About Community Base

Our governance and management

Community Base is a registered charity (1052456) and a company limited by guarantee (3121688) with no share capital governed by a memorandum and articles of association. The membership of Community Base is composed of charities and other not-for-profit, non-governmental organisations that use Community Base services. All members of Community Base are entitled to vote at Community Base's general meetings.

Our annual general meeting elects a board of trustees/directors to run the charity and the company. There are currently seven board members - Jane Frost (chair), Adrian Palmer (Treasurer), Mick Barry, Ros Cook, Paul Evans, Rosemary Friggens and Derek Took. All trustees sign a code of conduct. Board meetings usually take place every two months.

Community Base has a statement of core values and policies and procedures to make our practice transparent and accountable. Our April 2009 development plan outlined the history of our early years, our achievements between 2004 and 2009 and our plans for 2009 to 2014.

Community Base is run on a day-to-day basis by its staff, Centre Manager Olivia Canham and receptionist/administrator Bridie Phillips and locum staff.

Our finances

Community Base uses income from rent, service charges and advertising on its north wall to repay a mortgage on the building we own and meet our running costs. Every year we update our budget and assessment of risks to our development for the next five years in the light of changing circumstances. Brighton and Hove City Council shows its support for Community Base by giving us 100% discretionary rate relief.

Our services

Our main activity is the provision of office space and services to a wide range of charities and community groups in our seven floor building.

We also provide a range of support services to local charities and community groups whether they licence space with us or not, including use of our meeting rooms, help promoting their services, volunteering opportunities, job vacancies and venues for hire and an annual poster guide to local community services along with translations of this guide into 12 languages other than English.

Our reception, which provides reception facilities for groups at Community Base for 40 hours a week, has also become an important source of help for the local community.

Communication, consultation and monitoring

You can find Community Base on facebook, YouTube and twitter.

We host an email group open to everyone working at Community Base and hold monthly participant group meetings open to everyone working at Community Base.

Every year we publish audited accounts, annual monitoring figures and a comparison of these figures over the last five years.

Events and initiatives

• We have held open days every other year since 2000
• We have held events for refugee week every year since 2004
• Between 2004 and 2006 we ran essay competitions for local schools
• We host occasional working lunches where people can discuss an issue with a guest speaker over a free spot of lunch
• We celebrated our tenth birthday in July 2007 with a party where we premiered a short film Welcome to Community Base
• In 2008 we set up Green Champion 2008, a campaign encouraging practical activity by local community and voluntary groups to fight climate change
• In 2009 we hosted a tenth birthday celebration for Brighton and Hove Community Buildings Network
• In July 2010 one of our local councillors, Pete West, presented a petition signed by over 700 local people to Brighton and Hove City Council on behalf of Community Base asking for the council not to withdraw Community Base's discretionary rate relief
• In November 2010 we launched our Here to Help campaign, distributing thousands of posters and flyers across Brighton and Hove to increase awareness of local services, job vacancies and volunteering opportunities.
  

Consultations

• in 2007 we carried out a review into our policies and practices
• in 2007 we asked groups hiring our conference room for their views on making it a throwaway-free zone
• in 2008 we asked groups using Brighton and Hove volunteer search for their views on its first six months
• in 2009 we asked people working at Community Base or hiring our conference room for their views on smoking at Community Base
• in 2009 we made a number of comments and recommendations on a draft volunteering strategy for Brighton and Hove
• in 2009 the Community Base board of trustees consulted Community Base's membership on a statement of Community Base's core values and a new policy on membership
• in March 2010 we were asked for our views on a 'common database' of local community and voluntary groups
• In July 2010 we joined other local charities and community groups on a visit to Whitehall to express concern to Nick Hurd MP, Minister for Civil Society, about the impact of government cuts.

Sue Cole

This website has a page dedicated to Community Base's first receptionist Sue Cole who died in 2006.