Synopsis of the Management Council meeting held on Saturday 12 March 2005 at the MS Society

All members of Council attended the meeting on 12 March with the exception of Beryl Bartlett who sent her apologies.

The Chairman, Sir Bryan Askew, started by offering congratulations to Liz Elliott on her marriage to Vic Smith and her consequent change of name.

The first main item on the agenda was incorporation. Since the last Management Council meeting the Charity Commission have issued a new charity number for us and this means we can now move ahead with the new charitable company. As a result Trustees had to decide whether to transfer all the assets and undertakings of the current British Polio Fellowship with the charity number 206690 to the new British Polio Fellowship with a charity number 1108335. A long checklist had been produced by our solicitors so that Trustees could consider all the implications of this move especially as it also included transferring all the staff from the old charity to the new charity. Luckily, as there is no change whatsoever in the way that we work or our staff conditions, the Trustees were able to very positively agree to transfer all the assets and undertakings to the new company. Mr Aidan Linton-Smith and Mrs Heather Jones were approved to sign the transfer deed on behalf of all the Trustees.

The Treasurer then reported on the financial position and that January had been a very good month for income and had shown a very positive £25,000 excess of income over expenditure for the month, so this was a welcome start to the year. He also reported that he spent three days at Central Office looking at the way we deal with our finances and he was very happy with the results of his findings.

The Chief Executive expanded on his written report to Trustees which included the fact that the sale of the Lantern is proceeding well and that draft contracts have been distributed. Mr Bill Finch reported that he had met the prospective new owners who are very intent on retaining the building and running it as a nursing home albeit of a very high standard and high cost, but everybody is very relieved that the building will remain intact.

The Trustees then considered the report of the National Welfare Officer. 415 heating grants have been approved and payments of £21 to each of those had been made in February. She was able to further report that she had helped with 14 successful welfare benefit applications and had made 7 home visits since the last Management Council meeting. Trustees then considered whether a grant should be made to Netley which is a convalescence facility for people with severe breathing difficulties and over 18 weeks convalescence have been granted to people with polio last year. Following discussion it was agreed that the sum of £10,000 will be donated this year to help cover the costs of further visits by people with polio (if any member would like details of the facilities that Netley have please do not hesitate to contact us).

The report of the Fundraising Manager was then considered and she was able to report on the success of various appeals and income streams. Some excellent news was also reported that we have had a Department of Health funding application approved which is for a three year project worth over £40,000 a year to the Fellowship and this will fund a project, including a member of staff, to run a project to support our existing groups and branches, to promote and run self-management course, provide information about living with the effects of polio and making links with health professionals to provide information about Post Polio Syndrome etc. This news was greatly welcomed by the Trustees and has come at a time when our branches do need help to sustain them for the future.

Under ‘Any Other Business’ the Trustees considered the election timetable for this year’s elections. The timetable is published on page …… of the Bulletin and the procedure was approved. An item was also raised about the cost and location of Central Office and the Chief Executive confirmed that Trustees had approved in their Strategic Plan that both the staffing and location of Central Office will be reviewed during the current strategic planning process.

The next item was a very pleasant one in that, with incorporation, the duties of our present Holding Trustees, Mr Joe Fisher and Mr Gordon Lumb will cease. Thanks to their hard work and diligence over the years in looking after all the assets of the Fellowship it was felt that the appropriate award should be the granting to them of Vice Patronship of the Fellowship and the Chairman was duly authorised to write to them and offer them this prestigious position. The meeting then closed but the Trustees then reassembled as the board of the new charitable company and the main item on their agenda was whether to accept the transfer of all the assets and undertakings of the old British Polio Fellowship to the new charitable company. Of course this was something of a formality and was duly approved and we can now move ahead with all the changes that this will incur. Members should note that from now on the new charity number should be quoted in all correspondence. We are allowed to use up our old stock of literature etc but we should refer to the fact that the British Polio Fellowship is now a company limited by guarantee with a company number 5294321 and that we are registered in England and Wales and that our new charity number is 1108335. This can be done very simply with a sticker somewhere on the item until we get round to re-prints which we do not want to do until we have used up all our stock. Graham Ball Chief Executive

Graham Ball
Chief Executive