Minutes: April 2007

1

Present: Paul, Darrell, Helen, Ken, Steve, Chris, Chloe, Robin Stannard - Wilts Police; Bruce Clarke, Kati Wood, Rita Glen-Gallo and Kathleen Daley - SBC, Councillor Doreen Dart
Apologies: Doug, Chris Hunt - SBC.
Paul welcomed everyone and introductions were made around the table.

2

Minutes of last meeting: Agreed as a true record

3

Matters Arising: There were no matters arising.

4

Children Services Equalities Action Plan - Rita Glen-Gallo

Rita thanked the Coalition for giving her the opportunity to attend and discuss this action plan. She asked members to take it away, look through it and if there was anything to be added or amended to let her know. This applied to not just LGBT issues but anything at all.

She said she had met Paul in regard to the Plan and some suggestions made had been well received within the Children Services Equalities Group.

Rita said the Plan was divided into the themes and numbers as milestones were recorded in Swindon Borough Council. The Plan mirrors what Cabinet were doing.

Rita said there was no time limit on when responses or actions had to be sent in, just send them and she will respond to any queries. If anyone had any ideas for improving the plan, September/ October time, mail her direct or through Kati.

Paul advised that section 8 on page 16 had been discussed with Rita and they were going to rewrite this section. Paul asked Darrell to make sure Pride Youth had it in time to report to the next meeting.

Helen said action 3 on page 16 needed to include transgender. Rita said the copy of the document we had has now been updated to include transgender.

Paul asked people to mail any comments to Kati who will forward them on to Rita.

5

EAF Meeting feedback and Issues to be raised at EAF Interim Meeting

Paul had attended the Forum last month and Helen was also there. The main discussion was around the Children Services Action Plan. Various comments were made and members were asked to take the plan away and let Rita have any comments.

Paul advised that it had been proposed that the EAF meetings should become public meetings and they were looking at the Terms of Reference to make sure they were tight enough and would make sense to the public.

Helen said there were concerns about people coming in with issues.

When published, circulate minutes of the EAF so people can see when the next meeting would be.

6

Community Assets Consultation - Bruce Clarke

Bruce said he was attending as Chris Hunt was on holiday.

He explained that a consultation was going out to all the Coalition Groups, as well as all neighbourhood groups in Swindon. There were two issues to be looked at:

1. Are these assets being used for what communities want them to be used for? and,
2. How should they be managed? Should they be managed by Swindon Borough Council's Community Facilities Department or by local neighbourhoods, or a mixture of the two?

He said the Coalition could help with two things. They have an invitation letter and questionnaire that should take no more than 2/3 minutes to read. He asked people to read through it and if they did not understand what it was about to let him know as soon as possible. Your comments would also be welcome.

This consultation was looking at what you would like your local neighbourhood venue/facility to be used for. Also what you think was the most important thing that should be available within your venue/facility and whether it was available at the present time.

Bruce left copies of the questionnaire to be passed around and said comments should be sent to Kati.

The issue about management of the halls would be dealt with in open meetings and if people had any ideas these would be the meetings to go to, or you could record your ideas.

The consultation should be finished mid-June ready to go to Cabinet in July. Bruce said he was aware that it was a short timescale but they were already out talking to people on a one to one basis and also to Groups.

Paul thanks Bruce.

LGBT Youth Welfare

Paul said he had received a memo from Sue Harding, South West Forum, sending information about a new House of Commons Education and Skills Committee report on bullying in schools. The report recognises that the extent of homophobic bullying is unknown and may be hard to quantify. He asked if Pride Youth would be willing to read this report and feedback with their proposals?

Russell said he was happy to do that and he would take it to their next meeting and Paul would send the report out with the minutes.

Paul said the report was pretty terrifying to read and there were a lot of issues for the Coalition to deal with and Pride Youth could help us to deal with these. With the Council's support we could get access to schools and go in and deal with issues. Russell said Pride Youth would have clearance to deal with them.

Robin Stannard said he had a colleague who sits on LEA's Anti Bullying Group and they have a package of measures for Teachers and it might be worth speaking to Bob Basley who Chairs the group.

There was an open meeting being held in Taunton later this month by Equalities South West. Helen said she was on the Transgender Group at Equalities South West and Paul asked her to report back to the next meeting.

8

Terms of Reference

Paul said it was agreed at the last meeting that we would think about these terms of reference and decide whether they were relevant or not. We have to strengthen our voice and we can do that by looking at the Terms of Reference and pushing issues that are relevant to our community.

Amendments suggested:

• Under aims add Local Area Agreement after Council. Also 2.1 should refer to the Council and Local Area Agreement.
• Membership 3.1 1st bullet point add 'and work' after live.

Paul proposed that people study them to make sure they know what they mean and bring to the next meeting as we need to rubber stamp them.

Paul suggested the Coalition should have a Councillor as a sponsor or champion and Doreen Dart was asked if she would be willing to perform this role. She agreed, thanked the Coalition and said she appreciated being asked.

Paul said Colin Lovell had also shown an interest in the Coalition and suggested we ask him to a future meeting. Robin said that although we wanted a dedicated champion it did not preclude other Councillors attending.

It was agreed Councillors Lovell and Wright would also be invited to the next meeting.

9

PRIDE Update - Steve Bryce

Sub-committee has been set up to look at putting on a Pride Event on 16 August 2008 for the local community. Meeting on six weekly basis and the next is in two weeks time to finalise the venue that we hope will be the Town Gardens. We will also be looking at what we want in terms of activities. The event will be from 12 until 12 with a transition period around 6pm when we will convert from children's session to adult session.

We will be working closely with the Mailcoach and the Pink Rooms and they are both invited to the next meeting to say what they can contribute on the day, along with other organisations who have shown an interest.

We are planning to produce a newsletter to distribute in the Pink Rooms and the Mailcoach to keep people updated and who to contact if they want to get involved.

The next meeting will be about what we want for Swindon Pride, how we're going to get what we want and looking at funding streams for that. Will then take forward and start the actual planning.

Next meeting is on 8 May and anyone who is interested in attending should let Kati know.

Chris said they were setting up terms of reference for the sub-group and also ground rules about the confidential nature of anything discussed in the meetings. There had been some problems caused by people talking about decisions before they had been finalised.

Steve said things would be made very clear at the next meeting and to make sure only correct information was given out they would produce a newsletter after every meeting.

Swindon Pride to be an agenda item at each meeting.

10

Hate Crime Report - Robin Stannard

Problem we had in October has now been finalised with a 2 year ASBO being placed on young person involved.

Robin said with regard to the table on page 4 he cannot believe it is so low, would like to believe people are not offending but feels people in the community are still being attached and they are not reporting it.

Personal calls have dipped, now getting more calls from web or true vision. As you will see detection rate has fallen.

11

Any Other Business

Paul asked if there could be links from our website to GPI, Gay Men's Health and Pride Youth. Also asked for a counter on the website.

12

Dates of future meetings:
6-8pm Wednesday 10 October CR2, Civic Offices
6-8pm Wednesday 12 December CR2, Civic Offices
 
2008
6-8pm Wednesday 13 February CR2, Civic Offices
6-8pm Wednesday 9 April CR2, Civic Offices