Inspiring AGM in Tiverton

Posted on 2nd October, 2015

Our Annual General Meeting and Annual Members' Meeting took place in Tiverton on Tuesday evening.  The event was well-attended and proved to be an uplifting and inspiring evening. Music was provided by SHINE, a group of local musicians with lived experience of mental health and learning disability issues.  After a warm welcome by our Chair Julie Dent, Chief Executive Melanie Walker talked about the highlights and challenges of 2014/15 - accentuating many of the service developments and improvements that we delivered during the course of the year.  In what was her second AGM, Melanie talked about the cultural change that we are trying to bring about within our organisation as we aspire to become a centre of excellence in everything we do.  She also acknowledged the pressure that is upon many of our staff at the moment and talked about our SMART Recovery programme and the improvements we hope this will deliver over the next few years. Karla Wilson-Palmer and Inspector Rob Curtis of Devon and Cornwall Police talked about the success of the Street Triage programme and showed a short film of the service in operation. You can watch the film by clicking here. Director of Finance, Sarah Brampton, thanked staff at every level and from every team for their efforts in delivering financial balance at the end of the year.  She stressed that this was a huge achievement and said that, despite the very challenging nature of the financial climate across the NHS at the moment, we are in a sound position. Vanessa Hurley and Cate Dandridge talked about anything being possible and took a reflective look at learning disability services over the years - and how they have changed since the days of the long-stay institutions.  The evening concluded with an inspiring presentation by Glen Madeley, a user of our learning disability service, who shared his fascinating life story with the audience.  To view a copy of the Annual Review 2014/15 click here