DUNDEE ACCESS GROUP
MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 6TH SEPTEMBER 2018 IN THOMAS HERD HOUSE, WARD ROAD, DUNDEE.
PRESENT: Carole Craig, Anne Farrow, Lillian Malcolm, Sandy Cameron, Denise Cameron, Bill Varney, John Mitchell.
APOLOGIES: Fiona Finlayson, Denis Bethell, Erik Cramb, Claire D’All, Jan Goodall.
1. GUESTS: Katie Dyton and Dean Eales from DisabledGo flew up from London to be with us. Katie told us that DisabledGo, which had been in operation since 2003, now produced 340 access guides and they were pleased to tell us that the Dundee Guide was one of the guides most frequently used. DisabledGo was soon to make some changes – the most significant being a name change to AccessAble hopefully indicating that their guides were providing information for people with all disabilities. Also, their website was being improved to become more user friendly - there would now be a page for each location, searches would be more focussed, users would be able to create their own accounts and there will be an app, which will work off-line, and link users to the GPS to direct them to their chosen venue.
Katie and Dean offered to have a link put in from DisabledGo’s Dundee page to our Dundee Access Group website and they will provide us with a button to link our website to DisabledGo.
We thought all these changes would improve what is already a good site and we thanked Katie and Dean for attending our meeting.
2. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING:
The minutes of the meeting held on 29th May 2018 were approved.
3. MATTERS ARISING:
3.1. (Re minute 2.1). Sandy was pleased to report that our ramps were being used and that Shopmobility were happy to continue issuing them for us.
3.2. (Re minute 2.2). Anne had tried to contact Craigie High School but without success.
3.3. (Re minute 2.4). Anne was pleased to report that our logo was now being used in Disability Equality Scotland’s website and in our emails. We are grateful to Barry Robertson for providing it for us.
3.4. (Re minute 4.2). Carole has tried to get the outdoor concert organisers for Dundee Council to provide a Mobiloo on site for the concerts they organise, but she hasn’t been successful. She also reported that the wheelchair accessible toilets which were provided at the last concerts were not large enough for powerchairs. Carole will get in touch with Dorothy Wilson to see if she can help.
4 OTHER AGENDA ITEMS:
4.1 Treasurer’s Report. Sandy told us the balance in our bank account. He also reported that he had applied to Disability Equality Scotland for funds but had only received a small part. He will be making a further claim.
4.2 Carol said that she and Anne had been thinking of ways of attracting more members to Dundee Access Group and thought we needed a poster to put in various locations in Dundee. Anne will ask Disability Equality Scotland if they could help with a poster. It was suggested we advertise on Facebook and a poster would help if we did. Bill suggested advertising on local radio and said he would make enquiries about that. John and Bill said that they would invite some of their contacts to become members.
4.3 Anne said that she had been phoned by Sabrina Fuchs from Neatebox about their product Welcome by Neatebox and Anne explained to the group how it worked. Everyone thought it sounded useful. Bill said that he was aware of the product through work and that he was going to suggest the new V&A, the railway station and the other educational establishments in Dundee as other possible venues to get involved.
5 CORRESPONDENCE:
By email
5.1 ALLIANCE weekly bulletins.
5.2 Inclusion Scotland E-Bulletins.
5.3 Inclusion Scotland updates.
5.4 Disability Living Newsletters.
5.5 Dundee TSI E-bulletins.
5.6 Correspondence with Barry Robertson re logos.
5.7 On 4/6/18 from DES sending a copy of Transport Scotland’s 10-year plan to improve public transport accessibility.
5.8 On 26/7/18 from Katie Dyton who is now managing Dundee Council’s agreement with DisabledGo asking to meet DAG.
5.9 On 26/7/18 from Euan’s Guide sending a new article they have published about Dundee’s accessibility.
5.10 On 1/8/18 from DES Notification of Annual General Meeting 2018.
5.11 On 9/8/18 from Scott Mands informing us that DisabledGo are changing their name to AccessAble.
5.12 On 13/8/18 from DES sending information in a leaflet produced by the Scottish Government for those organisations, groups and individuals who may lobby the Scottish Government.
5.13 On 17/8/18 via DES a request from someone who deals with disability access to RBS banks and would like to speak to some Access Panels on how best to support people with disabilities gaining access to their banking facilities.
Carole phoned Catherine Browning at the RBS. She raised the problems disabled people with limited hand movement had accessing money from their bank accounts and paying bills. She found Catherine very helpful and the bank had solutions for the problems Carole raised.
5.14 On 21/8/18 from Neatebox who wanted to make us aware of the system: Welcome by Neatebox which is a free app to support customer service teams to give disabled visitors the assistance they require. The system is being installed by Dundee Council and they would like to ask us to suggest other venues that we would like to see it installed in.
See minute 4.3.
5.15 On 24/8/18 from DES sending a bus service survey to find info about bus service provision and how accessible it is for disabled people across the country.
5.16 On 28/8/18 from Xplore Dundee with proposed commercial changes.
Bill said that Xplore Dundee were rethinking these changes and none would be made before January 2019.
5.17 On 28/8/18 via DVA with notification of meeting about Reshaping Tayside’s Health Service.
5.18 On 28/8/18 from Dawn Peppin looking for advice on getting a ramp for her mother who is in sheltered housing in Dundee. Request passed to Graham Angus.
6 A.O.B.
6.1 Carole said that she was unhappy with the seating area assigned to wheelchair-users at concerts at Slessor Gardens as they could not see the stage and had to view the concerts on a big screen. John agreed that it was unsatisfactory. Carole also said that it was difficult to get disabled seating at Glasgow Hydro and suggested that the organisers should differentiate between those disabled who could manage a few steps and those who couldn’t, and maybe then free up more flat-access spaces for those needing them. She has a contact in Glasgow and will discuss her issues with him.
6.2 A woman phoned our mobile and asked Carole where she could hire a scooter while she was having her own one repaired. She later phoned to say that she was very pleased with the service she received from heretohelpmobility.com who are based in Broughty Ferry. We were interested to hear about this service as none of us knew it existed.
6.3 Carole brought to our attention that there was a disabled parking bay on Brentwood Avenue that was drawn half on the road and half on the pavement. Other cars in this street were parking in the same fashion. However, there was still enough room for other wheelchair users to pass them on the pavement.
7 DATE OF NEXT MEETING.
The date of the next meeting is on Thursday 4th October 2018 in Thomas Herd House, 10 - 12 Ward Road, Dundee, DD1 1LX.
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE
c/o Dundee Carers Centre
Seagate House 124 Seagate Dundee DD1 2HB
web: www.dundeeaccessgroup.co.uk
e-mail: dundeeaccessgroup.org@hotmail.co.uk