Meeting 28th March 2008

Introductions

Helen did a brief introduction on the group and reminded everyone of the purpose.

Notes of the Last Meeting

These were read through. Neill asked about one point- Services which can support people from Ethnic Minorities. There was some discussion about this point. Headway had attended a Glasgow Anti- Racist Alliance exhibition which was poorly attended, but the point was made that this still raise the profile of brain injury- even if it is among other services who might refer people later on.

MSP Letter.

David reported back from the sub group and read out the letter which was to reply to Nicola Sturgeon’s letter. People made various points as we went through this. Including: emphasising the differences of ABI and other conditions –as a point to support the call for a separate community care category. There was also debate over the meaning of some terms used. Another sub group will go away and work on this letter- to be made up of David, Alan, Simon and Lorraine. We aim to have the letter sent off by the next meeting.

Constitution and Funding.

Sam Coyne spoke a bit about the importance of a constitution and also about Charitable Status. This was discussed for a while. The benefits of having a constitution are that it would say what the group is for, what it aims to achieve and how it will go about this. It may also help access funding. The group would need some funding to get some independence from other brain injury groups which currently support it. The conclusion was that as the group is in the early stages it would be fine to have a constituted community group and to think about charitable status if the group grows. A sub group of Alan Lorraine Neill and Sam will work on the sub group for a constitution.

Petitions

The next step for this is to think about a launch. Previously Paul Martin MSP had suggested that he could organise some time at the Scottish parliament to launch this. The group agreed to the suggestion that we should go ahead with this. Mary should be involved as Paul is her MSP and Helen as she is the chair of the group. Simon will support in this too.

Next Meeting

Chris Flannery of the Managed Clinical Network for Acquired Brain Injury will attend to speak about the MCN. We agreed to be prepared with questions on ways that we could advance our aims. Please have a think about questions before the next meeting. Things suggested were- how do we advance the awareness of brain injury?, Could we continue to have an active role in giving our views? How could we work in conjunction?

Next Meeting Date: 25^th April 2008, at Momentum at the earlier time of 12 noon.