 2, the deadline for which was August this year.
MC thanks SUMIT for their support with the bid and for its
consultation of Oct 2013, which had highlighted the need for
more service provision in the north of the county, which had
inspired the Reaching Communities project.
b) Move from Ortzen Street
MC updated SUMIT on plans to sell or rent Ortzen Street, He
informed them that the building had been viewed by a number
of local charities – some more than once – but that he
anticipated it would take some time to find a buyer or tenant.
He explained that the current property market was buoyant and
prices were increasing, which may make price negotiations
more difficult. He said that he had viewed a number of possible
sites in Nottingham city centre but he wouldn’t be able to move
on them until a buyer/tenant had been secured for Ortzen
Street. SL asked if he planned to consult service users before
deciding on a new building and MC confirmed that service user
representatives would be kept informed and consulted.
c) MC also talked about the Sight Loss Charter, how it linked to
the UK Vision Strategy and about his plans for moving the
Nottingham Vision Strategy forward.
d) MG asked if there was an update on the befriending project
proposal that Martha Highton had discussed with SUMIT earlier
in the year. EC explained that befriending services formed a
large part of the Reaching Communities application and so
plans for the service had been put on hold until the outcome of
our application was known.
11. Next meeting
PB asked if the time of the May meeting could be moved from early
evening to the morning. SUMIT agreed that the time of the May
meeting would be changed to 9:30am and that the June meeting
would then take place in the early evening.
MG acknowledged that the March SUMIT meeting didn’t take place
and wondered if this was because JS was on annual leave and
unavailable to take Minutes. MG suggested that SUMIT should try to
recruit another Minute-taker so that meetings didn’t have to be
cancelled in future. JS explained that she had asked Martha to
recruit volunteer admin support for SUMIT but no one had come
forward as yet. PB said the meeting in March had primarily been
postponed due to it’s close proximity to the Easter holidays, which
meant many SUMIT members were unable to attend. He also said
he believed that the SUMIT minute-taker would need to understand
the process and the agenda for the group in order to take proper
minutes.
Action: JS to ask Martha to keep looking for SUMIT admin support.
 May 27 9:30am-12pm
 June 24 4:00-6:00pm
 July 29 9:30am-12:00pm