BCA update

Speaker 1 00:07 [promo]

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Speaker 2

Hello, welcome to this week's episode of New Horizons. I'm Vaughan Bennison, thanks for joining us. It's been some time since we've had an update on Blind Citizens Australia, what's been happening and what is in the future. There's some unfortunate news coming up and you will be able to read more about it in this week's member update, but just letting you know some very unfortunate news. We're joined by Helen Ferris, Fiona Woods and Deb Deshais for this discussion. Helen, we'll start with you. You've been acting in the position of president for the last couple of months while Fiona took some much earned leave. Talk a little bit about that process and what it was like for you to be in, I guess what you could call the top job for the last six or eight weeks.

Speaker 1 01:10

Thanks, Vaughan. And thanks to everyone for your support of Fiona and of myself in the Acting President role. I guess it's important to ensure that BCA can make smooth transitions when directors and, you know, a president need to take leave, that someone is ready to step in. And I was very happy to do that. And really because BCA is such a well -functioning organisation, it was really just easy to step in and have things proceed as they did. We were quite busy over the last few months. We continued to make representations on behalf of members with NDIA. We attended, or Deb, our CEO attended the roundtable conference on accessible information. We continued our advocacy campaigns and our individual advocacy service.

We were, of course, very busy with planning the 50th anniversary and the convention in 2025. That was certainly moving full steam ahead while I was acting. We awarded some scholarships over the last few months, probably before I was acting, actually. So Fiona can take full credit for that, as can the recipients. We congratulate them. And I undertook a short trip to Darwin and met some members who were blind vision impaired and got to hear about the really wonderful peer support activities that are going on in Darwin and the Northern Territory.

Speaker 2 02:57

So Deb, you've been in the CEO role now for what, about nine months, isn't it?

Speaker 3 03:01

And it's been an extremely busy nine months as Helen has touched on. We do our regular representation across many areas and working closely with the NDIA. Yes, we've had the scholarship program, which is fantastic. It's always one of the most enjoyable parts of the role is contacting the recipients to let them know that they have been successful so that they can purchase their much needed devices. We've definitely been very busy in the preparation for the 50th celebration convention, which is going to take place next year. And again, I just want to acknowledge the three committees because there's so much work and effort that goes into that. Our celebrations committee, planning committee and logistics committee. And we look forward to catching up again really soon just to provide a bit more information in regards to that.

Speaker 3 03:53

Advocacy, as you know, is always in regular for our team and a few occasions we've actually had to have the word that I don't like, a wait list, because it's been that demanding upon our time. It's been a very full, enjoyable nine months. We're very blessed to have a very committed and passionate team of not just staff, but directors as well.

Speaker 2 04:21

Fiona, we'll come to you. You've just returned to the position of president. What is going to be your key focus over the next few months as we move into the new financial year?

Speaker 4 04:31

Well, thanks, Borne. Yes, I was fortunate that the week I returned as president, where I was actually able to attend BCA's National Volunteer Week celebration of all our volunteers. And I think that was a very fitting time to return from Lee. And I would like to acknowledge Helen's work and dedication during the time I was not available. So it's really wonderful to have people who can step in to these roles, and particularly to have Helen with all her skills.
But unfortunately, our focus since I've returned has been on adjusting to the fact that BCA has experienced a significant decrease in the amount of funding that's going to be available to us in the next financial year.

We're looking at our budget going from two million dollars to one million dollars. And there's been obviously significant consequences for that. And I guess listeners would probably like to know a bit about why that's happened. And mainly it's because we're very much reliant on government funding as an advocacy organisation. We receive funding from a couple of different sources for the government, but they could best be summarised as advocacy funding and project funding. And in both of those areas, we've experienced a decrease. In fact, in our advocacy funding, we funded as a disability representative organisation. And all the organisations in the consortium we're part of have received a lot less funding this year.

So there's actually we're busy campaigning to try and have that restored. And that covers the basic things we do, like writing submissions, representing our members, consulting with our members and doing all the things that we have to do to represent people who are blind or vision impaired throughout Australia. But the other part of our funding that we've been very successful in in recent years is project funding, and that's covered all sorts of wonderful projects. We've been able to run things like the Night of the Future, the Executive Leadership Program, the BCA Inform and BCA Conversations and the Peer Connect Program.

And all of those things have been funded through something called the Information Linkages and Capacity Building Program. And unfortunately, all of those projects will be ending on the 30th of June. BCA, like many other organisations, haven't been successful in getting funding for further projects. So there's been some major rethinking we've had to do about how to adjust to having just basically less money. We certainly don't think it's acceptable that we're unable to represent our members and we're definitely working hard to get that remedied, particularly at a time where there's so many major reforms that need to be worked on by all of us.

There's the findings of the Disability Royal Commission. There's the changes through the NDIS Act and there's various other changes to employment services and all these other things, not to mention all the work that needs to be done for people who aren't part of the NDIS and older Australians as well. So there's so many areas for us to be active. It's just more important than ever for us to have adequate funding as a representative organisation.

Speaker 2 07:34

And that funding clearly has to come from somewhere. And of course, when we don't get that funding, we are forced into a situation where we have to, unfortunately, make some pretty unpleasant decisions and some, you know, put some of our people into some fairly nasty situations. Deb, perhaps you'd like to briefly touch on some of the decisions that have had to be made and some of the changes that we will be seeing across BCA in the coming months.

Speaker 3 07:58

And as you alluded to, born one of the toughest decisions that we have to make is actually saying goodbye to our very passionate and loyal and emotionally connected staff to BCA and our purpose. So sadly, at the end of this month, we will be saying goodbye to all of our project team. So that's Bettina, Claire, Maddie and Natasha. And we'll also be farewelling Corey, who's our national policy officer. We've had to redesign some of the roles, so we still will have a policy officer, senior policy officer, that will be Jack's role. But sadly, there's five of our team that we have to say goodbye to. In addition to that, several staff, the eight who are remaining with BCA, most of those staff have had to have a reduction in their work hours and in a realignment of some of the responsibilities as well.

Speaker 2 09:04

What will that mean for the members and how will you communicate that?

Speaker 3 09:08

So we'll actually be in today's member update and we've attached a Q &A that we're hoping will address most of the questions that members will have for BCA. But in addition to that, we're offering an opportunity to come around the virtual table at a BCA conversation on Thursday, the 20th of June. And that will be with Fiona, all our directors, myself and Angela, our general manager. And also if there's further questions that come from that, we're certainly happy to address those as well. In addition, I've got my email address attached to tomorrow's member update and welcome questions to be sent to myself and we'll collect those and run through them as part of the BCA conversations.

We are, as always, still committed to the heartbeat of why we're here, the advocacy policy and representation. We just need to sort of, you know, we've had to realign some of those responsibilities. We're unable to do any project work at this stage. So that does mean the members who have been engaged with an eye to the future. We are looking at what other opportunities there are as a referral service for them so they can still continue their journey.
But unfortunately, it will be with another organisation.

Speaker 2 10:31

Hmm. It's always really unfortunate when these types of changes have to happen, but there is a place always for members and interested parties to advocate on behalf of organisations. What do you think would be the best option for our members at this point? If they do want to help BCA advocate for further funding and other disability organizations that maybe they're a part of or that they work for, what would you recommend they do to try and remedy the situation?

Speaker 3 10:59

Hmm, there's a couple of things they're born. We have a member representation process in place, and we do have some members who are actively representing us, and we are really keen to talk with members who are interested in supporting us in that way. So we'd be doing some more active work in that area. We also are keen for members who are able to or willing to also assist with making any donations. We have some regular donors, and we're very grateful for the fact that people do give, even if it's just a little bit to us, so we can continue the work that we do do. But also if members have any other thoughts around, you know, our Peer Connect program, some other ways in which we can grow that, then really interested to hear their thoughts.

Speaker 1 11:49

really just to commend members for constant involvement with BCA because BCA has survived for 50 years because of the strength of our members and our support of each other and I feel confident that we will continue to do that through this really difficult time. So there are a number of ways that we can all support BCA certainly you know if you want to advocate to our members of Parliament and things like that but as members there will be regular calls for support with representation consultation so we can all think about the skills and our interests in particular areas of advocacy and maybe respond to those calls.

If people are in a position to support BCA financially by becoming a BCA backer, a regular donor or even just a one -off contribution it doesn't matter how small but you know anything like that can really support us at this difficult time and it diversifies the funding on which we can draw. We really love it if people can continue to attend BCA events, trivia, conversations, peer service, our information, our website because that then tells the story to governments and others with whom we campaign that BCA continues to be integral to the advocacy and lives of people who are blind and visually impaired.

And you know we're not going away we're still important and I guess the other thing too is that I know we'll all support each other and support the staff as much as we can and continue to show that support whenever we interact with with each other

Speaker 2 13:42

And our thoughts are with the BCA staff team in particular during this difficult time. If you'd like to contact Blind Citizens Australia, you can call 1-800-033-660... 1-800-033-660. Or you can email, bca@bca.org.au.  BCA at BCA dot org dot AU. I'm Vaughan Bennison. I'll talk to you again next week.

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