Minutes of Future of Suresearch Meeting

Wednesday August 4th, 2010 at CEIMH

Present:

Paul Roberts(Chair/mins), Duncan Purslow, Stephen Jeffreys, Dave Howes, Janie Greville, Anne Lloyd

Apologies:

Peter Downes, Paul Ormerod, Alex Davis, Adrian Fisher, Barbara Norden

 

Update from Ann Davis on her negotiations with College of Social Science

As a result of an informal chat with Ann Davis, Director of CEIMH, we were informed of the following. Following  ongoing negotiations with the College of Social Sciences she is fairly hopeful that they will support SS in payment of travel expenses, provision of refreshments for meetings, the possibility of some of Elena’s time being allocated to adminstration work she currently does for Suresesarch ( eg mailing out of minutes/preparation papers for monthly meetings/paying out travel expenses), use of office space and computer equipment. It is also hoped that SS will be able to access studio facilities and equipment newly created in Muirhead Tower by Tarsem Singh. She expects to be able to inform SS of the outcome of these negotiations mid August.
The College may be prepared to make this offer as SS is seen as a much valued partner in its work.
Ann will also hope to offer work to SS members with particular skills especially to do with the CEIMH website which is being updated. She is also looking to create an advisory group of SUs. She is also hoping through her involvement in raising income through research that the post of user co-ordinator which will be lost come October might be re-instated.
DVD

DH has completed editing of Train the Trainers presentations  for MIND and can now concentrate on final edit of 10 year Suresearch celebratory DVD.
BN is continuing to write up script for the promotional DVD.

Bid for Sustainability & Flexibility Grant

Group has been looking into possibility of applying for this one off grant available only this year from Heart of England Hub WMRN. There is £65000 available which is typically spread across 5/6 organisations. A maximum per bid would be £15000. The bid has been discussed with Carly Cooper and Jackie Smart of WMRN and they are very keen that Suresearch put in a bid to employ someone to manage a project training up service users in research methods to the extent that they could confidently act as equal partners in designing research bids with research academics. There is a big gap in research for these type of people and it is something WMRN cannot do themselves. Hopefully the trained up SUs could go on to cascade this knowledge to others when the project finishes.

The money is mainly salary based with about 8/9 % allowed for admin/other running costs. A big concern was expressed around Suresearch being an employer and all that involves legally and administratively. Carly confirmed any employee/s could be on BSMHFT payroll and so SS could avoid that burden. A charge would be incurred for BSMHFT to do that.
Ideas about how the money might be spent in terms of how the programme of training might look (how many courses), who might be employed were discussed. A variety of trainers might be used from Jan Wallscroft to PHD students at College of Social Science who are extremely knowledgeable about aspects of research methods who would enjoy working with service users and at no cost.  If successful a steering group would be required to support the project manager.
The group agreed to recommend to the main Suresearch monthly meeting tomorrow that the bid should be pursued and other members be encouraged to be involved with the bid team. The deadline for putting in a bid is September 13th. The group will look to have a follow up meeting with Carly to clarify issues.

What Sort of Organisation?

Flowing from the above item is the need for Suresearch to become a very basic organisation at the very least with a bank account to receive and pay out money if the bid was successful. This would require the organisation having a constitution and officer/signatories. Officers might be co-ordinator or chair, secretary and treasurer. A mission statement would be good too. SJ agreed to write up a draft constitution to be discussed at the next ‘Futures’ meeting.
The item will be taken for discussion at tomorrow’s full Suresearch meeting. These proposals could be voted on at the Review Day on Sept 1st.

Date of Next Meeting

Friday August 20th, 2010 10.30 to 12.30 pm at CEIMH

 

DAB-P (Aug 2010)