News

The Cedar Foundation User Forum Re-Launch

Date Posted: Wednesday 11 August 2004

The Cedar Foundation's User Forum is gearing itself for a re-launch. I caught up with Forum representative David Todd to ask him why?

David says:

"The User Forum definitely needs re-launched, we want to tell people what we have achieved, in just 4 months and there's more to come. I joined the Forum in August 03 but the original Forum always struggled to do it's job due to lack of numbers. The Conference at The Glenavna Hotel last year was the turning point, with numbers on the User Forum Committee more than doubling after it. The appointment of the new facilitator Michelle Ennis was also crucial. That was in February, after that all of us, old and new members and Michelle went through training in a series of sessions with Christine Ferrin from Community Action. The 6 sessions not only taught us committee skills, such as minute taking but also helped us with setting the User Forum goals and objectives and how we could really "Make a Difference". We finished training in March and since then we have accomplished a lot, completely down to teamwork. The User Forum now has a budget and Niall & Anne from the committee have had a meeting with Eileen Thomson and Stephen Matthews. We have a leaflet in the information pack, we are on the web, in the generic Cedar Foundation leaflet and have even been in the Belfast Telegraph. We have helped out at the Independent Living Exhibition at The Odyssey, manning the stand, and we have collected on recent Flag Days. A series of information sessions for Cedar Foundation staff on what The User Forum is have been held and we are enjoying social events such as the Charity BBQ in June. We're going to have our own Newsletter and numerous guest speaker events. The re-launch of the User Forum will be in September, watch the web for more details.

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