Capter 6 - continued

Around this time BDRC also set up a service called VOICE (Volunteering Opportunities Increasing Choice and Equality), a volunteer project which aimed to provide disabled people with volunteering opportunities that would build-up their own skills and confidence in a working environment.

In tandem with the VOICE project, Debbie and David began running additional training programmes to support people to gain confidence, self esteem and listening skills, guidance in writing CVs and practical advice on job interviews. According to David:

“A key thing was that we were very focused on people getting out of the training cycle. We wanted to get people off training courses and into meaningful work, so that was the object at the end of the day.

“In all I spent seven years in the Disability Resource Centre and we developed a lot of links outside, not just with the local authority (Birmingham City Council), but with voluntary sector organisations as well. A lot of initiatives were tried and tested. It was quite a strong team and people stayed and worked here for quite a while. Obviously some people came and went.

“One of the great things about this centre is the Management Committee which is run by disabled people, so it was what you would call an organisation of disabled people working for disabled people so that was really quite key. Having said that, it was not total 100% representation of disabled people on the board as you also had reps from the local authority and so on.

Longstanding board member Andy Beaton re-emphasises the value to the organisation of its user-led board and recalls his own personal roll call of just some of the key personalities who have contributed to the success of both the board and subsequently to the organisation as a whole:

“I think a centre like BDRC could not have been sustainable or continue without that commitment of people with disabilities to take it forward. So user-led it certainly was. I don’t think the DRC would still exist had there not been that commitment of potential service users, people who had different functions in the centre.

“It is quite a hard balance to get. Part of the training I do on good governance is that you need to let the staff manage their side of things and I think the centre gets that balance about right. Maybe it didn’t always because it is quite hard when people have got a real passion for their subject together with a real zeal and time and commitment to do it.

“The centre has come through all its up and downs. The proof of the pudding is that it is still functioning and, I think, potentially flourishing in the current environment and still supporting disabled people with a range of services, certainly involving the potential for people to be employed in whatever work environment structure they want as opposed to what someone else imposes on them.”

“A few names from historical times really stick out for me. Sadly some of them are no longer with us. Dave Nugent, a very early member, was a pleasure to work with. His knowledge of disability issues, from a practical sense rather than a theoretic sense, was legendary. His incisiveness in meetings was brilliant. He gave so much to the centre and sadly his life was cut short very suddenly.

“Derek Farr I have already mentioned.

The energy and enthusiasm of Bob Findlay is legend and he put so much into it. Again he brought a very strong campaigning view to it, but a very overall understanding of managing an organisation. He was always a man to keep to his word and commitment to a particular issue. Again, I found Bob great to work with.

“The fourth is Irene Wright who is still on our board. Irene has held various positions including Chair, but not at times when I was there. I think Irene was one of the people, along with Derek Farr who welcomed me to the Board. Those two were key players over a number of years and had massive commitment.

“BDRC has never had a large board, so a lot of people had to put in a lot of time. I was not around from 1998 to 2003 directly, but, certainly, in my latter years at the city, Derek and Irene steered the centre as it grew and as it established itself. Irene again brings a breadth of massive experience in other disability sectors and practical delivery.

“I think there were other people who came and went. Two more names strike me, perhaps who didn’t have so much time with the centre, but they really were full of impact whilst they were around. One was Jenny Poyner who was a very committed individual at that crucial time when, I think, the centre could have gone one way or the other.

“The other person is somebody who didn’t really have a long relationship with the BDRC, but he had a slightly circuitous route in and out of the centre and made a large impact on me, Jon Prashar.

“Jon was a person who was initially a consultant and he was contracted from time to time by BDRC to deliver disability equality training. I keyed into him from the city council and myself and a number of colleagues attended that training.

“Jon also joined the board and made a very good impact over probably no more than 9-12 months. He had a good grasp of strategic background. He was very articulate and very helpful.”

Around the time of his involvement with BDRC, at the end of the 1990s, Jon Prashar was appointed as the first manager of the disability section of Birmingham City Council’s Equalities Unit.

Jon stayed in the post for just over a year before moving on from Birmingham and, at the start of the new Millennium in 2000, he was replaced by a controversial new appointment to the role, Alan Holdsworth, aka Johnny Crescendo.

Alan was a well-known protest song writer and performer on the national disability arts scene, a contemporary of Ian Stanton, and was also an organiser of the very high profile demonstrations around disability rights which were being staged around that time by the radical network DAN (the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network). Alan’s stay in Birmingham was short, but he was to be the catalyst for a number of new developments which would impact on the lives of disabled people in Birmingham. Johnny Crescendo had come to town.