Wednesday, 13 August 2008

I was to have met with Everton Blake of Voluntary Action Luton, but he cancelled due to a savage sounding sports injury. I instead had a day free to update our plans on CRM and mywatford. We are getting many calls asking to update this and that and today I tidied up websites at http://mywatford.net/sites/oneworldforum and http://mywatford.net/sites/disabilityforum.

The Chair and Vice Chair of the Disability Forum dropped by to ask for my agreement to a letter they planned to send about poor facilities for disabled people at the new Central Watford Leisure Centre. They felt that their advice had been disregarded and that facilities were inadequate. On the first weekend of operation, a disabled adult was trapped in the pool when a winch malfunctioned.

The Watford Disability Forum operates under the auspices of the CVS and their letterhead includes our charity number etc. The Forum’s officers were “very happy” with their letter and didn’t want advice on the wording - but they said the letter was “heavy stuff” and wanted to know if it was alright to send it on behalf of the Disability Forum.

After due reflection, I concluded that the CVS’s role is to support the Disability Forum to provide a voice for disabled people and to represent the interests of disabled people. It is clearly not our role to censor their activities or their correspondence. I therefore declined to read the letter but said I looked forward to receiving a copy when it was sent and would then respond appropriately.

Perhaps I could have said something about Act in haste, repent at leisure but this would have been insufferably pompous even by my standards.

I’m sure I’ve done the right thing. I hope.

I also worked out that not until Monday will we learn the outcome of our bid for the LINks contract. I can be patient.