Wednesday, 10 December 2008

Charity donation voting

2009 Annual Charity Donation

Please send your vote (ALLICE members only) to Phil Uttley

RNIB Talking Book Service

The Talking Book Service provides an extensive range of over 15,500 audio books, paid for by annual subscription and delivered through the post. The full loan annual subscription, which includes the loan of a player, costs £76. Talking Books are recorded in the RNIB’s modern studios, which are designed to be accessible to people with sight problems. They work with professional actors, narrators and authors to bring audio books to life. Last year they sent out two million books to 41,000 people and added 450 books to their stock.Even though they ask for a small annual subscription to join the Talking Book Service, RNIB has to subsidise this lifeline service by some two million pounds a year (about fifty pounds per person per year) to keep it running. This is found through fundraising and legacy income; they receive no Government help.

Birmingham Settlement

Birmingham Settlement provide care services for children and older people, training and employment opportunities for individuals, development support for voluntary and community organisations and money advice and debt counselling services for individuals They run six charity shops which raise money across the city to support their programmes, particularly their work with children and older people.They work in partnership to support the development of local voluntary and community sector organisations, to deliver services that meet the needs of their users in a flexible and far-reaching way, to ensure that their services are linked, with appropriate referrals made to provide maximum benefit, to provide services for all sections of the community, from young to old, irrespective of ethnic origin or background, to lobby and influence local, regional and national policy makers and to balance public sector funding, earned and other income while enhancing their financial standing and securing long-term viability

Linda Kalinda's Zambian Legal Resource Centre

The Centre’s aim is to offer legal resources and facilities to its members. Subscriptions will go towards the maintenance costs of the centre and salaries.The centre building is currently being set up and they hope to be able to open in late 2008. They have collected more than 250 books and are now starting to look at putting power and sanitation in the building. (report from Jan ’08)

Minutes of meeting held on 10th December 2008

Meeting held at : DLA Piper UK LLP, Victoria Square House, Birmingham

Attendees:

Jon Beaumont, Hilary Boucher, Louise Bowler, Matthew Cadden (Pinsent Masons), Adele Champken, Andrew Clarke, Caroline Covington, Hazel Hewison, Susanne Homer, Mandy Hulme, Caroline Janukowicz, Caroline Mosley, Alison Parker, Rachel Relves, Natasha Skeen (College of Law), Phil Uttley, Carol Wilson and Tricia Wyspianska

The Chair welcomed Nigel Fry, Rob Cornish and Tina Hartley from Wildy & Sons

Normal business

1. Apologies

Sally Hassell, Christine Lambert, Patricia Pritchard, Aileen Johnston, Beverley Preece, Joanne Dunn, Lisa Anderson, Christine Newlove, Erica Foster, Aine Astbury, Jasmin Hollingum, Sue Kendall, David Houston, Lee Houghton, Helen Dunn, Denise Watkins, Diane Harris, Jackie Sellars, James Furnival and Stephen Wheeler.

2. Charities

The Chair explained that our annual donation had been reviewed at the request of members and set at £50 this year. Three nominations had been received and voting forms were distributed at the meeting. A copy is available on the blog for those who have still to nominate their chosen charity

3. Treasurer’s Report

The treasurer presented her report for the year. She also asked those members who have yet to renew their ALLICE subscriptions to do so before Christmas (Cobbetts, No 5 Chambers, James Furnival, Lisa Anderson and Denise Watkins). It is expected that membership will fall to 40/42 for 2008/09. This will generate around £630. The EIA event, run in October, had cost a total of £1175. Attendance fees recouped £300, leaving net costs of £875.

4. AOB

Update on Birmingham Law Society (BLS) library – The Chair informed members that a BLS committee meeting recently established that the BLS library was now formally closed. The move of the stock to Aston University was complete and arrangements for BLS members to access it were now in place. BLS members will be invited to bid for the stock left at the Law Society. Confirmation of this has been received since the meeting and is available on the blog.

Anthony Collins job vacancy – Adele Champken informed members that she was leaving Anthony Collins in February. This would create a vacancy for a part-time librarian.

Happy events – Members were informed that both Aine Astbury and Jackie Hanes had given birth to baby girls recently – all are well

5. Wildy & Sons

Many thanks to Nigel Fry who gave a very interesting talk on the history of Wildys and its current structure and location