Seventy Cram into BATA's Champagne AGM!
 
BATA
Go ON Gold   Takeover Day

Dear ,

 
 
 
Seventy Cram into BATA's Champagne AGM!
BATA Attendees

Lady Walmsley in the Oriental Club Library

Inclusive Technology MD, Sukhjit Gill

The Oriental Club was the setting for BATA's fourth AGM. The slate of distinguished speakers in the afternoon session ensured a packed house with every seat taken plus our photographer, a video crew and two very busy BSL sign interpreters. Under the Duke of Wellington's stern gaze we gathered in the Club that he helped found in 1824.

Click here to download the AGM Flier.

The morning session (for BATA Members only) began with BATA officers' reports. Chairman Mark McCusker (CEO, TextHELP) reported a very successful year with increased membership and subscribers increasing by 173%!

Read Chairman's Report

Retired senior civil servant Barbara Phillips, now our Executive Director, reported on a busy year of research, surveys and events. She was able to set these initiatives in the context of how to influence policy from the days when she was operating on the opposite side of a Minister's desk.

Read Executive Director's Report

BATA Treasurer, Ian Litterick (Executive Chairman, Iansyst) was also able to report on a successful year and adequate reserves although he was very keen to grow BATA's income so that we afford more time from professional staff like the Executive Director to promote the aims of the Association.

Finally the three of the BATA Council (including myself) stood down by rotation as required by the BATA Articles of Association. The Council welcomed new members Dave Stevens of Claro Software and Paul Doyle of Hereward College and I scraped re-election!

The sandwich lunch (helped down with a sponsored glass or two of Oriental Club champagne) saw the numbers swell as journalists and leaders from stakeholder AT organisations joined the noisy networking.

Full Delegate List

Our speakers arrived too. Lady Walmsley has been at all four AGMs introducing Ministers, Shadow Ministers, Communication Champions and National Communication Coordinators. (It was good to see Anna Reeves again - one of last year's speakers who now heads up the new national ACE Centre). BBC Disability Correspondent Peter White joined us too and was quickly in conversation with Shadow Minister Sharon Hodgson MP.

Mark McCusker, BATA Chairman

Mark McCusker, BATA Chairman

 
Barbara Phillips, BATA Executive Director

Barbara Phillips, BATA Executive Director

 
Ian Litterick, Executive Chairman, Iansyst

Ian Litterick, BATA Treasurer

 
Anna Reeves, ACE Centre Director

Anna Reeves, ACE Centre Director

   
Dolphin Crick Software HelpKidzLearn
   
Each of the afternoon's speakers was to be introduced by one of the three BATA AGM sponsors: HelpKidzLearn, Dolphin Computer Access and Crick Software. Together they had fully funded the AGM. Each company exported much more than 50% of their products making the point that Britain has a world lead in many aspects of assistive technology.
 

Chris Thornton of HelpKidzLearn introduced Lady Walmsley a LibDem Parliamentary spokesperson on Children and Families. Baroness Walmsley spoke of the group of Peers and MPs regularly working together in the interests of children with special needs and disabilities. There was clearly a non-partisan partnership at work here with Labour's Sharon Hodgson and the Minister Edward Timpson MP.

Dave Williams from Dolphin introduced Peter White - even pinching one of Peter's jokes about Peter's missing guide dog. Peter had many more jokes. A skilled and amusing public speaker, Peter had serious points to make. Technology helped him to do his job better and had opened the whole world of books to him but it was no longer optional. Everyone must have access in order to live, socialise or just pay the bills. This put a responsibility on Government and on manufacturers and publishers to ensure everyone was included in every new advance.

Read Peter White's notes

Shadow Minister Sharon Hodgson MP was introduced by John Crick of Crick Software. Sharon already has SEN legislation on the statute book. With children, Sharon was keen to benchmark the performance of individual groups of SEND pupils gaining 5 A*-Cs against the national average. This has improved dramatically but the gap needs closing. With teachers the Shadow Minister backed NASEN's 'Every Teacher' campaign to improve every teacher's ability to identify and support learners with SEND. Finally, with schools and LAs she warned of a "race to the bottom" as certain authorities and schools provided shabby SEN provision in order to offload expensive pupils and service provision elsewhere.

Full text of Sharon Hodgson's speech.

Lady Walmsley

Lady Walmsley

 
 
Peter White

Peter White with Dolphin's Noel Duffy

 
 
 
 
 
Sharon Hodgson MP

Sharon Hodgson MP with Nadia Clarke

 
 
 

After a spirited question and answer session chaired by Lady Walmsley, Chairman Mark McCusker thanked the speakers and sponsors.

"Assistive technology is just such a great industry to work in" concluded Mark. Nobody at the Oriental Club would disagree.

 
BATA Speakers

My chance to meet the Shadow Minister

Our speakers' lively Q & A session

The event was covered by a number of journalists and we already have reports from Sally McKeown and Bryan Plumb. There are also 239 photos of the event. Click here to view the picture gallery .

 
 
43% of Disabled People have NEVER been Online!
Check out "Go ON" Gold with Tanni Grey-Thompson video

BATA is pleased to announce it has become a partner of a major national campaign to raise awareness about the barriers faced by people with disabilities in accessing the internet and other new digital technologies, and help overcome them.

Go ON Gold (www.go-on-gold.co.uk) aims to encourage businesses, organisations and policy makers to become more aware of the needs of disabled people - including their own staff and customers - and of the benefits to the economy of enabling everyone to be online.

Shockingly, some four million disabled people in the UK have still never used the internet, either because of design barriers or because they may be unaware of advances in technology that can make access easier.

Click here to read more.

 
John Lamb

BATA backs Go ON Gold campaign reports John Lamb

 
Children's Commissioner's Takeover Day

Through the Olympic & Paralympic Legacy, 2012 was a year where we sought collectively to 'inspire a generation' says Anita Devi. My hope is 2013 will be the same.

Attached is a brief statement of support for the Children's Commissioner's Takeover Day. Click here to read more from Anita.

Anita Devi

Anita Devi at the BATA AGM

 

Martin Littler
January 2013

   
 

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