Service User Member Involvement Team – SUMIT
Seeing Better Together
Minutes: Wednesday 24 June 2015
1. Welcome and apologies
Present: Sheila Long (SL Chair), Matthew Galtress (MG), Stella
Hodgson (SH), Shamaila Kauser (SK), Kay Dear (KD), Catherine
Norcliffe (CN) and Julie Scarle (JS staff rep & Minutes).
Apologies: Paul Baskcomb (PB), Neana Lawson (NL NFB).
Absent: PS and DB.
2. Chair for next meeting
KD.
3. Minutes from April meeting
Approved.
Action: JS to publish minutes to the website and display on
SUMIT’s notice board in the reception area.
4. Matters arising:
a) SUMIT membership:
SUMIT currently has 10 members, 7/8 of who are active, 2/3 who
are inactive, 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
 Only spam on email.
 Suggestion box empty.
SUMIT welcomed My Sight Notts Trustee and former SUMIT
member, Mark Whittle to the meeting.
Mark explained a little about his role as a trustee, which he felt
was quite a natural progression from SUMIT membership. He
also explained the difference between the two roles, saying that
the role of Trustee was more complex and involved coming to
decisions on issues that affected the finances and strategic
direction of the charity. He explained that the Trust Board met
monthly and that there were also a number of sub-committees
(he was a member of the services sub-committee) which met
quarterly. Mark explained that many of his friends who
accessed My Sight Notts services often suggested that as a
Trustee he could wield a magic wand, but this wasn’t the case;
although as a Trustee he felt you do know how the charity
works and can recommend who to talk to about certain issues.
Mark said he felt SUMIT was good preparation for the role of a
Trustee.
MG asked about the progress of fundraising recruitment and JS
explained that Jonny Rudge had been appointed as a
Community Fundraiser but the post of Collection Box Officer
would be re-advertised because no suitable candidates had
come forward.
JS suggested that Jonny Rudge, the new Community
Fundraiser, be invited to attend the next SUMIT meeting.
Action: JS to invite Jonny Rudge to the next SUMIT meeting.
5. My Sight Notts membership rules
PB to draft revised membership rules, which would be
considered at a later date Existing membership rules and fees
would be applied for the June 2015 renewals scheme and be
revised for re-launch following input from the Trust Board, for
the new financial year.
Action: PB to review membership rules and bring back to
SUMIT.
6. ConsultationsJS explained that she had had some difficulty
recruiting volunteers able to facilitate the Reaching
Communities consultations taking place as follows:
 10 July Worksop Library
 13 July Mansfield St Peter’s Centre
 17 July Newark.
It was agreed: Those SUMIT members who could attend the
consultation events would support staff, rather than lead the
discussions, that way full SUMIT attendance wasn’t essential at all
three events.
Action: SUMIT members to let JS have their availability for the
three consultation events.
7. Courtesy calls
CN with Mark Whittle, MG with Lisa Jones, SK, SL, KD and SH
agreed to take part in 6 courtesy call sessions w/c 22 June and
w/c 29 June. The purpose of the calls is to ensure that all 350
people mailed in our key post code areas for the Reaching
Communities consultation had received their invitation to attend
a focus group and to encourage them to take part and give their
views.
Those who had already taken part in calls fed back on their
experiences and said they had been encouraged by the
number of people they had spoken to who said they would try
to attend.
CN said she felt that regular contact calls from the charity
should be delivered on an on-going basis. She felt that it was
an important way of the organisation keeping in touch with its
service users and finding out what was important to them. She
also felt it was a way of offering isolated service users some
form of regular contact. Everyone was in broad agreement,
SUMIT’s capacity was discussed and Mark Whittle suggested
that he and other non-SUMIT members could be recruited as
volunteers to take part in regular calls.
Action: JS to raise SUMIT’s wish for regular and on-going calls
to service users at the next management meeting.
8. Raising the profile of SUMIT
SH raised the issue of the next SUMIT Annual Review and its
presence at the AGM. JS reminded SUMIT that no date had yet
been set for the AGM so that the outcome of our Reaching
Communities project could form part of the agenda. SUMIT
agreed to postpone further discussion about the AGM until later
in the year and JS and SH were once again asked to begin
drafting the SUMIT Annual Review.
Action: JS to keep SUMIT informed about plans for the AGM
and SH and JS to work together on the Annual Review.
9. Any other business
a) Move from Ortzen Street
JS said there were no further updates at this stage.
Action: SUMIT asked to be kept informed.
b) Date and time of next meeting
 July 29 9:30am-12:00pm
 August 26 1:00pm-3;00pm
 September 30 4-6pm