Service User Member Involvement Team – SUMIT
Seeing Better Together
Minutes: Wednesday 30 September 2015
1. Welcome and apologies
Present: Shamaila Kauser (SK Chair), Catherine Norcliffe (CN),
Stella Hodgson (SH), Matthew Galtress, Philip Simpson (PS NFB)
and Julie Scarle (JS staff rep & Minutes).
Apologies: Sheila Long (SL), Kay Dear, (KD) and Paul Baskcomb
(BP).
2. Chair for next meeting
SH. CN offered to chair if SH was unable to attend.
3. Minutes from August meeting
Action: JS to post minutes from the last meeting on the website
and notice board.
4. SUMIT membership:
SUMIT extended a warm welcome to Philip Simpson, who was
attended his first SUMIT meeting and representing NFB as NL
continues to recover from ill health.
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SH informed SUMIT that she has spoken to the choir about
SUMIT membership and has received expressions of interest
from two choir members. JS was asked to follow this up and
contact both Peter Sturt and Wendy Bradshaw. JS said a
member of our IT class, Simon Singh, my also be interested in
joining SUMIT so she would ring all three people and report
back at the next meeting.
JS was also asked to draft information for the October mail shot
encouraging people to consider joining SUMIT as new service
user reps.
PS raised the issue of transport for SUMIT meetings and JS
said she had spoken to Martha Highton (Volunteer Coordinator)
to explore the possibility of recruiting a second volunteer driver
for SUMIT from amongst the Trustees, but this was still being
investigated. BA, who doing the volunteer driving for SUMIT
picked up in the north of the county and could not practically
extend his route out towards Radcliffe on Trent.
Action: JS to draft SUMIT information for the Oct Mail shot and
contact three people to see if they would be interested in
joining SUMIT.
Action: JS to chase MH about the recruitment of a second
volunteer driver for SUMIT.
5. Drop in/e-mails and suggestion box
 SK informed SUMIT that there were two items of SUMIT
email, both from PB, relating to the recruitment of volunteer
drivers, which JS confirmed she had forwarded on to Martha
Highton (Volunteer Coordinator) for a response.
 Suggestion box was empty.
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
6. Consultations & events
JS confirmed that the date set for the AGM was 4 December
and to ensure people were able to get home during daylight
hours, the meeting would be held in the morning and finish with
lunch.
There was a discussion about SUMIT’s role at the AGM and it
was agreed that Shamaila would dress as a giant suggestion
box and Catherine would deliver an AGM presentation with
Stella. The rest of the SUMIT team would run the coffee, cake
and comments corner.
7. Courtesy calls
Since the last SUMIT meeting, CN and SL had delivered one
session of SUMIT courtesy calls and SK and SH had delivered
a session each week. Approximately 25 calls were being made
in a two hour session and SUMIT members were getting
through to around 7 or 8 people each session. Referrals had
been made by SUMIT members to staff for clients to access
services that they had previously not accessed and a number
of database changes had come forward which had been
passed on to admin for action.
JS had received no feedback from SUMIT members about the
data monitoring forms sent out on email and so SUMIT agreed
to use these forms as standard.
JS said that she had spoken to EC about the training for SUMIT
members in local and national services so courtesy callers
were armed with more information when making calls. SUMIT
asked if this could be before or after a SUMIT meeting and JS
said she would confirm date and time with EC.
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Action: SUMIT to review the success and future direction of the
new-look courtesy calls in the November meeting.
8. Raising the profile of SUMIT
SH and JS had completed the SUMIT Annual Review, which JS
would circulate to SUMIT members on email for discussion at
the October meeting. .
Action: JS to circulate SUMIT Annual Review for comment.
9. Guest: Emma Cruickshank (EC) Services update
MG asked EC for an update on the number of people
accessing the Support Centre and Community Equipment
Service and EC confirmed that numbers accessing he service
had declined slightly during the year 2014/2015 but that figures
were not yet available for 2015/2016. EC said she and JS were
establishing a joint Services and marketing project to review
services, looking at their strengths and weaknesses, the size of
their market and the external opportunities or threats to
success and further development each service was likely to
face. She said that the project was wide-ranging and would
therefore take so considerable time to complete.
MG said that the equipment service could be affected by the
growth in accessible technologies such as smart phones and
SH said that other high street stores, like Argos, were now
selling some accessible items, such as talking watches etc. EC
and JS said these were all issues they would look at as part of
the analysis of services. SUMIT asked to be kept informed and
to be involved in the project as much as practically possible.
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Sports: EC said that the cricket team had finished top of the
BCEW Development League and would now be promoted. She
also informed SUMIT that a new youth Goalball squad had
been launch in partnership with the University of Nottingham
and that she was working with KA, Sports Officer, to look at
possibly delivering the swim and gym sessions from a different
venue and on another day to allow more people to access the
service. SK and SH suggested Harvey Haddon on the Djanogly
gym, which also had a pool and was close to My Sight Notts.
EC wrote down these ideas and said she would investigate the
suggestions with KA.
Day trips: EC said that information about the latest day trips
was being sent out to service users in October. She said
budgets for Day Trips were very tight but that the charity was
continuing to deliver a trip to a local venue once a month.
National Eye Health Week: EC said that the Eye Health Week
event was held this year at Ortzen Street instead of in a city
centre venue like the Victoria Centre and Trinity Square as in
the past two years. EC said that numbers attending the event
this year had increased from around 20 t0 around 47. SUMIT
said this was very good news.
Arts: EC My Sight artists had been part of an exhibition at
Nottingham Castle this summer, which was very exciting and
that the choir had performed at a number of local public events,
including welcoming in the tam line extension at Nottingham
Railway Station and at Trowell Garden Centre.
IT: JS had written a Visionary Award entry for the IT and
Technology Service, which CN was of real value to visually
impaired people.
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Campaigns: EC and JS updated SUMIT on the campaign
against the Shared Surfaces Scheme on Station Street. SUMIT
asked to be kept informed.
10.
AOB
Move from Ortzen Street
JS said Framework had sent architects around Ortzen Street but
as yet there were no confirmed offers to purchase or rent. SUMIT
asked to be kept informed.
a) MG informed SUMIT that he would be starting his Masters
course at University in September He hoped to remain
involved in SUMIT but would know more once he got his
timetable.
Action: MG to keep SUMIT informed.
b) Award As the featured case study for the Lloyds Bank
Awards, JS had invited SK to attend the ceremony in London
on 4 Oct but SK was unable to attend so JS and Martha
Highton (Volunteer Coordinator) would attend.
c) SUMIT Christmas Lunch provisional date agreed as 9
December 12noon-2pm.
d) Action: JS to email SUMIT to ask for a volunteer to
organise the event and bring sample menus and costs to
the SUMIT meeting in October.
11.
Date & time of next meeting
 October 28 9:30-11:30am
 November 25 1-3pm
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 9 December Christmas Lunch 12-2pm
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