Scope AGM and member conference 2012

On Saturday 3 November, Scope members from across England and Wales came together for our 60th annual member conference and AGM.

The day was filled with useful discussions and was a chance for members to share opinions, experiences and ideas. Scope’s Chair Alice Maynard reflected on the challenges and successes of the last year and was joined by our Chief Executive Richard Hawkes and other Trustees to explain our recently launched strategic direction.

Later on, Richard and Alice were joined by Board members to answer questions around this, gathered from members on the day. We really value the input we get from members and there were some very helpful contributions and fair challenges.

Our AGM is the time when our members elect new Trustees to Scope’s Board. This year, five new faces were elected: Tony Hunter OBE, Rupy Kaur, Amanda Phillips, Gavin Poole and Rachael Wallach. The members also re-elected Hilary Samson-Barry. As well as giving a warm welcome to our new Trustees, we also thanked those standing down (Rosemary Bolinger, Bob Eames, John Corneille, Jaspal Dhani and David Hart) for their services to Scope.

Members also elected some of their peers to become part of the Scope Assembly, a body that regularly meets with our Trustees and staff to feed in views and help shape our work. The newly elected Assembly members were Gary Birkenhead, Sean Bolton, Alison John, Peter Skea, Dave Wallworth – congratulations to all of them.

Along with the formal business of the day, we were also joined by two guest speakers. Mitchell Woolf from lawyers Scott-Moncrieff and Associates LLP gave a presentation around changes to care and support packages and how to challenge them, providing some really useful advice to members.

Later on, Ade Adepitan MBE, Paralympic wheelchair basketball champion and TV presenter, spoke about his life growing up in London, the commitment needed to become a Paralympian and his experiences in the London 2012 games, saying: “London 2012 helped generate some bright disabled role models who can really make a difference to the perceptions of the public for many years to come. I think the Paralympics will create a lot of opportunities but it will be organisations like Scope who keep putting disability issues to the top of the agenda.”

Thanks very much to everyone who came – we look forward to seeing you next year.