Minutes of Annual General Meeting
Ballerup Court Suite, Civic
Centre, East Kilbride
29 October 2003
Present
Caroline Tait
Ellen Muir
Cathy Lee
Linda Jarvie
Lesley Burns
Linda Johnson
Sharon Holton
Sheena Henderson
Margo Mooney
Sandra Thoms
Ross Macfadyen
Apologies
Corrine Rankin
Dawn Larman
Louise Gordon
Joanne O’Leary
John Haines
Sharon Renicks
Actions
Arising from the Previous Meeting held on
9 June 2003
NAS
No further action had been taken on
applying for Grant Aid through PALS and the South Lanarkshire Branch of the NAS
as grants are restricted to small amounts.
Mainstream Funding
Letters were sent to the Directors
of Education and Social Work at South Lanarkshire Council and the Chief
Executive of NHS Lanarkshire during the summer. Social Work did not reply at
all, NHS sent an acknowledgement of the letter and the names of staff they were
passing it on to and Education replied they had already funded £8000 in 2003/04
for play schemes for all children with varying disabilities through the
Childcare Partnership Fund. The letter also stated that Louise Gordon of South
Lanarkshire Leisure was our representative on the Childcare Partnership Group.
Caroline told the meeting that Louise could only provide play schemes for
children of primary school age and that she had to provide for all
disabled children. The management committee of PALS expressed their
disappointment at the outcome of these letters as they had hoped for a more
optimistic response.
Patron
Andy Kerr MSP for East Kilbride and
Strathaven has agreed to be patron of PALS.
Donation
Caroline had written to Nancy
Macfadyen thanking her for the donation of £304.
Other
Playschemes
Caroline had received a response from people who ran an ASD play scheme in Leicestershire. Unfortunately, the information was not of use. Sandra Thoms from the NAS told the meeting she could supply contact names of people involved in running similar schemes in Scotland.
PALS Annual Report
The
meeting was given a brief history and achievements of PALS. After starting in
August 2002, a Constitution was set up and PALS is recognised as a Scottish
Charity. Play schemes ran for primary school age children this summer,
organised by South Lanarkshire Leisure. For the first time, a pre-school
children playscheme was run. Both schemes were successful. Caroline thanked
South Lanarkshire Leisure and Sure Start for all their hard work on behalf of
all the parents whose children had benefited.
The meeting was told that Social Work are running a play scheme for ASD children
but it has strict criteria; children between 8 – 11 years of age with a
diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome and attending mainstream schooling. There are
only 6 places available at present and they are trying to secure more funding to
increase the number of places.
The meeting was told of the “Catch 22” situation of funding; secure mainstream
funding and you are unlikely to access grant money from Trusts, Foundation and
similar. If you secure money from Trusts etc you are unlikely to get mainstream
funding. Caroline told those present that we had completed an application form
for the Scottish Executive Direct Funding for the Voluntary Sector, but we
apparently did not meet the criteria. The amount of funding we required for a 3
year period came to between £250,000 - £300,000. It was acknowledged this was a
huge amount and also unlikely to be given to an organisation with no proven
track record, but this amount was necessary if the scheme was to be run
properly. The meeting discussed various other forms of funding and Caroline and
Ellen shared the outcome of their discussion with Hamilton CVS. Caroline talked
of the amount of work involved in completing application forms, and follow up,
progress, monitoring and evaluation. There was general discussion on how as
parents already caring for children with special needs, we could not spare the
time to administer this. The discussion ended with Caroline agreeing to
complete another Scottish Executive grant application and Ellen agreed to
contact Health, Social Work and Education again.
Annual Accounts
Were circulated at the meeting.
Thanks were given to Valerie Will who raised £102.50 through sponsorship by
running the 10k race, and John Fleming from Social Work who gave us £1500.
South Lanarkshire Leisure Ltd Summer 2003 Playscheme for Children 5- 12 years
old
Sheena Henderson talked about this years scheme which was a 5 week programme catering for children with varying disabilities in 2 locations; Hamilton School for the Deaf and Robert Owen Primary, Lanark. Fifteen play workers cared for the 72 children (this figure includes some mainstream children). There were difficulties in securing funding and venues. Evaluations had been returned and an action plan has been drawn up for future schemes. Sheena also talked about a club for disabled children running at Lammermoor Hall, East Kilbride on a Saturday. Anyone interesting in accessing this should contact Social Work.
Sure Start Summer 2003 Playscheme for Pre-school children
Margo Mooney told the meeting about the scheme which had also difficulty in securing funding and venues. The scheme ran in Greenburn school for 3 weeks in July. The scheme was restricted to this as they were not registered with the Care Commission. There were also difficulties in recruiting staff. Greenburn was a good venue and there is the possibility of joining with another group there. It was identified that 6 children benefited from the scheme and an article appeared in the East Kilbride News.
Proposal to Change the Constitution
The management committee put to the meeting that the constitution be changed to read “AGM to be held no later than 31 October” The reason for this was to allow adequate time for evaluation after the summer schemes before holding the AGM. The motion was carried unanimously.
Newsletter
All agreed that instead of issuing minutes of every meeting, PALS management committee would prepare a newsletter (possibly quarterly) which would be circulated to our mailing list.
Website
Ross Macfadyen has kindly volunteered to build a website for PALS. Caroline will prepare information for Ross. Some information on PALS is available on the South Lanarkshire NAS Branch’s web site www.slnas.org.uk or www.slnas.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/pals