2007 review

A dispute in 2006 between Community Base and Brighton and Hove Community and Voluntary Sector Forum led to a participant group meeting in October 2006 where CVSF staff and others said they would be calling an extraordinary general meeting to discuss the dispute.

In November 2006 the Community Base board of trustees decided to hold a review to discuss the issues raised by this dispute in a non-confrontational and consensual manner. The board decided at its January 2007 meeting to agree terms of reference for the review and appoint Jeremy Spafford, an independent consultant, to supervise the review.

The review took place between January and April 2007. A review email group, open to everyone at Community Base, was set up and everyone working at Community Base was sent a questionnaire dealing with the issues covered by the review. You can read the responses to this questionnaire here.

In February 2007 Jeremy convened an initial review open meeting, met individually with a number of participant groups, Community Base trustees and Community Base staff and published his interim findings. Meanwhile the Community Base director asked participant groups to send him their suggestions for improving Community Base's policies. Three people made suggestions which were posted to the review email group ahead of an open meeting on 2nd March.

The Community Base board met later in March 2007 to consider these consultations and agree a number of changes to Community Base's policies. In April 2007 another extraordinary general meeting passed a motion agreeing that the review of policies and other actions carried out by the Community Base board met the requirements of the motions passed by the December 2006 extraordinary general meeting . The meeting was followed by a final open review meeting facilitated by Jeremy.

Jeremy published a final review report in April 2007. A board meeting in May 2007 discussed the final review meeting and Jeremy's final report and took a number of decisions based on this discussion. These decisions were tabled for discussion at a participant group meeting in May 2007.