Trustees and Group Staff
Currently we have 14 Trustees forming the Executive Committee. Trustees are elected annually at the Group’s Annual General Meeting in March when the annual accounts are also presented to members. Our financial year runs from the 1st of January. Elected officers are the Chairman, Vice Chairman and Treasurer. The remaining Trustees have specific roles to fulfil in addition to sitting on the Executive committee. Some are Link Group Leaders, others concentrate on various forms of fundraising activities, or participate in sub-committees or small working groups for particular projects. The Group also has a President, and the background to this appointment can be found in our History.
Our Service Co-ordinator and Benefits Advisor are both full-time staff, and we have part-time Assistant Benefits Advisor, Group Administrator, and Membership Secretary on our payroll.
Service Co-ordinator
Some members are so severely affected that social events are beyond their capabilities, often housebound and sometimes confined to their bed for long periods.
Our Service Co-ordinator is responsible for contacting individual members with complex and specialist needs to ascertain, and secure, the help they require. She also undertakes the assembly and dissemination of information on the availability of domestic and personal services offered by various agencies useful to our members, and has overall responsibility for overseeing and supporting the role of the Link Groups, special events and funding for particular activities.
Benefits Advisor
A service highly valued by our members is the expertise we can call on to provide Benefits Advice. Our Benefits Advisor has many years experience and has achieved very substantial results. The total awards made to client members in 2011 has exceeded £870,000 for that year alone.
Demand for her services is exceeding the time she has available, so we are delighted to have been able to appoint an experienced Assistant Benefits Advisor who is very familiar with CFS/ME and has just taken up her post with us.
Group Administrator
Apart from supporting the operation of the Executive committee and sub-committees, our Administrator is normally your first contact with the Group to provide information about membership and answer queries. She can provide membership packs which include a membership application form which has to be returned to the Membership Secretary. Contact the Group Administrator
Membership Secretary
All applications for membership are processed by the Membership Secretary. We are not providing the facility to join on-line at present, and enquiries about membership must be first referred to the Group Administrator.
The Membership Secretary maintains our membership database and will also provide to new members contact details about local Link Groups, and arrange temporary user profiles and passwords to give access to the Members Area of this Website