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Citizens Advice

June 1st, 2005 · Posted by Skuds in Life · No Comments · Life

Tonight I went to a board meeting of the Crawley CAB – the last one before the AGM.

I was going to make it my last meeting, but I think I might hang on a little bit. I was appointed there by the borough council to represent them, but I wrote to the Chief Executive last month, strongly suggesting that I be replaced by councillors, for various reasons. From what I can make out, the council has only nominated one person so far and still has a vacancy, so I might hang on for a while until they nominate a second person.

If I want to I can remain on the board for another two years, even if the council don’t want me there. Something to do with the articles of association or something – I may be registered at Companies House as a director of a PLC, but that doesn’t mean I understand any of it!

The thing is that the CAB have some issues with accommodation and will be lobbying the borough council to help them. They need someone there at meetings to remind them that the county council has some obligations too, maybe more so than the borough. At the moment the funding for the CAB is 20% county and 80% borough, and I think that is the wrong way round. I feel that the county are shirking their responsibilities and the borough have made up the difference. Historically this was acceptable when the borough was rich, but right now the county can afford to help more than the borough can.

Anyway, it was a long and tedious meeting, which got hung up on a couple of matters. One to do with the apportionment of expenditure on the accounts and one on the constitution. Both conversations went on way longer than they should have done and reminded me of one reason why I want to drop this responsibility. The meeting should have been over before 9:30 but went on beyond 10:00pm.

One amusing aspect of the bureau is that it is the 50th anniversary of its opening this year, and one of the events is to be a party in October. I was supposed to be on the working group which is sorting out arrangements, but I can never get to meetings – they are either held in Cuckfield or during the day. In my absence they have arranged to hire the Conservative club for the do.

The patron of the CAB is our Labour MP, and I assume she will be invited and have to go to the Conservative club. I wonder if they will let her in? If I go I will have to remember to raid the Labour office for loads of Vote Labour stickers to take with me.

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